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| Regular music for worship at St. John's includes a Chant Choir which sings at the 10 a.m. services throughout the year.
Special Screening - at 3 p.m. this Sunday, March 14th, we have an exciting opportunity to view a screening of the documentary film of the Downeast singers trip to Russia several years ago, on which a number of our parishioners journeyed. This screening is free to all. The official grand premiere will take place this summer on July 3rd at the Strand Theater in Rockland.
Joyful Noise by Tony Antolini
Sometimes we sing the psalm appointed for a particular Sunday; other times we recite it responsively or in unison. Some members of the congregation oppose singing the psalm and others prefer to sing it. In this article I’ll try to explain the historic tradition of singing psalms as part of worship.
The psalms are a book of the Old Testament. The Hebrew name is Tehillim which means “praises.” Our English name comes from the Greek name Psalmoi, originally meaning "songs sung to a harp", from psallein "play on a stringed instrument".
There are 150 psalms, each of which is a religious song, though one or two are very long. When the Bible was divided into chapters, each Psalm was assigned its own number but the numbering system has been the cause of much confusion. Here’s a table showing the two ways these 150 “songs” have been divided up:
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| Hebrew Psalms | Greek Psalms |
1-8
9-10
11–113
114–115
116
117–146
147
148–150 |
1-8
9
10–112
113
114–115
116–145
146–147
148–150 |
The Episcopal Church uses the Hebrew numbering system. The Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions have followed the Greek system until recently when they have started showing the Hebrew numbering in parentheses.
Who wrote these poems? Jewish tradition posits that the Psalms are the work of David (seventy-three Psalms carry the inscription, “A Psalm of David.”) In the New Testament, six of the Psalms (2, 16, 32, 69, 95, and 110) are specifically identified as the work of David. Muslim tradition maintains that the Psalms, known as Zabur in the Koran, were revealed to David by God in the same way that the Torah was revealed to Moses, the Gospels to the evangelists, and the Quran to Muhammad. Modern scholars see them as the product of several authors or groups of authors, many unknown.
New Testament references show that the earliest Christians sang the Psalms in worship, and psalms have remained an important part of worship in most churches. The Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Anglican Churches have always made systematic use of the Psalms, with a cycle for the inclusion of all or most of them over the course of one or more weeks.
Several conservative denominations such as the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America and the Free Church of Scotland sing only the Psalms in worship, and do not accept the use of any non-Biblical hymns.
The version of the Psalter in our Book of Common Prayer prior to the 1979 edition is the sixteenth century Coverdale Psalter. The 1979 prayer book is a new translation, with some attempt to keep the rhythms of the Coverdale Psalter. In Great Britain the Coverdale Psalter still lies at the heart of daily worship in Cathedrals and many parish churches.
Sometimes, instead of singing the psalm in Anglican chant we use a rhymed version from the Hymnal 1982. Examples of these psalms are #645, “The King of love my shepherd is,” (Psalm 23); #411 “O bless the Lord, my soul,” (Psalm 103: 1-5) and #377 “All people that on earth do dwell” (Psalm 100). For a complete list of these “psalm-hymns,” see the “Authors, Translators and Sources” section of the Index in the Hymnal 1982.
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