Ruach Breath of Life

Cum Sancto Spiritu – Come, Holy Spirit From Vivaldi’s Gloria ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ declares the LORD Almighty. (Zech. 4:6). This magnificent piece of music from Vivaldi’s Gloria, reminds us how much we need the Holy Spirit in our lives at all times. He is not an impersonal life force, but an integral part of the Holy Trinity. He empowers our worship and witness, and is our...

How great is the cry of grief and pain rising up from the Earth today – the howl of mothers whose children have been killed by hunger and violence and sickness; the wounded and dying sons and fathers and husbands crying out for comfort in trenches and POW camps; the refugees weeping for the loss of their unique distinctives to be tossed into a nameless mass of people who must be helped; the breadw...

Hallelujah and Fare Well At the very end of our recent Sounds of Heaven recording event, we laid all prepared pieces aside and simply worshipped. Given the theme that Megan found as she sang, we originally called this piece Hallelujah, but we have added Fare Well, because all of us surely desire to 'fare well' in our service for God's kingdom and to finish our time on earth as well as we can - con...

O Lord our God by Ruach Breath of Life

Jesus for love of You (Come Closer) by Ruach Breath of Life

A Sound of Hope for Ukraine by Ruach Breath of Life

Of the Father’s love begotten Scripture offers many examples of prayers of intercession in a time of national crisis. Yet they all manage to keep their primary emphasis on the Lord, even as those praying bring before Him the troubles they face. And so, as we lift the nation of Ukraine yet once more to the One who is King over all the nations, we begin with a wonderful translation of a Latin hymn c...

The Lord upholds the righteous even in the face of wickedness: verses from Psalms 35 and 37 It is always good to declare Scripture, and perhaps especially so in times of crises. We have set these verses to the stately music of a sarabande by Handel, and they lead into the first of our prayers for Ukraine.

A prayer for the deliverance of Ukraine There came a time when Jerusalem was under siege by Sennacherib. The king and the prophet ‘cried out to heaven in prayer’ and the Lord delivered them. (2 Chronicles 32) Our own cry for the deliverance of Ukraine is set to the intense and relentless music of Mussorgsky’s piano piece, The Oxcart.

A prayer concerning a spiritual imposition on the Russian soul Our prayer begins with the Lord looking with pleasure upon the land of the steppes, and seeks the renewal of His purpose and calling for the region. It is set to two pieces by Mussorgsky: Une Larme (A Tear) and In the Village.

A lament for those who turn their back on God It is truly sad when those who have grown up knowing and seeking the Lord, turn their faces away from Him and vigorously pursue their own wisdom and ways. Joseph Stalin was one such, Karl Marx another. This is a prayer for those who are led astray by propaganda and fallacious beliefs. It is accompanied by two laments: A lament for Reepicheep by Celia R...

O Sons and Daughters of the glorious King (O filii et filiae) If you are not familiar with this exquisite Easter hymn, written according to an ancient Gregorian tradition, you will love getting to know it! Many hymns were written in a ’macaronic’ style – that is that is, sung in two languages, Latin and English for example, but this version contains a compilation not in two different languages but...

Religious life in England suffered great upheavals during the 17th century, during which many Puritans and Quakers were persecuted and banished. Amongst the many who were affected was Samuel Crossman who, uniquely, had been ministering to both an Anglican congregation in Sudbury and a Puritan one at the same time, until he, along with some 2,000 other Puritan-leaning ministers in the Church of Eng...

Patricia Corry is the soloist in this rendering of Vivaldi's beautiful Domine Deus from his Gloria . How relevant the words are for us to proclaim and to hold onto to these days: 'Lord God, the Almighty Father.'

‘What are you doing Lord? A heart for Seeking God.’ Based loosely around the Hebrew word for seeking – baqash – the emphasis in this section is on how God uses low tides to further the work of His kingdom, in ourselves and in the world.

Baqash Part 2 - Seeking God in dry and arid times Much of this nine-minute segment revolves around a powerful image drawn from one of CS Lewis’ poems, and focuses on our need to keep seeking God through dry and arid times. The music begins, accordingly, on a sombre note in a piece that Corinne improvised for us back in 2011, and which we called ‘Suffering Prophet’. The music then moves into Jane H...

One of the pieces our school choir used to sing in various churches around Leicestershire was Vivaldi’s beautiful and hugely popular Gloria, (RV 589). It is an altogether glorious piece, and in this short extract, as Patricia Corry and Harmony Greenwood sing their praises to God, how can we not join them in spirit in praising our ever faithful God? We praise You We bless and thank You We adore You...

Welcome to the first in a series on seeking the Lord, loosely based around baqash - the Hebrew word for seeking. The music you will hear on this track is a beautiful piece by Gareth Sampson called called Black Hills, which we recorded some years ago.

Seeking with Anselm and Quoist by Ruach Breath of Life

Hildegard Echoes by Ruach Breath of Life

Linda Entwistle

Linda Entwistle

This beautiful piece by Vivaldi the title of which may be translated as "In this world there is no honest peace." It is normally a sung piece for solo soprano, but we have recorded it here for instruments so that we can pray over it. Wikipedia notes that, 'The text dwells on the imperfections of a world full of evil and sin, and praises Jesus for the salvation He offers from it.' (https://en.wikip...

May the Lord use this lovely song by Anne Laure Jackson to soothe and still our soul, and to strengthen our resolve to make Him the focus of our hearts, this and every day. Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you without money, come, buy, and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on that which is not bread, and your labor on that which does...

At this time when many hearts are heavy in the face of so many personal and global challenges, not to mention iniquities, I was inspired by John’s vision of ‘a door standing open in Heaven’ at the beginning of Revelation 4. At a time when he was suffering on the penal colony of Patmos, what a joy it must have been to hear a voice calling out to him to ‘Come up here!’ John was privileged to see the...