Festive Holiday Tradition Carries on in La Grange

A 145-year-old cherished traditional celebration is about to descend upon our community, an event that may be little noted among us but is fêted elsewhere around the world. In Cambridge, England, folks would queue overnight for entrance to the Cambridge Cathedral for admittance to the annual service known as Lessons and Carols. (Wisely, they’ve since adopted a ticketonly admittance policy.)

Our local St. James Episcopal Church mirrors the original Anglican practice in her 9:30 a.m. Christmas season service, Sunday, December 14 in the little red-on-yellow historic church across from H-E-B.

It is perhaps a somewhat more celebratory worship evoking the spirit of Christmas time. In fact, that was the idea behind its creation.

In 1880––about the same time La Grange’s St. James Church attained parish status under its first rector, the Rev W.G.W. Smith––the Right Rev. Edward White Benson, who had recently become the Bishop of Truro (in Wales), came up with the idea: Why not infuse a service at Christmas time with the more secular revelatory aspect of the season? His plan was to depart from the normal programing and intersperse Christmas carols with nine readings from scripture. And what was the Welsh Bishop Benson’s reasoning behind this departure from tradition? To entice revelers from their (then) growing habit of taking their seasonal celebrations to the local pubs instead of the church.

It worked. Lessons and Carols has since become a beloved tradition all over the world. In the Anglican and Episcopal churches as well as others. But this was not to be the bishop’s only highlight on his resume. He was later named Archbishop of Canterbury (1883-96). He also co-founded the Cambridge Ghost Society–– yes, ghosts––charged with investigating sightings of ghosts.

Hmmm. One factoid he presumably did not include on that resume is that he, at age 24, proposed marriage to Minnie Sedgwick whom he later wed. She, at the time of the proposal was 12. Apparently, they did that sorta thing back then.

Archbishop Benson died in 1896 and is enshrined in a grand tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, which is a stately Victorian Gothic building, not so very dissimilar to our own St. James’s Queen Anne Revival design. Both styles feature dramatically pitched roofs and vertical structures such as steeples and towers.

I can’t think of a more uplifting item to put on one’s annual To-Do list than to attend the Lessons and Carols Christmas service at St. James. And I’m pretty sure you won’t have to queue up overnight.

According to Don Kirby, music director of St. James, “We have several new carols this year. One is from the Renaissance: ‘Remember O Thou Man’ by Thomas Ravenscroft (1592-1633). And there are contemporary carols like ‘The Desert Shall Rejoice’ by Gracia Grindal and ‘People Look East’ by Elanor Farjeon. Traditionally the service usually begins with an Introit, the ‘Matin Responsory’ by G. P. da Palestrina (1525-1594), and this year we’re using the contemporary piece ‘Days of Elijah’ by Robin Mark.”

We hope to see you there.

The St. James annual Lessons and Carols service will be on Sunday, Dec. 14 at 9:30 a.m. Reception to follow. For more info: (979) 968-3910.