Feast of St. Luke Choral Evensong - Oct. 19, 2025

On Sunday, October 19th at 4:00pm, our Royal School of Church Music children's choir will be singing for us at our Feast of St. Luke Evensong.

About the Feast of St. Luke:

According to tradition, Luke was a physician, and one of Paul’s fellow

missionaries in the early spread of Christianity throughout the Roman

world. He has been identified as the writer of both the Gospel that bears

his name, and its sequel, the Acts of the Apostles.

Luke seems to have either been a Gentile or a Hellenistic Jew

and, like the other New Testament writers, he wrote in Greek, so that

Gentiles might learn about the Lord whose life and deeds so impressed

him. In the first chapter of his Gospel, he makes clear that he is

offering authentic information about Jesus’ birth, ministry, death, and

resurrection, as it had been handed down to him from those who had

firsthand knowledge.

Only Luke provides the very familiar stories of the annunciation to

Mary, of her visit to Elizabeth, of the child in the manger, the angelic

host appearing to shepherds, and the meeting with the aged Simeon.

Luke also includes in his work six miracles and eighteen parables not

recorded in the other Gospels. In Acts he tells about the coming of

the Holy Spirit, the struggles of the apostles and their triumphs over

persecution, of their preaching of the Good News, and of the conversion

and baptism of other disciples, who would extend the church in future

years.

Luke was with Paul apparently until the latter’s martyrdom in

Rome. What happened to Luke after Paul’s death is unknown, but early

tradition has it that he wrote his Gospel in Greece, and that he died at

the age of eighty-four in Boeotia. Gregory of Nazianzus says that Luke

was martyred, but this testimony is not corroborated by other sources.

In the fourth century, the Emperor Constantius ordered the relics of

Luke to be removed from Boeotia to Constantinople, where they could

be venerated by pilgrims.

According to Orthodox Christian tradition, Luke was also the first

iconographer. He is traditionally regarded as the patron saint of artists

and physicians.

About Choral Evensong:

Perhaps the most recognizably Anglican service of all, Evensong or Daily Evening Prayer, is a product of the English Reformation. The Reformers sought to prioritize and encourage personal piety in the lives of believers, while realizing the difficulty for common laborers to pause eight times  (every three hours) throughout each day for scripture readings and prayers according to the Western monastic calendar of the medieval Church. Thomas Cranmer and the other architects of the English Book of Common Prayer reverted to an earlier Christian tradition — itself an outgrowth of Jewish faith practice at the time of Christ — of observing a time of prayer in the morning and another in the evening, whose prayers correspond to the monastic observations of Matins and Vespers (known as Evensong in England long  before the Reformation), incorporating some elements of the other monastic offices into these Daily Offices, as they are known throughout the Anglican Communion.  

Since the Reformation, these Daily Offices have been sung in the cathedrals of England, encouraging composers to create a vast repertoire of settings of the texts of the canticles associated with these Daily Offices —  which in the case of Evensong are the song of Mary, the Magnificat, and the Song of Simeon, or Nunc dimittis — over five centuries. This repertoire has encouraged the practice of offering a Choral Evensong in parish churches throughout the Anglican world, a practice that has become customary at St. Luke's Church.  This is an opportunity for all believers in Jackson to come together to pray for peace, quiet, and safety in our world, and to experience the joy of singing hymns, and hearing beautiful settings of the prayers and canticles by noteworthy composers in an historic house of worship. 

Our Saint Luke's Choir will be journeying to England next summer for a week-long residence at Worcester Cathedral, where we will sing the daily office and Sunday Eucharists.