32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Remembrance

8 November 2009

Entrance	Eternal rest (mtgf)
Gloria	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 145	My soul give praise (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Beati (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Thou knowest, Lord (Henry Purcell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Behold the Lamb (Iona)
Communion	Christ our peace (Marty Haugen)
Final	All my hope on God is founded ( )

Remembrance Sunday is the day of special prayer which is most marked in our liturgical celebration; Education Sunday, in comparison, does not get a look in. Though I have mused at other times that Remembrance Sunday is replacing All Souls as the key focus for praying the departed - in part because it is on a Sunday - our celebration remembers those students who died in WW1 and WW2 as well as those who have died in the last year. This year we recalled the 75 who lost their lives in WW2. It is one of the few things that we do that explicitly connects us with the past.

Many years there is the question as to whether we should use the Lectionary readings or there is one Mass permitted for the Dead. Apart from the higher value it seems to me placed on using the Sunday readings and continuity from week to week, it also seems to me that as the guiding theme of the Lectionary is the Paschal Mystery it is likely that the readings can be understood as about death and resurrection. This seems particularly true in the final Sundays of the year. So we used the Lectionary. I was struck that widows implies dead husbands and widows are 'by-product' of wars. I guess, though, that the students we remember were mostly single and mourned by families rather than wives.

The theme of remembrance was the key to most of the choices. Only 'All my hope' tried to draw in the scriptures as well.

My setting of 'Eternal Rest' was written for use on this Sunday. The antiphon text is the familiar one and there are choir verses from psalm 64 as is traditional. Part of the desire was to set a text where people did not need to learn new words. This morning (I note this partly so we might remember next year!) the procession was accompanied by antiphon-verse-antiphon, then there was silence, and then the names of those students who died in WW2 were read out. After each 12 names the second half of the refrain was sung, May they rest in peace… and then the full refrain after the last name. It seems to work. It also seems to be an example of an assembly's long-term memory where they remember a setting they only sing once a year. This is particularly true in the Triduum, I think. Though there may be something effective about the music my guess is that it is the connection between music and liturgical action and the rightness of the connection.