Please read the note below from Pastor Woodhouse regarding his sermon:

Last Sunday, our Gospel reading contained the song Mary sang when she was greeted by her cousin, Elizabeth: the Magnificat. Our Gospel reading for this week contains another song, this time sung by Simeon, who identified the infant Jesus as the long-promised Messiah when his parents brought him to the temple for his ceremonial presentation. The song of Simeon, also called the Nunc Dimittis, is also an important part of many of our worship services, because the message Simeon expresses as he sings it is also one that we can embrace and sing as the Church!

As a special note, we’ll change a couple of the songs we use from the hymnal’s order of service for this week. Instead of “This is the Feast”, our hymn of praise will be “Gloria in Excelsis”. And instead of “Thank the Lord”, our post-communion canticle will be Setting One’s version of the Nunc Dimittis. This change will not only give us an opportunity to hear the alternate tunes that are options in the service we’ve been following, but they will connect especially well to our readings for this week and the time of the church year that we’re celebrating!