Calendar
- This event has passed.
All Saints’ Sunday
- Date: Sunday, November 5, 2023
- Time: 10:30am–11:30am
- Location: Sanctuary
Order of Worship
November 5, 2023 at 10:30 a.m.
Prelude
Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter, (“Come thou Jesus, from heaven to earth”) BWV 650, Johann Sebastian Bach.
The tune for this chorale is played by the feet in the pedal and is an ornamented version of the well-known LOBE DEN HERREN, or Praise to the Lord, the Almighty. Bach wrote this setting as a transcription of a cantata and the original was played by a string ensemble and sung. One can hear the string figuration in the high-flying soprano violin and in the accompanying cello and string bass.
*Call to Worship
(The congregation responds aloud with the bold text)
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
Happy are those who take refuge in God.
With hearts and hands and voices,
let us praise the Lord.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God, forever and ever.
Come, let us worship God!
*Hymn #1: “Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!”
1. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
2. Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore thee,
casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
who wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.
3. Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide thee,
though the eye of sinfulness thy glory may not see,
only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
perfect in power, in love and purity.
4. Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea.
Holy, holy, holy! merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!
Prayer of Adoration
Call to Confession
Prayer of Confession
Gracious God, you call us your children and cover us with your love. We would seek to be merciful as you are, and to show compassion as you do, but we fail to live the life to which we have been called. Where we ought to forgive, we condemn; the evil we should shun, we embrace. Forgive our sinful ways, tame our wayward wills, heal our broken hearts, that Christ’s light might shine ever brighter in us and through us.
Silent prayer of confession.
Assurance of pardon
Hear the good news!
Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation.
The old life has gone; a new life has begun.
Know that you are forgiven, and claim God’s peace.
Thanks be to God!
*Response of Praise: Hymn #619, “Praise My Soul the God of Heaven”
Praise, my soul, the God of heaven;
glad of heart your carols raise;
ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
who, like me, should sing God’s praise?
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Praise the Maker all your days!
Praise God for the grace and favor
shown our forebears in distress;
God is still the same forever,
slow to chide, and swift to bless.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Sing our Maker’s faithfulness!
Life in Community
Thank you for joining us for worship! Explore the calendar of events and recent announcements to take another step into our life together this week. If you’re joining us for the first time or would like to learn more about Catonsville Presbyterian, you’re welcome to share your email with us. We’ll send some information that will help you get connected.
Moment for Stewardship: Megan Long
Children’s Message
Prayer for Illumination
Pour out your Spirit upon us, O God; with your Word, enlighten the eyes of our hearts that we might live in hope; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
Scripture: Psalm 34:1-10, 22
I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.
O magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together.
I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Look to him, and be radiant,
so your faces shall never be ashamed.
This poor soul cried and was heard by the Lord
and was saved from every trouble.
The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him and delivers them.
O taste and see that the Lord is good;
happy are those who take refuge in him.
O fear the Lord, you his holy ones,
for those who fear him have no want.
The young lions suffer want and hunger,
but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.
The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.
Scripture: Revelation 7:9-12
After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands. They cried out in a loud voice, saying,
“Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!”
And all the angels stood around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, singing,
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Sermon: “In Harmony Divine”, Ken kOvacs
Call to Offering
Call to Offering
Offertory: Hear My Prayer, Moses Hogan
O Lord, please hear my prayer; In the morning when I rise.
It’s your servant bound for glory. O dear Lord, please hear my prayer.
O Lord, please hear my prayer. Keep me safe within your arms.
It’s your servant bound for glory. O dear Lord, please hear my prayer.
When my work on earth is done, and you come to take me home,
Just to know I’m bound for glory; and to hear you say, “well done!”
Done with sin and sorrow. Have mercy.
*Doxology #607, “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow”
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Christ, all people here below;
Praise Holy Spirit evermore;
Praise Triune God, whom we adore. Amen.
*Prayer of Dedication
Blessed are you, O God, maker of all things. Through your goodness you have blessed us with these gifts: our selves, our time, and our possessions. Use us, and what we have gathered, in feeding the world with your love; through the one who gave himself for us, Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.
Hymn #529: “Draw Us in the Spirit’s Tether”
1. Draw us in the Spirit’s tether,
for when humbly in your name
two or three are met together,
you are in the midst of them.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Here we touch your garment’s hem.
2. As disciples used to gather
in the name of Christ to sup,
then with thanks to God the giver
break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
so now bind our friendship up.
3. All our meals and all our living
make as sacraments of you,
that by caring, helping, giving,
we may be disciples true.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
We will serve with faith anew.
Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper
The Great Prayer of Thanksgiving
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
All thanks and praise be to you,
most holy God, giver of all life.
You made us for companionship and shaped us for love;
you gave us your good earth and taught us to care;
you established your law that we might learn justice
and give you honor with our lives.
We forgot how to love;
we ceased to heed and failed to abide by your life-giving law.
You sent us prophets to call us back to you and
when that was not enough,
you came—Word made flesh, your very being—
and overwhelmed us with your love.
And so we sing with all the saints on earth
and all the angels in heaven:
[Sung] Holy, holy, holy Lord.
God of power and might.
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he, O blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest.
Hosanna in the highest.
In Jesus you blessed us as never before.
Thank you for the ways he taught us in word and deed:
he fed us in homes and on hillsides;
he healed us in body, mind, and soul
and showed us that true greatness is in humility
and true power in weakness.
With hearts lifted high, we remember and give thanks for the saints whom you have called home, who surround us as witnesses of your love and urge us on to be ever faithful:
- Carole Baumann
- Ralph Braun
- Margaret Brinkmann
- Judith A. Bucher
- John H. Bucher
- Robert John Burriesci
- Michael Patrick Cantwell
- Peggy Carr
- Lauri Cohn
- Mary Cora Childs
- Michael Crane
- Joseph Dawson
- George Ellers
- Julia Hitchcock
- Albert Hodkinson
- Noelle Jackson
- Hanju Lee
- Howard Lutz
- Dolores Martish
- Michael Martish
- Elizabeth Moore
- Peter Joseph Murdza
- Beatrice Reed Myers
- John Michael “Mike” O’Hearn
- Norman Peercy
- Aaron Plymouth
- Thelma Renner
- Virginia Renner
- Susan Schroeder
- Rachel R. Schultise
- Matthew Shanley
- Jacob “Jack” Sitter
Silence is kept.
How can we thank you for the gift he gave?
When the world did its worst,
he took on our death
that we might be clothed in light and life.
Raised to new life, still bearing the scars,
Jesus promised us an Advocate and Guide.
Thank you for the Spirit at work in us and among us,
who strengthens and sustains,
challenges and prods,
gives us life and surprises us with signs of your unending grace.
Pour out your Holy Spirit now upon this bread and wine,
that it may be to us the body and blood of Christ
and anoint us that we might be one with him and one another.
With thanksgiving, we offer ourselves to you now, Holy Three in One—
our bodies to do your work and our voices to sing your praise—
grateful, even now, that when this earthly life has ended
you will welcome us home,
where we will live in eternal joy with you and all the saints,
bathed in light and lost in unending songs of praise.
Blessing and glory and wisdom
and thanksgiving and honor
and power and might
be to you, O God, forever and ever!
And so we pray,
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread;
and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors;
and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory, forever. Amen.
Sharing of the Meal
Music During Communion
Prayer of Gratitude
Gracious God, we thank you for feeding us with the body and blood of your son, Jesus Christ. May we, who share his body, live his risen life; we, who drink his cup, bring life to others; we, whom the Spirit lights, give light to the world. Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us, so that we and all your children shall be free; and the whole earth live to praise your name; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
*Hymn #326: “For All the Saints”
1. For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who thee by faith before the world confessed,
thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
2. Thou wast their rock, their fortress, and their might;
thou, Lord, their captain in the well-fought fight;
thou, in the darkness drear, their one true light.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
3. O blest communion, fellowship divine!
We feebly struggle; they in glory shine;
yet all are one in thee, for all are thine.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
4. And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,
steals on the ear the distant triumph song,
and hearts are brave again, and arms are strong.
Alleluia! Alleluia!
5. From earth’s wide bounds, from ocean’s farthest coast,
through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,
singing to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
Alleluia! Alleluia!
*Benediction
*Postlude
Shall We Gather at the River? Setting by Richard Elliott
Dr. Robert Lowry was thinking about the many people who passed away during a severe epidemic in Brooklyn, NY, in 1864 when he wrote the text and music for this hymn. He wondered “shall we meet again? We are parting at the river of death, shall we meet at the river of life?” Richard Elliott’s arrangement, resounds with a triumphal “yes, we’ll gather at the river!”
Participants
- Dorothy Boulton
Associate Pastor - Keith and Kathy Glennan
A/V Production - Wendy Johnston,
Organist and Assistant Director of Music - Greg Knauf,
Director of Music - Ken Kovacs,
Pastor - Vickie Lord,
Social media support - Cheryl Thurber
Liturgist
Sources
- Image: Adoration of the Mystic Lamb (1432) by Hubert and Jan Van Eyck, part of the Ghent Altarpiece.
- Sanctus during Communion: James MacMillan, St. Anne’s Mass, reprinted in Common Ground: A Song Book for All the Churches (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press 1998)
- Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013).
- Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-734388; CCLI Copyright License B 20481088 + Streaming License B 481071