Remembrance
Sunday and Veterans Day Observed with Special Service at Saint Barnabas Ch
urch of Omaha
Saint Barnabas Catholic
Church will commemorate Remembrance Sunday and the hundredth anniversary o
f the Armistice ending World War One with a special Choral Evensong service
on Sunday, November 11, 2018, at 5:30 pm. This musical service, with praye
rs for the souls of those who died in the “Great War,” will include organ a
nd choral works associated with the conflict. A reception will follow at th
e historic Offutt House immediately adjacent to the church, where there wil
l be refreshments and readings from some of the many distinguished World Wa
r One poets and authors. All are invited to attend without cost, at 129 N.
40th St., Omaha, NE 68131
Remem
brance Sunday is the primary memorial day throughout the British Commonweal
th for those who died in war, and is observed on the Sunday nearest “the el
eventh day of the eleventh month”, the date of the 1918 Armistice and the d
ate of America’s Veterans Day. Saint Barnabas Church, as part of the Roman
Catholic Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter (for former Anglicans), is
heir to the great patrimony of English music and ceremony. Thus, the paris
h will celebrate both this important historical anniversary and the ties th
at bind American and Britain in a service unique and beloved throughout the
English-speaking world.
Compos
ers featured at Evensong include Ralph Vaughan Williams, who served 1915-19
16 as a Royal Army Medical Corps bearer in the Salonika Campaign on the Fre
nch Western Front and 1917-1918 as a Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artil
lery; and William Walton, who wrote the haunting 1916 work, “Drop, drop slo
w tears,” while still a Oxford choirboy in a world permanently marked by th
e death of a much of a generation. Organ works will include Walford Davies’
‘Solemn Melody’ and Vaughan Williams’ ‘The White Rock’, two of the pieces
played every year since 1930 at the primary Remembrance Day ceremony at the
Cenotaph in London.
The reception fo
llowing Evensong will include refreshments, readings, and a tour of the gra
nd Offutt House. Built in 1894, it was the lifelong home of Lt. Jarvis Offu
tt, who served as a pilot in the pioneering Aviation Section of the US Army
Signal Corps and was killed in the line of duty in August, 1918. Offutt Ai
r Force Base is named for him.