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Organ Voluntary

Opening sentence and welcome

The Chaplain says:

A warm welcome to you from the Chapel of St Edmund Hall in Oxford and from me the Revd Dr Zachary Guiliano, College Chaplain. May the peace and love of God be with you always. 

We are joined together this morning in the worship of our most merciful Redeemer. This Sunday finds our college celebrating the memory of our patron, St Edmund of Abingdon; we recall his perfect gift of love – love for God and love for neighbour. And we share this legacy with you.

But now, let us call upon the Lord our God, who chose Edmund out of all the living to minister before him, that we too might worthily approach the throne of divine grace.

Hymn Come down, O Love divine

Music: Ralph Vaughan Williams

The Preces & Responses:

      O Lord, open thou our lips.

Choir:  And our mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

    O God make speed to save us.

Choir:  O Lord, make haste to help us.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;

Choir:    as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be:

                world without end. Amen.

Praise ye the Lord.

Choir:  The Lord’s name be praised.

Music: Clucas

The Chaplain says

We believe the Lord’s name was praised in the life of St Edmund, and our readings and music today reflect his character and virtues, as well as the life of this Hall. 

Verses from Psalm 1 praise those who delight in the law of the Lord. Words from our first reading — Isaiah 12 — were on Edmund’s lips as he died. And the Christian life described in the letter to the Colossians finds its crown in charity, which ‘binds all things together in perfect harmony’. St Edmund exemplified these virtues.

Ekaterina Rahr-Bohr says

Edmund was born around the year 1174 to a devout family of Abingdon. He left to study the liberal arts at the University of Paris in 1190. When he began teaching in Oxford, he quickly gained a reputation as a brilliant lecturer, but also as a person of prayer and generosity. 

Throughout his career as a priest, teacher, and eventually as Archbishop of Canterbury, he constantly supported others. Those who knew him in life — and his early biographers — recalled how he ‘lightened everyone’s burdens’ and ‘dispensed alms to the poor in floods…with such love and generosity’ that the needy came to know him as their friend and host.

Inspired by Edmund’s example, we strive to live our lives today in the same spirit. 

The Choir of St Edmund Hall sings Psalm 1.

Music: Humphrey Clucas

Jasmin Kreutzer reads

The First Lesson is taken from the book of the Prophet Isaiah, chapter 12

All stand as the Choir sings Thomas Tomkins’s Jubilate (from the Second Service)

Melody Njoki reads

The second lessons is taken from the third chapter of the Letter to the Colossians, beginning at verse 12. 

All stand as the Choir sings Ola Gjeilo’s Ubi caritas:

All face east for the Apostles’ Creed

All: I believe in God the Father almighty,

      maker of heaven and earth:

      and in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, 

      who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, 

      born of the Virgin Mary, 

      suffered under Pontius Pilate, 

      was crucified, dead, and buried. 

      He descended into hell; 

      the third day he rose again from the dead; 

      he ascended into heaven, 

      and sitteth on the right hand of God 

      the Father almighty; 

      from thence he shall come to judge 

      the quick and the dead.

      I believe in the Holy Ghost; 

      the holy catholic Church; 

      the communion of saints; 

      the forgiveness of sins; 

      the resurrection of the body, 

      and the life everlasting. Amen.

The congregation remains standing for the Lesser Litany

The Lord be with you.

Choir: And with thy spirit.

Let us pray.  

Choir: Lord, have mercy upon us.

Christ, have mercy upon us.

Lord, have mercy upon us.

Our Father, 

All: which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done, in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.

O Lord, shew thy mercy upon us.

Choir: And grant us thy salvation.

O Lord, save the King.

Choir: And mercifully hear us when we call upon thee.

Endue thy ministers with righteousness.

Choir: And make thy chosen people joyful.

O Lord, save thy people.

Choir: And bless thine inheritance.

Give peace in our time, O Lord.

Choir: Because there is none other that fighteth for us, 

but only thou, O God.

O God, make clean our hearts within us.

Choir: And take not thy Holy Spirit from us.

Collect of the Day

Almighty God, who didst bestow upon thy servant EDMUND the perfect gift of human and divine charity, together with the understanding of excellent mysteries: Grant unto us, that are of his society, that we likewise in doing of thy will may understand thy doctrine, increasing in fellowship one with another and in love toward thee, and in all sound and profitable learning; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All Amen.

Collect for Peace

O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord, in knowledge of whom standeth our eternal life, whose service is perfect freedom: Defend us thy humble servants in all assaults of our enemies; that we, surely trusting in thy defence, may not fear the power of any adversaries; through the might of Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All: Amen.

Collect for Grace

O Lord our heavenly Father, Almighty and everlasting God, who hast safely brought us to the beginning of this day: Defend us in the same with thy mighty power; and grant that this day we fall into no sin, neither run into any kind of danger; but that all our doings may be ordered by thy governance, to do always that is righteous in thy sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

All: Amen.

Sermon by the Chaplain

I speak to you this morning in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

When I first arrived at St Edmund Hall as chaplain, the pandemic was raging. Rules around social distancing remained in place. More people fell sick in college every week. And chapel services had moved online. 

During that time, one of our broadcast locations for Sunday Evensong was the Old Dining Hall, built in 1659. My place to sing and pray faced the North wall of that space, where a plaque hangs, with a Latin inscription written in letters of gold: Si Edmundi dulcis amor te percellat, procul clamor esto ac maestitia. / ‘If the sweet love of Edmund overcomes you, far be wailing and sadness.’ Before that point, I admit I was not familiar with St Edmund of Abingdon. But I found myself in the middle of a community named after him, in a crisis, and I constantly looked on the words of that plaque, hoping that the same love of God that filled Edmund would well up within me and within our Hall. 

As the prophet Isaiah said, ‘With joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation.’ We all needed strength to support in each other in that time. We needed love.

Love is such a difficult thing to capture in words, however beautiful. It is easier to feel in one’s heart, or to see in the face and actions of others. This is not surprising to me, since we confess in the Christian tradition that ‘God is love.’ And God cannot be bound; God has no limits. God has a thousand thousand wonderful names, and some by which we shall know him forever. But we cannot capture the Divine. We can only receive the Lord by grace, by free gift – in person, so to speak. For God has chosen to be with us and dwell among us. 

The choir sang this truth earlier: Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est. / ‘Where charity and love are, God is there.’ God is there, in the midst of our love, our communities. God is there, where love is shown, there supremely, we would confess, in Jesus Christ, but there all the same, wherever love is shown. So, as the song says, Timeamus et amemus / ‘Let us fear and love the living God, and love each other from a pure heart.’

St Edmund provides a model of this love. In the testimony given to him, before his canonisation in the thirteenth century, his friends and biographers mentioned many virtuous things about him: his discipline in prayer and fasting, his devotion to learning, the dedication he showed to the Virgin Mary and to Jesus, the way he went beyond all the religious and ethical standards of his own time – no small feat. The thirteenth century was a time of great piety, when saints like Clare and Francis, Dominic and Margaret, strode like giants throughout Europe. Edmund was part of that great and unusual time, and shared many of its best qualities. 

But beyond all his other virtues, his love shines through. He was, to borrow Paul’s words, ‘clothed in love’. It bound everything in his life together ‘in perfect harmony.’ And that love burst forth often in deeds of mercy, performed with his own hands. This was not typical for someone of his station. 

Edmund was born in a prosperous family; their nickname in Abingdon was literally ‘the rich’. And Edmund went go on to hold many high positions, and control vast sums of money, from the time he was a lecturer on through his role as treasurer at Winchester Cathedral and eventually Archbishop of Canterbury. You might expect, then, that Edmund’s charity was limited and marked by social distance: scattering a few coins to the poor, donating anonymously to good causes and religious houses, that sort of thing. You’d be wrong; or, at least, you wouldn’t have the whole picture. For him, almsgiving — charity, the exercise of love — was personal. 

When he was a lecturer, Edmund would take care of sick students directly, ensuring they were housed and bringing them food and medicine.  As treasurer in Winchester, he gave away more than half his income, living a life of self-denial to help others. And at most times in his life and even when he was Archbishop of Canterbury, he fed the poor at his own table and from his own plate – having his cooks prepare him a lavish meal, as someone of his station could demand, but then taking only a bite before sending the rest away. His friend, Robert, a Cistercian monk, said, ‘The shelter of his roof was open to every pilgrim, and no one ever publicly asked for alms and went away from his door empty-handed…and whenever there were poor pilgrims, he used to distribute food to them with his own hands…’ 

This was Edmund’s love, his experience of God dwelling in his heart and directing his thoughts and actions. 

I’ve seen echoes of Edmund here at Teddy Hall over the past two years. So many members of our college community showed each other love: delivering food and medicine, books and exam scripts, caring for the sick. We bore each other’s burdens. We helped. We forgave. Our lives were bound together. 

I think this was a common experience for many in the pandemic, up and down the country. We found ourselves as neighbours.

But is that our experience now? A winter of hardship looms for many, but the problems, though widespread, are unevenly distributed and sometimes unseen. The economic situation impacts on students across the nation too: hunger, cold, poverty. Not to mention fears of an ongoing war; public services under strain, businesses no longer able to trade, faltering charities. These will affect us all. How shall we make it through?  

Only together.

Remember those words of gold: Si Edmundi dulcis amor percellat / ‘If Edmund’s sweet love overcomes you, far be wailing and sorrow.’

God grant that it be so. 

Give us, Lord, that love that filled the hearts of your saints, and made them ready to help their neighbours.

Anthem: Whitbourn, Give us the wings of faith

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Samuel Cherry reads

Hymn Blessèd city, heavenly Salem (Purcell)

Blessing spoken by the Chaplain

God give you grace to follow Edmund and all the saints

in faith and hope and love;

and the blessing of God Almighty,

the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, 

be among you, and remain with you always.

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The Organ Voluntary

Please note:

This script cannot exactly reflect the transmission. It may include editorial notes prepared by the producer, and minor spelling and other errors.

It may contain gaps to be filled in at the time so that prayers may reflect the needs of the world, and changes may also be made at the last minute for timing reasons, or to reflect current events.