FIRST SUNDAY after EASTER 2025

For the video with the sermon (which follows the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel) click on the picture below.

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PART 28 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart opens to us John 10:1-18. Click on the picture below.

EASTER 2025

For the video with the Easter Collect, Epistle, Gospel and Sermon preached by Fr. Hart, click on the link below.

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Easter Fugue

Once again, I am sharing with my readers one of my sacred compositions for this time of the year. This coming Sunday (April 20, 2025) will be Easter - or as most Christians in the world who do not speak English call it, Passover. For this most holy of days, I composed a fugue that can be played in church on an organ. For those who like to understand the details of this musical composition, you may continue reading. Either way, I hope that you will enjoy the video and. even more so, the audio portion. It may be best to wait until Sunday for some of you.

I used for my fugue subject the hymn tune Salzburg, a melody that was harmonized by J.S. Bach. I chose it because it has two popular sets of lyrics, one for Epiphany and the other for Easter. The opening notes go to the words “At the Lamb’s High Feast we sing…” The first voice comes to us in D major, the second voice comes in with the notes just varied enough to be in the same key a fifth apart, while the countersubject is heard in the first voice in four notes descending. For the third and fourth voice entries the same pattern is used in different octaves. Beginning with the second voice, a short ascending episode separates each voice entry and continues to do so throughout when the subject is stated. The tempo is good and fast, an allegro tempo, to give the piece a feeling of joy.

I chose to use the standard modulation that I have used more often than any other in composing in this form. The piece opens in D major, with the third and fourth voice entries a fifth apart from the tonic (i.e., a fifth apart from D major) making it go from D to A both times. This goes on for several more measures, with each statement of the fugue subject still followed by the episode that I mentioned above. The key changes then to G major, that is the subdominant, then to B minor, the relative key to the tonic key (that is, as you recall, the relative minor of D major), then to F sharp minor because it is the relative key to the dominant (i.e. A major), then to E minor because it is the relative key to the subdominant (G major). Then it returns to the tonic, D major. 

To recap, this fairly standard modulation is as follows: Tonic, dominant, tonic, dominant (for a four voci), subdominant, relative key to the tonic, relative key to the dominant, relative key to the subdominant, then a return to the tonic. This is, as I say, a fairly standard modulation for fugues. It has a satisfying effect to the ear to move from key to key in this pattern. Plenty of fugues, however, do not follow this pattern, and among my fugues, my Advent Fugue on O Come, O Come Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel) does not make use of it. So, while it is often used, it is not a necessary component for the form. 

This Easter fugue concludes, as a fugue, after the return to D major, when the anticipated ascending episode lands on a D major chord. But despite the obvious conclusion, it has happened so abruptly that the music just cannot be over. Indeed, notes in the bass suddenly begin to carry us up to loud happy sounds that are emerging into a tonic chord, which in turn yields to a recapitulation. The same notes play over and over in the bass (a good stretch of the legs for the organist) while the hands go crazy, deliriously happy with the news that death has been overcome because Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. The piece concludes with the opening of the hymn on which it is based, using Bach’s harmonization as an ending. It works quite well that way.

GOOD FRIDAY 2025

The video contains the Collects, Epistle, and Passion reading for Good Friday, followed by a sermon from Fr. Nicholas Harrelson preached at Saint Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, NC. Just click on the picture below.

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MAUNDY THURSDAY 2025

To view this video with the Collect, the Gospel and a Sermon, click on the picture below.

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Just Like Abortion - When Morality and Politics Overlap

  When Morality and Politics Overlap.

We have the responsibility to be witnesses for Christ not only to our generation, but also to future generations who will learn about any role we play, or fail to play, when it becomes history.

Most of the men illegally deported by Trump’s Gestapo agents had NO criminal record in any country, and were here legally. But, even if some of them were criminals, this “cruel and unusual punishment” is pure evil, and anyone who condones such treatment is also purely evil. That includes any “Christians” and especially any members of the clergy.

By the way; If you think this is about “Liberals vs. Conservatives,” then you are too lacking in intelligence to learn anything. It has NOTHING to do with political partisan ideology. I am very Conservative about things like “Due process of law,” a phrase from the Constitution of the United States.

PALM SUNDAY 2025

In this video you can hear the sermon preached by Fr. Nicholas Harrelson at Saint Benedict's Anglican Church on Palm Sunday, April 13, 2025. Click on the picture below for the link.

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PART 27 GOSPEL OF JOHN

In this video Dr. Kevin Hart takes an in depth look at John 9:13-41. Click on the picture.