Sunday 1st November at 6pm Evensong and Benediction for All Saints’ Day with more heavenly music. Responses: Radcliffe. Psalm: 148, 150. Office Hymn: 245. Canticles: Dyson in F. Anthem: And I Saw a New Heaven, by Bainton. O salutaris & Tantum Ergo: Liszt.

Monday 2nd November sees our All Souls’ Day Requiem Mass at 7.30pm. This year we sing a full liturgical setting of the Missa Pro Defunctis a 4, written around 1583 by Tomas Luis da Victoria. This beautiful a cappella setting of the Requiem texts alternates Plainsong Cantor with 4-part polyphonic Choir. The Motet is Justorum Animae, by William Byrd, and the service will conclude with the Russian Kontakion for the Departed.

Saturday 7th November at 1.30pm, there will be a Sung Mass at St Michael’s at which Michael Lester will be formally admitted and consecrated as a brother of the Anglican Order of Preachers, becoming a friar of this Dominican order. It would be good if friends from St Michael’s could be there to support Michael in this important step, and to welcome visitors. All are welcome to this service, as always.

8th November is Remembrance Sunday with special music and sermon at our 10.45am Mass, and an Act of Remembrance. The Setting is the Mass in F by Herbert Sumsion (1899-1995), who served at Gloucester Cathedral, Chorister and Organist, for 60 years. From 1917 to 1919 Sumsion was in the Queen’s Westminster Rifles and spent time in the trenches in Flanders. The Anthem “Greater Love hath no man than this” by John Ireland (1879-1962) actually pre-dates the Great War by 2 years.

Sunday 8th November at 7.30pm, St Michael’s is delighted to host the Exeter College Music Academy Concert to launch their Chris Wilson Award. Performing will be internationally renowned Czech musicians Jan Škrdlík on Cello and Petra Besa Pospíšilová on Piano, in a programme including pieces by Boccherini, Beethoven and Saint-Saens. Tickets are £15 (£5 for students); the profits will go towards funding the Award.

Sunday 15th November, Trinity XXIV and 2 before Advent. 10.45am with the beautiful Mass for Four Voices by William Byrd and Cantique de Jean Raçine by Gabriel Fauré.

Tuesday 17th November at 6pm. CBS Mass for the Feast of St Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln (1200). All welcome.

Sunday 22nd November is Stir-up Sunday and Christ the King. 10.45am with the majestic Mass in C & F by Stanford and Above All Praise and All Majesty by Mendelssohn.

Wednesday 25th November at 7.30pm, St Michael’s Lecture. Are we now a Religiously Illiterate Society? asks RE Advisor Graham Langtree.

29th November is Advent Sunday when we start our 10.45am service with The Litany sung in procession; this is Cranmer’s first piece of English Liturgy published in 1544. The Setting is Kenneth Leighton’s austere Mass in D from 1965, and the Motet is Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence, composed by Edgar Bairstow in 1906.

Note that our beautiful candlelit Advent Procession at St Michael’s is on Sunday 6th December at 6pm. Prayers, Readings, Hymns and Carols illuminate the 7 “Great O” Antiphons of the Advent Hymn “O come, O come Emmanuel”. The service culminates in a choral setting of the Magnificat, and is followed by mulled wine and mince pies.

Finally a reminder that, during term-time, a small group is meeting informally in Church to pray & sing Matins at 8.30am Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays & Fridays for half-an-hour or so. All are most welcome to join: to sing or to listen. Vespers is also sung at 6pm on Tuesdays & Thursdays.

Thus St Michael’s is flourishing in many ways, but, as Fr Tom has made clear in his St Francis Sermon and Stewardship Leaflet, to keep our church afloat financially we also need to consider where it comes in our priorities. Donations via the myDonate option on the website are also gratefully received.

Richard Barnes.

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Photograph by Jonathan Neale Photography
http://www.jnimages.co.uk/

Saturday 1st November, from 10am until 1.30pm, sees our Coffee Morning and stalls in St Stephen’s Church on the High Street, Exeter. Cakes wanted on the day. Please support this fund-raising and outreach event. Visit the recently restored St Stephen’s, browse and buy, or simply relax and enjoy the refreshments.

Sunday 2nd November, the Calendar this year means we mark All Saints at 10.45am and All Souls at 6pm, with beautiful music at both services.

The weight of music to practise means the Mass setting written when Alex West was Organ Scholar at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, is held over to next quarter. The Motet is still Bainton’s ravishing “And I saw a new heaven” and a Plainsong Sequence will be sung.

In place of “First Sunday Evensong” at 6pm, we will sing Requiem Mass for All Souls using the music of Gabriel Fauré, plus Justorum Animae by Byrd and the Russian Kontakion.

Remembrance Sunday, 9th November, will be marked with special music and sermon during our 10.45am Mass, and the Act of Remembrance at 11am. The Anglican Folk Mass was composed by Martin Shaw at St Mary’s Primrose Hill, London, in 1917. The music of our motet “For the Fallen” was written a couple of years ago by choir member, Graham Keitch.

Tuesday 11th November at 6pm, in place of Vespers, CBS Mass in commemoration of St Martin, Bishop of Tours (397), NOT the Patron Saint of Travel Agents, but as he was born in Hungary, spent much of his childhood in Italy, and lived most of his adult life in France, he is considered a spiritual bridge across Europe. This Roman soldier cut his cloak in half to share with a beggar and eventually renounced the military life to become a Bishop.

Wednesday 12th November at 7.30pm. Recitals @ St Michael’s. The Exeter Singers, directed by Tony Yates, present a varied programme of a cappella music, from Madrigals to Modern! Tickets on the door: £5 (£3 concessions).

Please Note, Wednesday 19th Nov at 7.30pm, the St Michael’s Remembrance Lecture (previously scheduled for 3rd/30th Nov) is given by Suzanne Steele (Official Canadian War Poet; Department of English, University of Exeter) – Bearing Witness to those who Bear Witness.

In St David’s Church at 2pm on Saturday 22nd November there is a Memorial Service for John Hughes. A service of words and music, remembering a dearly-loved former curate of this parish. It is an opportunity for John’s many friends from the congregations at St David’s & St Michael’s, and around the city and Diocese of Exeter to give thanks for John, priest, pastor, scholar and friend, and remember him with love and gratitude.

Stir-up Sunday, 23rd November, the last Sunday before Advent is also a celebration of Christ the King, Jesus as the just ruler over all the Universe. The Anthem by Sir John Stainer is “I saw the Lord, high and lifted up, and his train filled the Temple.”

Advent Sunday, 30th November, at 10.45am Mass, we sing The Litany published by Thomas Cranmer in 1544, the earliest officially authorized vernacular service in English. The 1st candle of the Advent wreath is lit.

So as not to clash with the Cathedral one on Advent Sunday, our own beautiful Advent Procession at St Michael’s is on Sunday 7th December at 6pm. Prayers, Readings, Hymns and Carols illuminate the 7 “Great O” Antiphons, which comprise the Advent Hymn “O come, O come Emmanuel”, and culminate in a choral setting of the Magnificat.

Richard Barnes.

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