December 8th 2023 was a historic day. This is no overstatement. The very first Catholic girls’ choir, in the English Choral Tradition, made its debut at the Georgetown Oratory with a service of Choral Compline.

The music was as follows:

Examen: God be in my head Walford-Davies
Psalms: 76, 85 Chant
Canticle: Nunc dimittis tertii toni Palestrina
Antiphon: Alma Redemptoris Mater Chant

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But what is this ‘English Choral Tradition,’ and why is it so special? Children’s choirs exist all around the world, and in many parishes. What makes this one so different?

The unique component is that, whilst young people provide the top lines, the other parts are provided by adult professional singers. In a nutshell, it means children learn how to sing at an elite level, from a very early age.

The history of the English Choral Tradition goes back a long way: in medieval times, cathedrals and monasteries across Europe provided education for boys (and a steady stream of future clergy) in return for their voices singing the Divine Office.

At the Reformation, the tradition took divergent pathways. In the Catholic world, the rise of seminaries meant that cathedral choirs, as once understood, started to fall away because diocesan clergy were no longer trained in the environs of the cathedral close.

However, in England the Church of England did not need seminaries for its (now) married clergy, but it did need choirs to sing the Office, having abandoned the Mass.

English cathedral choirs were exclusively of boys and men until Salisbury Cathedral broke the mold, and offered scholarships to girls, from 1991. Nowadays, most Anglican cathedrals offer opportunities for both boys and girls in their choirs.

Jesus Guild takes a different approach. There are significant drawbacks to using boys’ voices, sublime though they can be. First of all - they break, around age 13; and secondly, boys tend to lag behind girls in maturity until they reach adulthood.

With girls, a commitment to choral singing can form a golden thread from early years right up to college, and we have more time to hone the skills of choral singing and deepen a love for sacred music in the service of the Liturgy.

Our girls have been on a very steep learning curve since October 2023, discovering how to be a chorister. They have responded astonishingly well, exceeding all expectations. Singing at this level requires vocal technique, musical ability, liturgical awareness and language skills.

From its outset, the choir has been directed by the Rector, personally. Fr. Clark has been singing professionally since he was a boy chorister at Exeter Cathedral in England from age 7. Before entering seminary he was a ‘lay clerk’ (professional singer) and choral director, establishing the music foundation at Buckfast Abbey in 2008.

The choir is a key component of the new Music Foundation at the Oratory, which will serve the whole Diocese of Bridgeport in two ways: (1.) going out into the Diocese to give concerts of sacred music in beautiful locations, and (2.) demonstrating best practice at the Oratory itself.

Having recently appointed an Organist in the esteemed Mr Heitor Caballero, there will be a need to appoint more professional musicians in short order. In tandem with the girls’ choir, the Oratory will shortly be recruiting Lay Clerks (professional adult singers) to augment the Jesus Guild choral program.

It is important for liturgical choirs to sing together regularly, so they develop a rapport with the conductor, and with each other, but building a choir takes time - not least in securing the financial underpinnings so necessary for success.

However, if Friday night’s debut is any measure, we can look forward to a stellar rise for the Oratory Choir, the newest professional ensemble in the United States.

Jesse leads us to Christ

New for this year was the first dramatic tableau the Jesus Guild has hosted. Over 300 people experienced A Walk with Jesse - the brainchild of community member, Megan Genn, as the Old Testament truly descended upon Georgetown, CT this past weekend.

Much more than a pageant, A Walk with Jesse, is performance art that culminates in a personalized invitation to worship the Lord in the Holy Eucharist. It is a form of pilgrimage, where ‘Jesse’ accompanies pilgrims on their tour through the Old Testament to the Joseph and the Blessed Virgin.

A cast of 65 adults and children (some professional actors, some talented amateurs) with scenery ingeniously created to use every available space at the Jesus Guild campus, lent a fully interactive experience, with the theme of Light linking each scene to the next as characters pass on a lit candle, revealed in the end to be Christ.

Perhaps a modern update of the medieval Mystery Plays, A Walk with Jesse is testament to the dedication of young families at the Jesus Guild, who sacrificed many hours of their time to the project. In so doing, they became God’s mouthpiece to a world hungry for the consolation of the coming of the Christchild at Christmas.

The best Tree in Connecticut?

At our home in Georgetown, we began with St. Nicholas this year, when we had our annual Tree Lighting ceremony accompanied by medieval carols, mulled wine and mincemeat pies (an English specialty.) On Gaudete Sunday the crib scene will be put up outside, but the Church remains bare until Christmas Eve.

Christmas trees are certainly a Northern European tradition, first popularized in Germany and exported worldwide with the German diaspora. But the Catholic origin of the custom is with the Apostle of Germany, St. Boniface of Crediton, England.

In felling the great Oak of Geismar, dedicated to Thor the god of war, Boniface noticed a spruce tree nestling in its roots - and proposed this as a better symbol for the newly Christian people because its evergreen leaves were a better reminder of the steadfastness of the one true God.

This year, Fr. Clark composed a prayer of blessing, because the traditional ones which already exist refer explicitly to the Holy Night of Christmas Eve, which is not appropriate for December 6th.

The inspiration was a meditation on the night of Holy Saturday, when the stars were the sole decoration of the cold wood of the empty Cross, and how our Christmas trees are in fact an echo of that great tree of life, the Tree of Calvary: “for this I was born. For this I have come into the world” (Jn 18:37.)

+Our help is in the name of the Lord
Who made heaven and earth
The Lord be with you
And with your spirit
Let us pray

O God, who bedecked the empty Tree of Calvary with the dappled light of the stars to give us hope of thy Son’s rising in great glory; deign to bless+ this Tree, which we decorate with the light of expectation of His coming in great humility, through the same Christ our Lord. Amen