GATHERING OUR PRAYERS TOGETHER:
60 Reflections on the Anglican Collects
Edited by Lee Gatiss
Church Society. 251 pages. £14.99
ISBN 978 1 739 516 000
A MONTH WITH THE MESSIAH:
Reflections on Handel’s Masterpiece
Edited by Lee Gatiss
Church Society. 258 pages. £14.99
ISBN 978 1 068 570 506
Whilst enjoying Lee Gatiss’ informative, self-effacing, historically informed and accessible introduction to Gathering Our Prayers Together, I was surprised to read that ‘some have criticised the Collects as being too brief, even terse, to warm the affections’.
And yet, as a teenager at boarding school, the phrase that comforted me in chapel during Evensong, the words that stuck with me for another six years before becoming a Christian, were those from the last Collect said at evening prayer: ‘Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee O Lord, and by thy great mercy, defend us from all perils and dangers of this night…’ Comfort indeed for a mind prone to fearful thinking during wakeful hours.
To return to the Collects at such a time as this seems to me like the wisdom of anchoring your little boat within the safety, security and comfort of an established harbour where the waters are still and essential maintenance can be done – feeding on the word, asserting truth, recognising our need, crying out to our Father and holding on to the ‘continuity’ and ‘permanence’ that King Charles has recognised as our profound human need.
This beautifully produced hardback compiles 60 Collects from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and offers short essays by various learned saints (contemporary) commenting on the short prayers themselves (historic) before inviting the reader to ‘pray this with me’.
The book is a delight. A gift both to the church broadly and one to give away individually. Combining historical detail, Scriptural reference, pastoral exhortation and personal reflection, the 60 different contributors expound these 60 different Collects with a particular voice. In conclusion, we are invited to follow their five-point structure and write our own. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.
A Month with The Messiah
The second, and slightly larger, of these two beautifully produced hardbacks reflects, through the musical and theological understanding of 30 Christian ministers, musicians, clergy, writers, speakers and theologians, on Handel’s adored masterpiece and will appeal to those who yearn for the pairing of classical music with the truth of Scripture in a Biblical church context.
A level of musical appreciation is assumed, but if references to intervals, tritones, key signatures, modulations, melismas and recitatives baffle you, then don’t be put off, as these are defined in a glossary and amply expounded and linked with the text of Charles Jennens’ libretto. The result? The pure beauty of gospel truth is glorified.
The oratorio’s own three-part structure is followed. Jennens’ Biblically-based libretto is printed attractively in sub-divided sections and then examined in relation to Handel’s score. We are shown, for example, how changes of key from minor to major mirror the theological truth they are illustrating: resurrection hope follows affronting death; or how a section’s tempo highlights a moment of excitement and energy in the text, and slows to emphasise a more sombre truth.
To be party to the personal responses of these 30 writers to such a time-honoured musical classic, The Messiah, is frankly a very moving privilege with or without a knowledge of the technicalities of classical music.
