Flowers and Hymns

Yesterday, October 29th, would have been my mom's 86th birthday. She's gone 17 years now. The flowers you see pictured above are the altar flowers from church. I had the idea of specifically requesting, sunflowers, as she was from Kansas. Another thing we got to do is pick the hymns for the church service.** This really made it such a special way to remember our mom. Parishioners came up to us after the service with just the nicest things to say about how much they had enjoyed the service.

"Those hymns were favorites of my mom's."
"I love I Sing the Song of the Saints of God too."
"I had such tears in my eyes I could hardly see the words to sing."
"That was a beautiful selection of hymns."
"You raised us up in the beginning and had us on our knees by the end."

Here is what we selected:

Processional Hymn - (293) I Sing A Song of the Saints of God

Sequence Hymn - (LEV* 38) Old Rugged Cross

Anthem - Blessed Assurance

Offertory Hymn - (LEV* 60) How Great Thou Art

Communion Hymns - (178) Alleluia, alleluia Give thanks to the risen Lord
(602) Jesu, Jesu fill us with your love

Recessional Hymn - (473) Lift High the Cross

[*Lift Every Voice and Sing Hymnal}


The Saints of God is a childhood favorite. The two selections from the LEV Hymnal were especially for my mom. They just felt right. Perhaps we just remembered them from childhood summers out in Kansas.
Alleluia, alleluia and Lift High the Cross were used at my mom's funeral.
The rest my brother and I chose because we liked them and he figured out the sequence.
He also served as Lay Euchararistic Minister (with friend Peg Jarvis) and read the prayers of the people.
After church we took a drive through the country with my dad, enjoying the fall foliage, ending with a nice dinner at one of my mother's favorite restaurants.

Copyright © 2006 Deborah Sharp Loeb

(**This was the ingenious idea of Dave Diehl, choir director at St. Luke's, Metuchen, NJ which he started just a few weeks ago. For a period of time he's opened up the selection hymns to the congregation. Just sign up for the Sunday you want and select your favorite hymns.)