KES Newsletter, December 2019
admin | 11 December 2019In Dulci Jubilo
It was an appropriate ending to the last week of classes and perhaps a good approach to this week of exams. The Advent/ Christmas Services of Lessons and Carols were held on Sunday, December 8th at Christ Church, 4:00pm, for Grades 7-11, and at Hensley Memorial Chapel, 7:00pm, for the Grade 12 prospective graduating class of 2020. One of the few events at the School that are mandatory for students and faculty alike, the pageant of Word and Song is a significant feature of the School’s educational philosophy. It has very much to do with learning to attend, being attuned, as it were, to ideas conveyed through words spoken and sung together.
A veritable platoon of servers and singers and readers provided key leadership in the services. The central focus is the readings taken from the King James translation of the Scriptures. Six of the nine readings were taken from the Hebrew Scriptures or the Old Testament in the Christian understanding. They are powerful passages signalling light and hope and peace and joy in the face of darkness and despair, passages that point to the three readings from the Christian New Testament. The readers did an exceptional job of reading clearly and with understanding. The readers at 4:00pm were Will Larder, Alissa Pape, Vincent Armstrong, Mikaela Hinds and Will Mercer along with Head Girl, Ava Benedict and Head Boy, Evan Logan, who read at both services as did the Headmaster, Mr. Joe Seagram, and the Chaplain. Will Larder and Vincent are among the youngest students at the School; they read superbly as did all of the readers.
The servers at the 4pm service were Jacob Fines-Belcham, Alex Graham, Papa Ofori, Sarah Bell, Rendy Ashley, Owara Ofori and Lucas Martin, a wonderfully competent, confident and willing group. That service was greatly enhanced by a choir under the direction of Ms. Stephanie Fillman. They assisted in the singing of carols and hymns, at times by sweetly singing harmonies. The Advent Hymns and Christmas Carols sing the story of human hopes and human redemption in the tonalities of Advent expectation and Christmas rejoicing. In dulci jubilo, indeed, sweet joys, “the concord of sweet sounds.”
The 7pm service has an entirely different feel owing to the intimacy and the ambience of the Chapel. For our Grade 12s, it is their last carol service at the School, at least as students. The readers were Megumi Tsuji, Parker Kim, Aimee Cooper, Ohemaa Ofori, and Andrew Atwood, Head Chapel Prefect, along with Ava Benedict and Evan Logan, the Headmaster and the Chaplain. The servers were Makayli Paul, Ben Fleckenstein, Olivia Drava, Heavyn Beals, and Taewoo Kim. Mr. Owen Stephens was the organist at both services, providing different preludes and postludes for the two services.
I am grateful to all who helped and with those parents and family members who attended and showed their support and understanding of this kind of corporate activity so critical to a proper understanding of education. I especially want to thank the Chapel Prefects who have helped with the morning miracle of Chapel throughout the term. In dulci jubilo.
(Rev’d) David Curry,
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy