Holy Week
Holy Week is upon us, and we enter a time where our services commemorate and confirm the absolute foundations of our faith. Without the Biblical events that are the constructs of our services of Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter, there would be no Christianity.
Admittedly, in my youth, my Christian faith tended to be directed towards the image of the gift of love that entered our mortal world at Christmas. However, as the years passed, I found that while I still love the mystery of God taking on human form as a child through the virgin birth, it is the story of the Passion that has become the centerpiece of my faith. This is as it should be, but it is something I could only better understand as an adult, as a parent, and as one who has studied theology and walked a spiritual path for decades. It is age and experience that has allowed me to better understand, with depth, the incredible gift given to the world through the sacrifice of our savior.
Because of this, for the past three years, I have tasked The Emmanuel Choir and guest musicians with the offering of some type of Passion narrative performance. In 2023, the choir offered the Seven Last Words of Christ by Theodore Dubois. In 2024, the choir offered The Crucifixion by Sir John Stainer, singing it almost 100 years after the Moore County debut of the work here at Emmanuel Episcopal Church on Good Friday 1924. On Friday, April 4th, the choir offered one of the most revered of the Passiontide works, the St. Mark Passion by Charles Wood.
Wood’s St. Mark Passion is a powerful telling of the passion narrative. It is colorful and programmatic in its presentation. What I admire most about it, is that it maintains the purity of the Gospel of St. Mark. Except for several hymns that are part of the work, the libretto of the oratorio is direct from the King James Version of the Bible.
The performance is now available on YouTube at the following link:
I hope you will take the time to view and listen to this work as part of your Holy Week journey. Share it with friends and family. I promise you that it is something that will enrich your spiritual life. I suggest listening with a quality set of headphones. More information about the work is found in the description on the YouTube page of this performance. Subtitles are provided.
The choir’s Passion offerings from 2023 and 2024 are also available online. If you would like to incorporate those into your Holy Week journey, they are available here. Please share.
2023 Passion Offering: Theodore Dubois – Seven Last Words of Christ
2024 Passion Offering: The Crucifixion – Sir John Stainer
Dr. Homer A. Ferguson III
Organist/Choirmaster