Tuesday, October 14, 2025

Musings at St. Andrew’s
Ann-Marie MacDairmid | Director of Music

Fall has arrived.  The seasons change outside and inside on the church calendar.

St. Andrew's continues to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Noon Hour Concert Series!  On October 15th, Koichi Inoue returns to perform on the grand piano and on October 22nd, The Phoenix Trio will be playing.  This year October 29th is the annual 'Hallowe'en Special'!  Bruce Skelton will be playing violin, the quartet; Amanda Jeffreys, Darielle Chomyn-Davison, Morgan Ballantyne and Stuart Bergstra will feature choral selections.  One song is The Time Warp.  This year is the 50th Anniversary of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  On November 5th, Norman Reintamm will be playing the sanctuary organ.  Upcoming concerts and information about the artists is available on the church website. 

Mark your calendar to attend these amazing performances!

The handbell ringers are rehearsing new music and will be playing on Sunday, November 16th.  We have welcomed new players this fall. 

There is always room if you are interested in ringing with the handbells or singing with the choir.  Keep in mind, rehearsals will begin after Thanksgiving for the Christmas Cantata.

The sanctuary choir have been rehearsing many selections of music.  On October 19th the choir anthem will be Give Us Glad And Generous Hearts.  This is World Food Sunday and the leader will be Rev. Herb Gale.

During the next two weeks, there are several theme days to observe.

Protestant churches traditionally mark October 31, not as All Hallows Eve, but as Reformation Day, commemorating Luther’s posting of his 95 Theses on the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517.

Why did Luther make his posting on Hallowe’en?  Because it was a day when a great many people would be coming to the church to celebrate mass on a significant date, the night before All Saints Day on November 1.  His strategy worked and people read the posting.  The 95 Theses went viral, they were copied, reprinted and distributed across Europe in a matter of a few weeks.  This was the beginning of the movement that came to be known as the Protestant Reformation.  Within the next few decades, the Reformation had spread throughout western Europe, including Scotland.  In 1560 the Church of Scotland formally separated from the Church of Rome and eventually adopted the Presbyterian church structure.  Thus, the Presbyterian Church of Canada grew from the seed that was planted on All Hallows Eve, 1517.    

This year we commemorate Reformation Day on October 26th with an anthem composed by prolific Canadian musician and composer Ruth Watson Henderson (b. 1932).  She is the recipient of many honours and awards, including the Distinguished Service Award from the Ontario Choral Federation.  She has served as organist-choirmaster in several locations over the course of her career (including Kitchener from 1962-1968).  Her last position was at Kingsway-Lambton United Church in Toronto from 1996 to 2013.

The anthem text, titled Thanks be to God For His Saints, was written by Timothy Dudley-Smith (1926-2024) Order of the British Empire (OBE), bishop of the Church of England and a noted hymnwriter.  He is credited with about 400 hymns.  Thanks be to God For His Saints was written to be used with the powerful hymn tune Lobe den Herren (Praise to the Lord, the Almighty), a German tune first published in 1665.  Henderson’s composition, which was commissioned by St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Barrie for their sesquicentennial in 1999, is also a strong setting, somewhat similar to Lobe den Herren, appropriate for a Reformation Day anthem.

Protestants use the term “saints” to include all believers and so today we can understand All Saints Day as a celebration of the unity of the entire Church.  The first lines of the anthem state it eloquently:

Thanks be to God for his saints of each past generation,

one with us still, in one body, one great congregation;

 On November 2nd the anthem will be Dona Nobis Pacem and for November 9th the choir will sing Abide With Me which is very fitting for a Remembrance Day service.

A reflective and inspiring quote for the season:

"For the Saints are sent to us by God as so many sermons.  We do not use them, it is they who move us and lead us, to where we had not expected to go" - Charles Cardinal Journet

Ann-Marie MacDairmid
Director of Music