After months of meticulous planning, weeks of careful preparations and not to mention hours of rehearsing, the time finally arrived for our robed choir to travel to America and take up residency at Washington National Cathedral.
As we gathered, choir, parents and supporters, there was an inevitable air of excitement and nerves, so we took a few moments of calm to commit this journey to God our Father and entrust each of the choir to His care.
The Revd Rosemary led the Choir in a short Service of Commissioning at their final rehearsal. This prayer was used then, and again at the morning meetings during the Residency itself.
Lord, you have consecrated your world by sending your Son into the midst of it and by making all things new in him.
We ask you to give us and all your people the courage and power we need to share fully in his mission to the world and to further his kingdom. We thank you Lord, for music; for rich harmonies and compelling rhythms; for peaceful melodies and for stirring choruses. When we listen to music, or share in making it, may we do so with our full attention, so that our hearts as well as our heads may be open to the hints of glory that music can give.
Father in heaven, form us in the likeness of your Son and deepen his life within us. Send us as witnesses of gospel joy into a world of fragile peace and broken promises, and touch the hearts of all with your love that they in turn may love one another.
Particularly we pray for this group that they may be instruments of your love, and faithful servants of your name. We pray for the hospitality and fellowship of those whom they have met, for tolerance and understanding in difficulties, for mutual care and responsibility.
May the Maker’s blessing be yours; encircling you around above you, within you. May the Angels’ blessing be yours; and the joy of the saints to inspire you, to cherish you. May the Son’s blessing be yours; the wine and the water, the bread and the stories, to feed you, to remind you. May the Spirit’s blessing be yours; the wind, the fire, the still small voice, to comfort you, to disturb you. And may my own blessing be yours; a blessing rooted in our common pilgrimage…the blessing of a friend.
Amen.