Thursday 26 November

Introit                              Matin Responsory                                 Palestrina

Reading        .          Romans 13: 8-12

The only thing you should owe to anyone is love for one another, for to love the other person is to fulfil the law.  All these: You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet, and all the other commandments that there are, are summed up in this single phrase: You must love your neighbour as yourself.  Love can cause no harm to your neighbour, and so love is the fulfilment of the Law.  Besides, you know the time has come; the moment is here for you to stop sleeping and wake up, because by now our salvation is nearer than when we first began to believe.

The night is nearly over, daylight is on the way; so let us throw off everything that belongs to the darkness and equip ourselves for the light.

Psalm 21             The King shall joy in thy strength                  Plainsong

Epilogue Prayers

Prayer 1

Almighty God, as we remember at this time the coming of Your Son Jesus Christ in great humility to take away our sins, we ask You to give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and to put on the armour of light so that we may ever follow in His footsteps.  Through the same Jesus Christ Your Son, our Lord   Amen

Prayer 2

Loving Father, give us grace in the coming Advent time so to order our lives that we may not owe anyone anything except the continuing debt of love.  Forgive us all and be patient with us, and help us likewise heartily to forgive others and to be patient with them, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

Prayer 3

O Lord Jesus Christ, we ask you to prepare and make ready Your way, by turning our hearts to You and Your wisdom, that at Your second coming to judge the world we may all be found acceptable in Your sight, O You who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit ever, one God, world without end.  Amen

Anthem                     Christus Factus Est                Bruckner

Hymn             Guide me, o thou great Redeemer            

 Guide me, O thou great Redeemer,
pilgrim though this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven,
feed me now and evermore.

Open now the crystal fountain,
whence the healing stream doth flow;
let the fiery cloudy pillar
                                  lead me all my journey through;                                   
strong Deliverer,
be thou still my Strength and Shield.

When I tread the verge of Jordan,
bid my anxious fears subside;
bear me through the swelling current,
land me safe on Canaan’s side;
songs of praises,
I will ever give to thee.

Gathering Manna Exodus 16:14-31

We will be competing at the Sutton Music Festival at Holy Trinity Church Wallington SM6 8BL, (for your satnav) in two categories.

At 4.30pm we will be the secular class and we will be singing Tequila Samba and Fix You.

6.40pm  will see us in the sacred class singing Mozart’s Ave Varum and Christus Factus Est by Bruckner.

Entry is free to anyone who wants to come and enjoy us or support us.

On 11 November we celebrated all those from The John Fisher School who have gone on lead a life in the Church; Fr James Cadman, Fr Mark Higgins and Fr Matthew O’Gorman  are three former students who this year were ordained to the priesthood.  We were very touched that Fr James traveled down from Manchester to join us for the evening.  Our very special guest was Keith Ockenden, who was our faithful Sacristan for over 50 years.

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We opened with the whole congregation singing the school hymn together.  The full choir of students, parents and friends then sang Stanford’s Magnificat in C and Nunc Dimittis

Countless settings of these prayers, prayers of Mary and Simeon have been written throughout history. Stanford’s setting in C is one of the most famous, being a cornerstone in the repertoire of all Cathedral choirs. Both texts are taken from St. Luke’s Gospel – the words of the Magnificat are sung by Mary in thanks to God for his help and guidance at the Visitation and the Song of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis) was sung by Simeon when he first saw Jesus, after he was promised by the holy Spirit that he would not die until he had seen the Messiah.

The prayer of St Richard of Chichester is in our school prayer book and was sung by the junior choir.  Composed in the same year that Keith Ockenden started the school, this piece uses the words that St. Richard said on his deathbed. He was the Bishop of Chichester but lived a very modest life,  living in humble quarters and eating simple food. This prayer is commonly used in ordinations and confirmation services within the Church.

The Parents and friends choir then followed singing Himmel’s Inclina ad me.  The text of this piece comes from Psalm 30 and calls on the Lord to listen to our pleas and guide us on his religious path. The rest of the Psalm, which hasn’t been set to music by Himmel, talks of how the Lord has always been there for the author and how God has   always supported them.They followed this with Walford Davies’ God Be In My Head.  This humble poem was adapted from text found in Luke’s Gospel. It simply speaks of our need to have the influence of God in all of the aspects of our lives, especially at our departing from this world.

Next was the Chapel Choir singing Bruckner’s Christus Factus Est, taken from St Paul’s Epistle to the Philippians and  used during Eastertide to show the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Along with this piece, Bruckner wrote “Through this emotive music, I have tried to humanise the experience that Christ went through for us in order to persuade all Christians to follow his example of sacrifice.”.  This was followed by the Satff Choir singing Wesley’s Lead Me Lord and Mozart’s Ave Varum.

The string players from the Chamber Orchestra treated us to a selection from Handel’s Music for the Royal FIreworks.  This music was commissioned by George II in 1749 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle with Austria. The celebratory nature of this piece is also very suitable for this evening as we recognise the vocations accepted by members of our school.

The Chapel choir sung The Lamb, by Tavener and Stopford’s Jesus and the Apple Tree.  The Lamb is a poem written by William Blake in 1789 as part of a collection of poems known of ‘Songs of Innocence’. The Lamb symbolises the meekness, gentleness and peacefulness of Christ and the piece is particularly fitting as it is a favourite of several of old boys who have now been ordained into the priesthood, as well as Mr Hawkes from St Elphege’s school, another old boy who was with us on the night.

Jesus and the Apple Tree highlights the importance of our need to trust in Christ and follow his teachings. Through comparing him to an apple tree, the text refers to Jesus as our spiritual nourishment . Also, this piece is a tribute to the ground on which this Chapel was built – whilst Keith Ockenden and many others were still at school, there was an orchard on the school site until the building of the Chapel in 1958.

Our final choir piece, O Thou, The Central Orb is based on a poem by H. R. Bramley.  In this poem, Jesus is symbolised as our only hope and saviour but also as our King and light in troubled times.  Through this, we hope to convey not only the necessity we have to trust in God but also the sense of celebration and pride we have as a school for all those who have been called to service in Christ’s priesthood.

To finish, again, the congregation joined us as we took the roof off  to Jerusalem.

Mrs Curzon kindly said a few works of thanks and recognised the commitment of all those who had taken part in the concert, the preparation is no mean feat.

Finally our four esteemed guests had their photo taken with the choir before we enjoyed refreshments in the Sixth Form centre, provided by some of our very generous parents

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The choir with, from left to right, Fr Mark Higgins, Keith Ockenden, Fr Matthew O’Gorman and Fr James Cadman

Introit:    Bruckner’s Locus Iste

Reading: From the Letter of James

2 Consider it a pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

⁵ If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. 6 But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. 7 That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. 8 Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Psalm 45   

Prayers

1-AlmightyLord God, we thank you that you are our hope and strength, present with us in all times of trouble.  Give us hearts filled with your Heavenly joy that we may be without fear and prove to the end that you are truly with us to help us; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

2- Loving Lord look in mercy on all who are affected by terrible diseases, natural disasters, terrorism, war amnd many other troubles.  Strengthen us all to endure all trials that we may become mature and complete, lacking in nothing; for Jesus Christ’s sake.

3-Lord God of Hosts, you have promised to help us and to make us glad with the rivers of your blessings; teach us to persevere in asking you for wisdom and all good things, trusting, without doubting, that you love us and will keep all your promises; we ask this for Jesus’ sake.

Anthem:         Ave Verum Corpus        ( W A Mozart)

We concluded Epilogue by singing the Bede House hymn, Tell Out My Soul

Miss Harrington Booth writes: –

The School Choir performed in Croydon’s ‘Last Night of the Proms’ on Saturday evening, raising funds for local youth charities. The event was a huge success and the choir thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

The Croydon Proms committee has been running for over 23 years and over that time has raised a collective total of £270,000 for local charities. Performances of British favourites such as Rule Britannia and Jerusalem left the audience and performers with a rousing sense of patriotism. The John Fisher choir have been a part of the concert for the past few years and are eager to continue for the foreseeable future. They hope that they will see you there next year!

.                                                                     Our New Boys

.            Rule Britannia!                      .                                            Matthew’s party-popper hat

                                    Our gentlemen being gentlemen                                                    but then……………

.                                                        The obligatory celebrity selfie

4pm Thursday 24 September and we were back with our first Epilogue of the year.  Our new Head Teacher joined us and it was of course the first Epilogue for our new Year Sevens.

We started with Rutter’s May the Lord Bless You and Keep You   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_wOXMbOYn0

followed by a reading from Colossians 3: 12-17 which tells us to sing psalms and hymns to God, which is what happens at Epilogue.  We followed this by singing a Gibbons arrangement of  Psalm 15  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYLCzwNUt2E

The prayers preceded the singing of Oh Thou The Central Orb  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHisfI7B0C8&feature=youtu.be

After which the congregation joined us in singing Praise my Soul the KIng of Heaven

Day two of the new academic year and we are rehearsing already.  The Welcome Mass for the new Year Sevens is on Wednesday 9 September and we will be enhancing the liturgy with three pieces, Oh Thou the Central Orb, Panis Angelicus and May the Lord Bless and Keep You.

We will also be showing what we have to offer on Open Evening on Thursday 17 September between 4-8pm.

On Saturday 26 September we will be performing at The Last Night of The Croydon Proms, for which tickets can be purchased from the  Fairfield Hall’s Website

All our other plans for the year so far are on the Upcoming Events page

Below are the links to the music from our final epilogue of 2015

Like as a Hart: Howells              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax1Q1kuJnjA

Psalm 2                                       https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xt0BGx-IYoE

O Thou the central Orb: Wood  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwUtjLjncVw

…again from our time in Bruges, it was sent on Tuesday 21 July.  Of course, if our magnificent young men did not do so excellent a job, or if they did not reflect the dedication shown to them by MIss Harrington-Booth and Mr Ford, emails like this would not be received.

Dear Headmaster,
With apologies for the delay with which I have written this email, I felt I had to write to congratulate you on your wonderful chapel choir. I was on a short holiday (also from teaching) at Easter and happened to coincide with them in Bruges; for us it was a wonderful happenstance as we were visiting the cathedral literally minutes before the concert was due to begin and hadn’t previously seen any advertising.

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The programme itself was enough to tempt us in, such a superb selection of great examples of English and European church music, but once the choir started to sing it was an absolute joy… and I say this as someone who has organised similar choir trips in the past! Their discipline and concentration were admirable and the quality of the music outstanding by any standards. I have found myself reacting negatively in the past to the qualification ‘for a school’ but in the case of your choir such a qualification would have been wholly inappropriate.
I spoke briefly to the conductor after the concert, but she was rushing off to look after the boys.
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I am not at all the sort of person to write to Heads about their pupils, but on this occasion I was sincerely bowled over by the concert and by the professionalism and smartness of your pupils.
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With very best wishes for a relaxing Summer.
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Edward Williams