This Sunday, May 30 at 10:30 a.m., Tyrone’s Presbyterian Church will host a worship service for all Veterans and other interested citizens of this community. The service will focus on the contrasting themes of Patriotism and Pentecost.
Church organist Richard Merryman will open worship with a 1901 patriotic British March by Sir Edward Elgar entitled Pomp and Circumstance or Land of Hope and Glory, performed on the church’s Allen Digital Computer Organ.
Pastor Robert Dunkelberger will lead the audience in a Memorial Day Responsive Reading which cautions that human beings cause War, but Christ offers the only cure for War.
Following the Pledge to the Flag, the Presbyterian Choir will present a 1911 Patriotic Prayer for the Nation by William Merrill entitled Not Alone for Mighty Empire. Almost a century ago, this Patriotic Prayer was set to a Welsh Hymn Melody composed by a nineteen year old boy named Rowland Pritchard.
Pastor Dunkelberger will deliver a Memorial Day Address about three people in World War II from enemy countries who put away their hatred and became friends because of the love of Christ.
Because Memorial Day began 139 years ago in 1865, at the close of the Civil War, in nearby Boalsburg, the piano music during the offering will feature the Civil War folk song He’s Gone Away. With highly emotional lyrics, He’s Gone Away describes the sadness a soldier and his loved ones experience caused by the inevitable separation of War.
After the offering, Pastor Dunkelberger will invite everyone in the audience to partake of the bread and wine of the Holy Communion in celebration of the day of Pentecost. According to the New Testament, Pentecost marks that moment fifty days after Easter when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles with a rushing wind and tongues of fire. At Pentecost, the Christian Church experienced its birth.
The service Patriotism and Pentecost will conclude as the audience sings that rousing patriotic hymn from Civil War Days, The Battle Hymn of the Republic. The organ fanfare introducing this patriotic hymn from the Balcony Organ Trumpets originated from the pen of Fred Waring’s arranger Roy Ringwald.
Pastor Dunkelberger invites all the people of Tyrone to join the members of Tyrone Presbyterian Church this Sunday at 10:30 a.m. for this worship experience. This worship experience promises to commemorate what the Choir Anthem of the morning will celebrate: For the armies of the faithful, souls that passed and left no name/ For the glory that illumines patriot lives of deathless fame/ For the priceless gift of Freedom, for the home, the church, the school/ For all heroes of the Spirit, in a land the people rule.
