Do you miss a well-sung Evensong with interesting preachers and good hymns? Do you work in or near the City of London? Evensong in the City is for you! At 7pm on Thursday night it should allow you to come straight from work and enjoy the peace and beauty of Choral Evensong in London’s oldest church.

As well as promising you well-known, singable, hymns we will also serve up bangers and mash after the service – and open the bar in the cloister!

A short Eucharist for children and their families, with hymns (in non-Covid times) and a talk.

A service with all the bells and whistles that the Covid emergency will allow: Three sacred ministers celebrate a traditional-language East-facing high mass; our professional choir sings a full choral mass setting.

Choral Evensong has returned to the Priory Church with choir and sermon.

We greatly look forward to our 2025 Lent Course, in which we will explore the poetry and prose of the great 17th century writer and Anglican divine George Herbert. Several of his poems, such as ‘The God of love my shepherd is’, ‘Teach me, my God and King’ and ‘Let all the world in every corner sing’ are familiar as much-loved hymns. Others are less well known and dramatize an occasionally troubled but always deeply personal relationship with God. Links to the poems and prose to be studied will be made available on line before each session and via handouts on the evening.

The course will be led by Martin Amherst Lock who read English at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and led last year’s fantastic Lent Course on John Donne.

There is no need to book. Do just come along on the following dates:

Wednesday 12 March
Biographical background: Herbert the metaphysical poet

Wednesday 19 March
The Temple: Herbert the country parson

Monday 24 March
‘His beams shall cheer my breast, and both so twine Till ev’n His beams sing, and my music shine’: reciprocity and dialogue

Wednesday 2 April
‘So we freeze on Until the grave increase our cold’: rebellion, despair and death

Wednesday 9 April
Arise, Arise; And with his burial-linen dry thine eyes’: hope and resurrection

Each session will start at 7pm in the Cloister and conclude at 8pm with sung Compline, providing an opportunity for prayer and reflection as the Church approaches the Easter Feast.

The bar will be open for refreshments from 6pm onwards.

The overall course outline can be found in the attached file.

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This service begins at St Bartholomew the Less with a drama performed by the children of the Family Service.

Celebrant: The Reverend Marcus Walker, The Rector
Deacon & Preacher: The Reverend Rosamond McDowell, Associate Priest

Introit: Hosanna to the Son of David – Weelkes
Mass Setting: Communion Service in F – Darke
Passion: according to St Matthew – Victoria
Communion motet: God so loved the world – Stainer

St Bartholomew the Great, also livestreamed

Celebrant & Preacher: The Reverend Marcus Walker, The Rector

This begins the great three services of the ‘Triduum’. On Maundy Thursday we remember, at the same time, the Last Supper, Christ washing his disciples’ feet, the institution of the Holy Communion, Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemene, and Christ’s trial before the Sanhedrin. During this service, the church is stripped of its beauty and, at the end, we go and wait with Christ until midnight in the stillness of the ‘Watch’.

Prelude: Le banquet céleste – Messiaen
Mass Setting: Missa brevis – Leighton
During the foot washing: Wash me throughly – Wesley
Offertory Motet: Ubi caritas – Duruflé
Communion Motets: Jesu, grant me this I pray – Gibbons, arr. Bairstow
Miserere mei – Rihards Dubra

St Bartholomew the Great, also livestreamed

Celebrant: The Reverend Rosamond McDowell, Associate Priest
Preacher: The Reverend Marcus Walker, The Rector

During this part of the ‘Triduum’ we recall Christ’s crucifixion. We hear the Passion according to St John and venerate the Cross. We pray for the world Christ died to save. We consume the last of the Sacrament and leave the church desolate, in silence.

Passion: according to St John – Victoria
The Lamentations: Bairstow
Crux fidelis – John of Portugal
Christus factus est – Bruckner

St Bartholomew the Great, also livestreamed

Celebrant & preacher: The Reverend Marcus Walker, The Rector
Deacon: The Reverend Rosamond McDowell, Associate Priest

We meet outside, in the dusk. A fire is lit, and from it the Paschal Candle. This candle is brought into the church, from which the whole church is slowly lit. The Deacon sings the Exsultet, an ancient chant celebrating Christ’s resurrection. A vigil of readings anticipates the resurrection, which is then proclaimed with the cry “Alleluia, Christ is risen!”. The church is brought back to life with light and the celebration of the Eucharist. This year there will be baptisms and holy water will be used to remind the rest of the congregation of our own Baptismal vows.

Thus the heavens and the earth were made (extract from “In the beginning”) – Copland
Acceptabis sacrificium – Isaac
Vidi aquam – Paul Grady
Sicut cervus – Palestrina
Sequence: Victimæ paschali laudes – Victoria
Mass Setting: Messe Solennelle – Vierne
Offertory Motet: Most glorious Lord of life – Harris
Communion Motet: This joyful Eastertide – Dutch trad. arr. Ledger
Postlude: Incantation pour un jour Saint – Langlais