June 8, 2025

So here we are at Pentecost!  The prelude is what I often play on this Sunday-- Wilbur Held's arrangement of "Veni, Creator Spiritus" (Come, Holy Ghost, Our Souls Inspire), 502 in our hymnal.  The well known tune is of course "plainsong", and Wilbur Held was a prolific American church music composer (1914-2015).

During the processional we will sing "Father eternal, Ruler of creation" (573), the familiar early 20th century hymn and one that compliments the day's reading from Genesis.  At the Gospel reading we will sing what I think is a lot of people's favorite, 516, "Come down,O Love divine", music by Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Our anthem -- "Christ Sends the Spirit"-- is by one the most successful and prolific church musicians of the 20th century, Richard Proulx (1937-2010).  Many of his compositions are in our hymnal!

Communion hymns are the beautiful "Holy Spirit, ever living" (511), a tune used for several texts, and 512, "Come, gracious Spirit, heavenly Dove", also beautiful, from the 19th century.

Closing, we will sing "O day of radiant gladness" (48), a very well known tune which is actually a German folk song. as you may note in the hymnal notes (I encourage all to check out the information below each hymn).

The postlude is Virgil Fox's famous arrangement of "Now thank we all our God"; some say the tune is by J. S. Bach, and our hymnal attributes it to Johann Cruger (1598-1662), who lived before Bach.  We all know the hymn well!