Huron Chapel

St. John’s Chapel is a beautiful space with a very fine acoustic and has been used as a venue for small concerts, lectures, and as a set for photography and film.

Remember whatever faith or spiritual tradition we profess (or none at all) the chapel is a safe and peaceful space for reflection, refreshment and rest, particularly at stressful times such as essay deadlines and exams.

Our wonderfully diverse community at Huron gives each one of us an opportunity to accept and embrace others who are of a different faith affiliation, spiritual tradition, or non-transcendent humanist commitment. I hope that the chapel can become a place where students of all backgrounds can gather for celebrations of faith and to enjoy cultural and musical events.

In addition to the multi-faith aspirations of our chapel, to honour the legacy of our University at 11 AM on Sunday mornings in term a small student choir leads in an Anglican worship in which all Christian students are invited to participate, and non-Christians are also welcome to attend.

St. John’s Chapel is a simple and intimate worship space. It was built in the early 1950’s to replace a previous building dating back to the 1860’s. The chapel is collegiate in style, meaning that the pews face one another across the space, rather than facing the front of the building. Facing east, the stained-glass window bathes the church in natural light. The Chapel can seat up to 140 persons, including the balcony.

St. John’s Chapel at Huron is located right next to the memorial tower entrance on Western Road. The chapel is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and available to the entire Huron community as a calm, quiet space for prayer, reflection, and meditation.

Reflection: Why a chapel in a post-post-modern secular liberal arts university?  

I am increasingly convinced that the contemporary university is ideally suited to contribute to the world’s most urgent crises by developing not only minds but hearts.  If I am right, the university must take the task of ‘character building’ seriously: a task that involves the heart as well as the head.

We know that political leaders throughout the world have all been educated in ‘critical thinking’ by the best universities in the world. The U.S. National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking defines critical thinking as the “intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as guide to belief and action.”  Tremendous.  But is this type of ‘reasoning’ enough to save the world?

It is clear that in the university classrooms our minds must be open to have our cherished notions of truth shattered in order to receive truth in new and deeper ways.  But might it not also be the case that in the university chapel our hearts equally must be open to have our cherished notions of love shattered to understand love in new, refreshing, and deeper ways?

The Chapel at Huron is for all students  of all faiths or none: recently in the Chapel there has been a Diwali liturgy of lights, a multi-faith Remembrance Day Observance, and an enthusiastic local Indie Band of agnostic temperament.

But to honour the Anglican heritage of our University and Chapel, during term there is an Anglican Service of Holy Communion each Sunday morning at 11 AM.

The small, informal, fun, creative choir is led by three upper-year students, and the worship lasts less than one hour.

All students of Huron, Western, King’s, and Brescia are welcome to join us on Sunday mornings at 11 AM!

January 2020

Each day that I set foot on the Huron campus I become more convinced of the opportunity that is within our reach to overcome the crippling individualism that our culture stridently promotes.  To model a sense of ‘community’ that this world desperately needs.

I shall do all I can to promote the chapel as a sacred space where students, faculty and staff of all faiths and core values can come together to learn to love and respect one another.  To shake off the ‘individualism’ that leads so many to loneliness and despair, and to discover themselves as ‘persons’ in relation to others.

As chaplain I will do all I can to ensure that Huron students, staff and faculty who identify with any particular faith, spiritual tradition, or humanist ideology will be supported in their vision of the Good.

As the Christian chaplain at Huron I also look to create a context of Christian worship in the Chapel on Sunday mornings that encourages the creation of a healthy and deep community within the Christian Tradition.  The deeper and more healthy such a Christian community is, and the deeper and healthier every faith, spiritual and humanist community at Huron is, the easier it will be it to build a multi-faith community of love and respect in which global citizens can be developed.

On Sunday mornings in term at 11 AM in the Huron Chapel there will be Christian worship that students of all faiths are most welcome to attend.  We are now blessed with a small beautiful choir to lead us in worship and the building of a generous and compassionate Christian community at Huron, for the sake of the larger vision of Huron and for the life of the world.

Compline has become symbolic of our vision of creating global citizens at Huron.  It is a gentle form of Christian worship that has become meaningful to students of all cultural, religious, and spiritual traditions.  It is universally popular among the diverse demographic of students at Cambridge and Oxford Colleges in England (agnostic and atheist students are included in those who enjoy Compline).  It’s simple form has not changed since the fifth century.  It embraces ancient and universal approaches to chant that will be familiar to students of all traditions.  Once a month.  9.30 PM.  In the chapel.

I shall encourage Chinese students to attend Compline, many of whom know very little about religion and some of whom have never been in a ‘chapel’ before.
I shall encourage Indian students to attend Compline: of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Jain, Buddhist, atheist, agnostic traditions.
I shall encourage the Jewish students to attend Compline: the cross will be removed to welcome their presence.
I shall encourage Muslim students to attend Compline: the cross removed, and in the darkness religious symbols are not prominent.

AND
I shall encourage all students to attend Chinese cultural events.  NOT because they are interesting in themselves, but because we ought to do so.
I shall encourage all students to attend Diwali and other events highlighting Hindu and cultural India events, because we ought to.
I shall encourage all students to join the Jewish community whenever the invitation and welcome is offered, because we ought to.
I shall encourage students to attend local mosques for Friday Prayers and to attend all Muslim student events open to all, because we ought to.

WHY?
On 27 Oct 2018 while Shabbat morning services were being held at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the squirrel Hill neighbourhood of Pittsburgh eleven people were killed and seven were injured in the deadliest attack ever on the Jewish community in the United States.  On 2 November 2018 militants ambushed three buses carrying Christian pilgrims returning from a remote Coptic Christian monastery and opened fire killing thirteen and wounding another eighteen.  On Easter Sunday 2019 three churches across Sri Lanka and three luxury hotels in the commercial capital Colombo were bombed. At least two hundred and fifty-three people were killed, and at least five hundred injured. On 15 March 2019 fifty-one persons were killed and forty injured when a gunman attacked two mosques in Christchurch New Zealand.

We must get out of our comfort zones to take steps toward each other to learn to respect traditions other than our own.  Is there anything more shallow and ridiculous than to wait for a tragedy or massacre, then to join others for the following two weeks with pious words and media-driven promises of embrace, but quickly to sink back into our own inward looking communities?

We have a perfect opportunity at Huron to become an authentic community of hope for our world by practicing reverence for the core values of others, and thus helping one another become true global citizens.

Not in word only.  But in truth and deed.

St. John’s Chapel is a collegiate chapel in the Diocese of Huron in the Anglican Church of Canada. All are most welcome to participate in the worship of this community. The Anglican Church of Canada welcomes all people, regardless of race, gender, sexuality, identity, or background. The Anglican Church of Canada’s mission statement is available here. St. John’s Chapel and the clergy of Huron are available for baptisms, weddings, funerals, reconciliation (confession), anointing, and all other rites of the Church. If you are interested in any of these please contact Gary Thorne.

Chapel Schedule

Links:

Daily Morning Prayer at 9am
Sunday morning worship at 11 and Monday Evening Compline at 9:30pm.

Please subscribe to regular updates by sending the Chaplain a message.

Sing your leaders-with-heart out, Huron! All students looking forward to their return to campus: Come sing! There are choral scholarships, integrated learning opportunities, and world-class music-making waiting for you at the Chapel. Whether you are looking to make new connections, or just to remember what it feels like to sing with other human beings, come and check us out!

The Chapel Choir 

Singers rehearse and sing every Sunday for the Eucharistic service. They also participate in choral events around the university. The chapel choir consists of choral scholars, lay clerks, and certain volunteers from the chapel’s congregation. See below the details of the choral scholarship program:

The Choral Scholarship

Honorariums/Stipends to help students toward their education finances.

Interdisciplinary studies course credit allowing students to explore how music intersects with their respective fields of study, from History, English, Classics, Theology, to Sociology, Philosophy, Psychology, etc.

Professional recording opportunities in Huron’s state-of-the-art auditorium and in the intimate chapel. Funds from the sale of recordings will go to the choir budget to increase scholarship offerings.

Concert opportunities to allow singers the chance to explore challenging music and then to showcase their work to the global community.

Residencies with professional ensembles to allow singers the chance to observe how professional musicians work. The choir will learn from guest artists and perform in concerts with them.

Awarded on your transcript for future employers and post-graduate application committees to see.

Outreach to homeless shelters where the choir regularly shares the beauty of music with those who otherwise do not get the opportunity.

Free singing and music lessons to help musicians grow their skillset.

All of this, in addition to whatever you study at Huron!

For more details, to book an audition, or to express your interest, please get in touch with the Director, Choral Music at sshar242@uwo.ca.

Choral extracurriculars

For those not seeking the choral scholarship commitment, or worried about not meeting the demands of the scholarship program, there are many other opportunities to get involved and sing. From the chapel: Morning prayer on every weekday. Compline once a week. Tune in on Sunday morning for a lovely mass. From outside the chapel: Madrigal choirs, pop/rock bands, community choirs, collaborations with drama and musicals, etc. Get in touch!

Our 2020 Festival of Lessons and Carols is an intimate affair of large proportions. It gathers Huron’s folks from around the globe as they participate in reading lessons and in singing well-known hymns that embody the spirit of the season. Join us in celebrating Christmas with groovy medieval carols as we reflect through music on the joyful peace for which the world desperately yearns.

Festival Program

In 1951, a two-manual and pedal organ was installed by Casavant Frères. After decades of constant use, the organ was fully renovated including a small expansion of new pipe ranks and new console in 2006 by Pole and Kingham Ltd.