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Choir's performance is 'a little stillness
in a very busy season'
 from the Bonita Banner, December 3, 2005 by Matt Herrick
Brian Aranowski bows his shorn head and squeezes his eyes closed. Just before he raises his right arm to conduct the choir singers in a rehearsal of their upcoming “A Service of Advent Lessons and Carols,” there is a clean moment of silence in the church.
Members of the choir of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church rehearse their version of the Festival of Lessons and Carols, a musical celebration of the Christian advent season. The service was first performed in 1918 at King’s College, University of Cambridge, England, and has since become an Anglican holiday tradition performed around the world.
Nothing but nine people standing expressionless beneath the hanging figure of an expectant Jesus Christ, all 10 of them bathed in gold, lighted silence.
During that second of silence, there is time enough to assess so many things.
The naked, tanned and bleached wood that is everywhere on the walls and floor and ceiling of the church. Blue and red stained glass. Family. Outside the night is black already, so early. So many keys on that organ. Need to get in shape. Everything is colored bronze in here. An advent wreath. Need to start the Christmas shopping. Get Christmas tree. Laying on the pew are two books, “The Hymnal 1982” and “The Book of Common Prayer.” That’s right: No King James Bible in Episcopal churches.
There’s that Jesus statue again.
 The singers are so still, standing in two rows of four, dressed from neck to toe in royally purple cassocks. They are holding cranberry-colored, hardback songbooks in their left hands. The pages drape open like birds’ wings from a watercolor and are illuminated by the lighted candles the singers hold in their right hands.
Rev. Dr. Michael Rowe, pastor of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, said something about this a short while ago: “We talked about humanity being made in the image of God, in the sense that humanity is free to choose, free to love, and free to create. So, artistic creation in a sense mirrors God calling the universe into being.
“In great music, literature and pictorial art, there is a representation of what is already there. But the characteristic of great art is that it brings us to a greater understanding and brings something new into reality.”
Then we’re back in the moment again with Aranowski, the church’s director of music ministry, as he snaps to attention, raises his right arm and, when he does, eight mouths open at once and sing.
Advent lessons and carols is a musical celebration created in 1918 by the dean of King’s College at the University of Cambridge in London to spice up Anglican holiday services. St. Mary’s Episcopal Church will perform their version, consisting of six lessons and songs, at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11.
Choir member Priscilla Sandler has attended the service at Westminster Abbey and St. Martin-in-the-Fields — two of the most renowned English churches. While she loves seeing lessons and carols performed, singing the service is something else altogether.
“You have a wonderful feeling of preparation when you’re singing,” says Sandler. “It is a vital part of the year for me. I’ve been going to lessons and carols service since I can remember.”
Tradition holds that late afternoon is the ideal time to perform it, when candlelight mixes with and then supplants the fading afternoon sunlight. The candlelight represents God’s eternal power and truth. During the course of the service, the choir and clergy will move from west to east, talking and singing, to symbolize the spreading of the God’s light across the world.
First, a liturgical reading, or lesson, is offered by the clergy, to which the choir will respond with an appropriate hymn or anthem. The lessons and songs are supposed to unite the Old and New Testaments.
Roy Richardson raises his songbook and points out an anthem, “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel,” a song about a bride and her family waiting for the groom to show up at their wedding.
“The lessons are quite different than what you’re hearing on the radio and in the advertisements for stores and things,” says Richardson. The advent season “is leading to prepare yourself for the birth of Christ.”
The groom in the song is, of course, Jesus Christ.
The Christian advent season celebrates two events: the birth of Jesus and the preparation for His second coming. The Old Testament calls the two events the Alpha and the Omega.
Advent begins the church year in most Western traditions. It commences on the first Sunday closest to Nov. 30 and continues for four Sundays until Christmas day. On each Sunday, a new candle is lit on the advent wreath. Closely linked to the Jewish festival of lights, or Hanukkah, advent is a time to reflect and rededicate oneself.
Like most religious traditions, art is used to depict the mysterious and miraculous essence of the event. And in creating the art, some believe that the artists are imbued with special power.
“I don’t know how you can possibly write something so wonderful as the ‘Messiah’ without divine inspiration,” says Richardson about the holiday masterpiece by Georg Frideric Handel.
Singing can also be a process inspired by the divine, says Don McCleary, another choir member.
McCleary started singing in the choir when Aranowski became music director. Aranowski, he says, transformed the mechanical act of singing into an elegant act of worship.
“For a lot of people in the choir, their voice is a gift and they give it back to God,” says McCleary.
This is the fifth season in which Aranowski has directed the service in lessons and carols. He also will modify it slightly for Christmas Eve service and recreate it for the season of Lent. He believes its message is a living truth.
“This is a reality: Christ came to Earth and we believe that God is with us. This is a living faith.”
The music and the setting and the season — everything together at once in the service — has a transforming effect, says Aranowski.
“Everything is so hectic in our lives as we approach Christmas. I think it’d be absolutely wonderful if people came here for an hour and experienced a little stillness in a very busy season.”
“A Service of Advent Lessons and Carols” takes place at 4:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 11, at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church on Bonita Beach Road. It is open to the public.
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