St. Patrick

It's both an honor and a joy to sing in the St. Dunstan's choir. The choir is a loving group which works well together. I'm thankful they let me sing with them. I'm also thankful for all the tidbits of information Tom Gibbs shares with the choir regarding the source of the music we're singing, or something about the style or the period from which it comes.

I want to share an email he sent to the choir today:

(from Tom)
Hi, everybody, on St. Patrick's Day. Someone last week asked what I was going to do for the choir on this day. Not green beer, but here is my offering for the day:

St. Patrick's Breastplate Prayer

Here we have the Breastplate, the earliest example of European poetry in the vernacular, in the well-known metrical translation by Cecil Frances Alexander (she of "All things bright and beautiful" fame). We then have a newer translation that, since it is not designed for singing, offers perhaps a version closer to the original. I first saw this translation in James Cahill's HOW THE IRISH SAVED CIVILIZATION. Cahill writes that "spells of women" should be more correctly rendered as "spells of witches," but he makes no other changes.

This web site calls the poem "lorica." A lorica is a chant, an incantation, that one sings while dressing or arming for battle. ("Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart" is another early Irish lorica.) Legend has it that Patrick sang the Breastplate prayer as protection from the pagan Irish king Loegaire and the Druid fire-worshipers who were attempting to prevent Patrick and his followers from reaching Tara where they would proclaim the Christian faith. The power of the lorica caused Patrick and his band to appear to be a herd of deer, thus sparing them from attack. This hymn is sometimes known as "The Deer's Cry." (For more about this, and much other fascinating information, see the HYMNAL COMPANION, ed. Glover, a very scholarly and complete set of reference books published by Church Publishing.)

See you tonight!
Tom

Okay, it's Steve again. If you were at the Choral Evensong this past Sunday, I hope it was meaningful for you. If not, you missed a simple service with some very nice music. But wait, there's more. Holy Week is coming up, with several services and a lot more music. I hope to see you at some of the services (not just Easter Sunday). It will make Lent, and therefore, Easter, mean a lot more to you.

Steve Mark
(Hey, there's a Fish Fry this Friday evening at the church. I'll be there. Will you?)