Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal (Trad., arr. Alice Parker) - Notre Dame Folk Choir

Описание: As we approach the end of the church year, our gaze turns to the bigger questions. In our liturgy and music, we begin to reflect on "the end times", and are presented with images of unimaginable grandeur. Choirs of angels and trumpets blasting feel like they should be really important, but can still sometimes feel unfamiliar to our everyday experience.

In the Gospel today, we hear the parable of the talents - you know the story, one person is given 5, another 2, and the last 1, and all three are asked to care for these "talents" while their master is away...the first two double their talents, while the last one hides the talent away.

None of us knows how much "talent" we really have - for how much time we spend thinking about talent, especially as musicians, the question of how much talent we do or do not have is more or less a dead end. What we do come to understand through this parable though, is that we are all invited to contribute whatever we have to serve God, ourselves, and each other.

We serve when we do the little things: recording a song, reaching out to a friend, practicing our discipline. We serve when we focus on the work God has given us to do right now. We serve this week by adding our voices to the heavenly chorus, joyfully proclaiming God's glory with their eternal polyphony.

Please enjoy Alice Parker's arrangement of "Hark I Hear the Harps Eternal", recording live in our rehearsal tent last Thursday:

1. Hark, I hear the harps eternal
Ringing on the farther shore,
As I near those swollen waters
With their deep and solemn roar.

Refrain:
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
Hallelujah, praise the lamb!
Hallelujah, hallelujah,
Glory to the great I AM!

2. And my soul, tho’ stain’d with sorrow,
Fading as the light of day,
Passes swiftly o’er those waters,
To the city far away.

Refrain

3. Souls have cross’d before me, saintly,
To that land of perfect rest;
And I hear them singing faintly
In the mansions of the blest.

Refrain
Refrain