by Norene Morrow
For the past six years, a special musical/liturgical event has been happening at St. Michael and All Angels Cathedral in Kelowna. It is a requiem Eucharist, held on the Sunday evening closest to All Souls Day. My husband, Dean Allan Reed, started this service many years ago as a way for the church to reach out to the community to help people deal with the loss of loved ones, both recent and long past. Because many found this service to have such a profound effect on them, it soon became very popular. Since moving to the Okanagan the tradition has continued and developed into an Ecumenical event.
The format is that of a formal requiem Eucharist, enriched with music from a major work, special prayers and hymns, and the lighting of memorial candles. In the early years, the Cathedral Choir sang music from Fauré’s Requiem. However, like many church choirs, people come and go and there is always a shortage of men. When I took over the choral leadership in 2005, the choir joined forces with Musaic Vocal Ensemble from Summerland (a former choir of mine). The result was a glorious experience for all concerned. I soon realized that a massed choir was the way to go. Now, people from Kelowna and communities around the Okanagan are invited to join us each year. These have included singers from Penticton to Sicamous who come to the Cathedral to rehearse over six weekends. Guest soloists and instrumentalists have also participated. To date, our repertoire includes the requiems of Fauré, Mozart, and Rutter, and the music of Schubert. The movements of these works and the hymns are inserted into the liturgy at the appropriate spots.
My reason for writing about this is because I see the requiem service as a tangible way for parishes to provide a valuable ministry to their communities. The service, with its beautiful music, has the power to touch people on so many different levels. As a matter of fact, an unexpected thing happened one year, when we lived in Ontario. A group of six young people appeared at the service and occupied a pew. The body language of the surrounding people indicated that they were not at all comfortable with this, as each young person had wildly coloured hair and was in white face with a tear painted on one cheek. They participated in the service fully, lighting candles, saying the prayers, and receiving communion. At its conclusion, my husband learned that five of the young people had come in support of their friend, whose father had just died. As they were leaving, they commented that they did not realize the church could be so “spiritual.” This did not say much about the church meeting their needs in the past, but at that moment there was a connection, and perhaps even opened the door for a future relationship.
Whether a congregation is large or small, I believe that it is possible for any parish to offer a meaningful requiem service. If music from a major work is beyond a parish’s capabilities there are a number of options. Look for an accomplished conductor from another church, who might be willing to put together a choir, invite an established choir to provide the music, or sing hymns and perhaps invite some good soloists or instrumentalists to embellish the music.
For more information about this service, please feel free to contact me at nmorrow@shaw.ca or 250-768-8418. I will be happy to provide you with the details, along with some wonderful intercessory prayers. Also, if you are in or near Kelowna on November 2 at 7:30 pm why not drop by the Cathedral and experience the service first hand? This year we will be using music from past requiems and other sacred music, including selections from Handel’s “Messiah,” Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu” and Caccini’s beautiful “Ave Maria.”
