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August 05, 2007
Musica Deo Sacra
The annual festival of Musica Deo Sacra at Tewkesbury Abbey had to be cancelled this year, for the very obvious reason that, following the flood we could not provide hotel or any other accomodation for the expected visitors or the visting musicians and choristers. This has been a severe blow to everyone, particularly those who have worked for months to bring it all together, but not least to those who had looked forward to attending it.
MDS is a dual event, it is a celebration of music yes, but more importantly, it is a celebration of scared music used for the purpose it was intended - worship. MDS is not a week of concerts, it is a week of magnificently sung services with the musicians and choristers sometimes spending months learning the music for some stunning settings. Today we would, in other circumstances, have celebrated the Solemn Eucharist with Schubert's Mass in B Minor, the West of England Players would have accompanied an enlarged choir of professionals and ammateurs to sing it with Byrd's Ave verum Corpus as the Communion Anthem and Voluntaries by Buxtehude performed on the Milton Organ to begin and end the worship. The floods have reminded us that "man proposes, but God disposes" in a rather spectacular fashion.
We will not have Schubert or the choir today, instead we will have a congregational setting (Marbeacke) and our usual worship, but at the Mass we will also be remembering all those who have suffered far mreo than the loss of a festival. We will remember the three who died, all of them in the vicinity of our great Abbey church. We will be remembering those whose homes have been destroyed or damaged and those whose businesses have been damaged. All of us have been affected by the flood to a lesser or greater degree and some will be a long time recovering.
But, while we will be remembering those who have lost so much, we will also be giving thanks for the many good things that are now flowing from the experience. A new spirit of fellowship, an outpouring of help both spiritual and material for those who need it and, of course, for the strength that sustained the emergency services, the hudreds of volunteers and the men and women who have worked without ceasing to restore the water and electricity supplies. It may be a long time before all is back to normal, but it will be restored and we give thanks for that.
And we will be working to try and build on the good that has come from this time of trial.
Posted by The Gray Monk at August 5, 2007 04:46 PM