The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Presider

The Chautauqua Choir

Joshua Stafford
Director & Organist

Rees Taylor Roberts & Owen Reyda
Organists

The Beauty of Holiness

We invite you to quietly prepare your hearts for worship during the Prelude.

* Denotes that the congregation is invited to rise in body or spirit.It is our custom to sing the first and last verses of hymns in unison,the interior verses may be sung in parts.

Hymn

“Day is dying in the west”

Chautauqua, William Fisk Sherwin, 1877
Mary Lathbury, 1877

Day is dying in the west;
Heav’n is touching earth with rest;
Wait and worship while the night
Sets her evening lamps alight
through all the sky.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heav’n and earth are full of Thee;
Heav’en and earth are praising Thee,
O Lord most high!

Call to Worship

We are called unto life, destiny uncertain.

Yet we offer thanks for what we know, 

for health and healing, 

for labor and repose,

for renewal of beauty in earth and sky, 

for that blend of human-holy which inspires compassion, 

and for hope: eternal, promising light.

For life, for health, for hope, 

for beautiful, bountiful blessing, 

all praise to the Source of Being.

Hymn

“How shall I sing that majesty” 

Coe Fen, Kenneth Nicholson Naylor, 1958
John Mason, 1683

1 How shall I sing that majesty
which angels do admire?
Let dust in dust and silence lie;
sing, sing, ye heavenly choir.
Thousands of thousands stand around
thy throne, O God most high;
ten thousand times ten thousand sound
thy praise; but who am I?

2 Thy brightness unto them appears,
whilst I thy footsteps trace;
a sound of God comes to my ears,
but they behold thy face.
They sing, because thou art their Sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
for where heaven is but once begun
there alleluias be.

3 Enlighten with faith's light my heart,
inflame it with love's fire;
then shall I sing and bear a part
with that celestial choir.
I shall, I fear, be dark and cold,
with all my fire and light;
yet when thou dost accept their gold,
Lord, treasure up my mite.

4 How great a being, Lord, is thine,
which doth all beings keep!
Thy knowledge is the only line
to sound so vast a deep.
Thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere.

Responsive Psalm

Psalm 150

Alleluia! Praise God in the holy temple;

praise God in the firmament of power.

Praise God for every mighty act; 

praise God’s excellent greatness.

Praise God with the blast of the ram’s-horn;

praise God with lyre and harp.

Praise God with timbrel and dance; 

praise God with strings and pipe.

Praise God with resounding cymbals;

praise God with loud-clanging cymbals.

Let everything that has breath praise God. 

Alleluia!

Hymn-Anthem

“Too splendid for speech, but ripe for a song” 

Frederick Swann, 2000
Thomas H. Troeger, 1986

Too splendid for speech, but ripe for a song:
the wonders of God to whom we belong!
What tune can we sing? What rich chords can we play
to honor the potter who made us from clay.

We’ll catch the soft sounds that sift from the breeze.
We’ll hum with the whales that hum in the seas.
The waters that tickle the earth into spring
will teach us the lilting new life we should sing.

The earth is God’s flute, God’s cello and chime.
The wind draws the notes. The seasons keep time.
At dusk and at night, from the sunrise past noon,
God’s playing and singing a ravishing tune.

The swell of earth’s praise shall build to a blast
of trumpets and drums when God comes at last
to hear if our lives, like the heavens above,
are filled with the music of justice and love.

The congregation joins in singing the final verse of the anthem:

Alert to your notes that dance in the heart
we promise, O God, that we’ll do our part
and pray that the song which your song shall inspire
will lead every nation to join in your choir.

Poem

Pied Beauty 

Gerard Manley Hopkins, 1877

Glory be to God for dappled things — 

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow; 

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim; 

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings; 

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough; 

And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim. 

All things counter, original, spare, strange; 

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) 

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim; 

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 

Praise him.

Hymn

“All things bright and beautiful” 

Royal Oak, English melody, 17th cent.
Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848, alt. 

Refrain:
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small,
all things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.

1 Each little flower that opens,
each little bird that sings,
God made their glowing colors;
God made their tiny wings.
(Refrain)

2 The purple-headed mountain,
the river running by,
the sunset, and the morning
that brightens up the sky:
(Refrain)

3 The cold wind in the winter,
the pleasant summer sun,
the ripe fruits in the garden,
God made them every one.
(Refrain)

4 God gave us eyes to see them,
and lips that we might tell
how great is God Almighty,
who has made all things well.
(Refrain)

Reading

Beauty 

Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

The production of a work of art throws a light upon the mystery of humanity. A work of art is an abstract or epitome of the world. It is the result or expression of nature, in miniature. For, although the works of nature are innumerable and all different, the result or the expression of them all is similar and single. Nature is a sea of forms radically alike and even unique. A leaf, a sun-beam, a landscape, the ocean, make an analogous impression on the mind. What is common to them all, — that perfectness and harmony, is beauty. The standard of beauty is the entire circuit of natural forms,—the totality of nature; which the Italians expressed by defining beauty “il piu nell’ uno.” Nothing is quite beautiful alone: nothing but is beautiful in the whole. A single object is only so far beautiful as it suggests this universal grace. The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce. Thus is Art, a nature passed through the alembic of man. Thus in art, does nature work through the will of a man filled with the beauty of her first works.

The world thus exists to the soul to satisfy the desire of beauty. This element I call an ultimate end. No reason can be asked or given why the soul seeks beauty. Beauty, in its largest and profoundest sense, is one expression for the universe. God is the all-fair. Truth, and goodness, and beauty, are but different faces of the same All. But beauty in nature is not ultimate. It is the herald of inward and eternal beauty, and is not alone a solid and satisfactory good. It must stand as a part, and not as yet the last or highest expression of the final cause of Nature.

Anthem

Cantique de Jean Racine 

Gabriel Fauré, 1866 
Jean Racine, 1688

Verbe égal au Très-Haut, notre unique espérance, jour éternel de la terre et des cieux, de la paisible nuit nous rompons le silence; divin Sauveur, jette sur nous les yeux! Répands sur nous le feu de ta grâce puissante, que tout l’enfer fuie au son de ta voix; dissipe ce sommeil d’une âme languissante, qui la conduit à l’oubli de tes lois! O Christ, sois favorable à ce peuple fidèle, pour te bénir maintenant assemblé; reçois les chants qu’il offre à ta gloire immortelle, et de tes dons qu’il retourne comblé. 

Word equal to the Most High, our sole hope, never ending day of both earth and heaven, we break the silence of this untroubled night; cast thine eyes upon us, O divine Savior! Send down upon us the fire of thy powerful grace, that all hell may flee at the sound of thy voice; banish sleep from a slothful soul, sleep which leads her to forget thy laws! O Christ, be thou favorable to this faithful people, now brought together to bless thee; receive the songs which they offer to thine immortal glory, and of thy gifts which they in turn give back to thee.

Reading

The Weight of Glory 

C.S. Lewis, 1942

And this brings me to the other sense of glory—glory as brightness, splendour, luminosity. We are to shine as the sun, we are to be given the Morning Star. I think I begin to see what it means. In one way, of course, God has given us the Morning Star already: you can go and enjoy the gift on many fine mornings if you get up early enough. What more, you may ask, do we want? Ah, but we want so much more—something the books on aesthetics take little notice of. But the poets and the mythologies know all about it. We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words—to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. That is why we have peopled air and earth and water with gods and goddesses and nymphs and elves—that, though we cannot, yet these projections can, enjoy in themselves that beauty, grace, and power of which Nature is the image. That is why the poets tell us such lovely falsehoods. They talk as if the west wind could really sweep into a human soul; but it can’t. They tell us that “beauty born of murmuring sound” will pass into a human face; but it won’t. Or not yet. For if we take the imagery of Scripture seriously, if we believe that God will one day give us the Morning Star and cause us to put on the splendour of the sun, then we may surmise that both the ancient myths and the modern poetry, so false as history, may be very near the truth as prophecy. At present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.

Hymn*

“When the morning stars together” 

Weisse Flaggen, Tochter Sion, 1741
Albert F. Bayly, 1966, alt.

1 When the morning stars together
their Creator's glory sang,
and the angel host all shouted
till with joy the heavens rang,
then your wisdom and your greatness
their exultant music told,
all the beauty and the splendor
which your mighty works unfold.

2 When in synagogue and temple
voices raised the psalmists' songs,
offering up the adoration
which alone to you belongs;
when the singers, trumpets, cymbals 
all combined, your praise to share, 
awestruck people saw your glory 
fill the sacred house of prayer.

3 Voice and instrument in union
through the ages spoke your praise.
Plain-song, tuneful hymns, and anthems
told your faithful, gracious ways.
Choir and orchestra and organ
each a sacred offering brought,
while, inspired by your own Spirit,
poet and composer wrought.

4 Lord, we bring our gift of music;
touch our lips and fire our hearts.
Teach our minds and train our senses;
fit us for these sacred arts.
Then with skill and consecration
we would serve you, Lord, and give
all our powers to glorify you,
and in serving fully live.

Poem

“I Am in Need of Music” 

Elizabeth Bishop, 1928

I am in need of music that would flow
Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,
Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,
With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow.
Oh, for the healing swaying, old and low,
Of some song sung to rest the tired dead,
A song to fall like water on my head,
And over quivering limbs, dream flushed to glow!
There is a magic made by melody:
A spell of rest, and quiet breath, and cool
Heart, that sinks through fading colors deep
To the subaqueous stillness of the sea,
And floats forever in a moon-green pool,
Held in the arms of rhythm and of sleep.

Anthem

Seal Lullaby 

Eric Whitacre, 2008
Rudyard Kipling, 1893

Oh! Hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o’er the combers, looks downward to find us,
At rest in the hollows that rustle between.

Where billow meets billow, then soft be thy pillow,
Oh weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
Asleep in the arms of the slow swinging seas!

Concluding Prayers

Mishkan T’filah

Praised are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, 

who speaks the evening into being, 

skillfully opens the gates,

thoughtfully alters the time and changes the seasons, 

and arranges the stars in their heavenly courses according to plan.

You are Creator of day and night,

rolling light away from darkness and darkness from light, 

transforming day into night and distinguishing one from the other.

Adonai Tzvaot is Your Name.

Ever-living God, may You reign continually over us into eternity.

Praise to You, Adonai, who brings on evening.

Hymn

“Now the day is over” 

Merrial, Joseph Barnby, 1868
Sabine Baring-Gould, 1865

Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh,shadows of the evening steal across the sky.

Jesus, give the weary calm and sweet reposewith thy tend’rest blessing may our eyelids close.

When the morning wakens, then may I arisepure, and fresh, and sinless in thy holy eyes. Amen.

Postlude

Largo

George Frederick Handel, 1738
from the opera Xerxes

Use of this piece to close the Sunday evening service has been Chautauqua’s tradition since the dedication of the Massey Memorial Organ on August 6, 1907. Part of the custom has been to remain in our seats until the piece is finished. It is a gesture that we treasure, and one in which you are invited to join. We invite you to leave the Amphitheater silently — without applause.

JOIN THE CHAUTAUQUA CHOIR
Thursday 6:15 p.m. Rehearsal at Smith Wilkes Hall
Friday 6:15 p.m. Rehearsal at Lenna Hall
Saturday 6:15 p.m. Rehearsal at Lenna Hall

We invite you to join us and sing with the Chautauqua Choir this season. This group is open to anyone who has experience singing in choirs and the ability to read music, and requires members to attend at least one out of three weekly rehearsals, though two or more rehearsals are preferred. Our preference is for members to sing both Sunday Morning and Sunday Evening services, though it is possible to sing only one. Questions can be directed to choir@chq.org or by calling the choir library at 716-357-6321. Click here to register ahead of rehearsals.

JOIN THE MOTET CHOIR

The Motet Choir, which leads our weekday worship services, comprises experienced auditioned singers who rehearse and perform a variety of works from the rich heritage of sacred choral music of the past and a diversity of styles from the present. Singers must have a background of choral singing experience with excellent vocal quality and sight-reading ability. Members of the Motet Choir receive a free gate pass for the weeks that they sing in the choir. Interested singers should email choir@chq.org or call the choir library at 716-357-6321 to schedule an audition for the 2025 summer season.

CHAUTAUQUA INSTITUTION
Department of Religion

Melissa Spas
Vice President of Religion

The Rt. Rev. Eugene Taylor Sutton
Senior Pastor

Rafia Khader
Director of Religion Programs

Joshua Stafford
Director of Sacred Music & The Jared Jacobsen Chair Organist

Rees Taylor Roberts
Organ Scholar

Owen Reyda
Organ Scholar

Carolyn Snider
Administrative Assistant

Annie Leech
Student Minister