Passion [Palm] Sunday

28 March 2010

Entrance	Hosanna — Gathering (Paul Inwood)
Psalm 21	My God, My God (Christopher Walker)
Gospel Acclamation	Lenten (mtgf)
Passion Acclamation	Behold the Lamb of God (John Bell)
Preparation of Gifts	Servant King (Graham Kendrick)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Mass of Remembrance (Marty Haugen)
Communion	Ours were the griefs (Stephen Dean)
Final	My song is love unknown (Ireland)

Term has ended and so, as is usual, there is only one Sunday Mass. As we joined by members of the Music Group so adaptations had been made to what had originally been planned. It was great to have the extra people.

We do not have a procession — though we have the route, with even a chapel to start from, the number of steps outside the church would militate against it. We therefore follow the second option in the Missal, the Solemn Entrance. As the distances are not great we use the Hosanna and Benedictus from the Gathering Mass. We lose the richness and variety of the texts given in the Missal but gain a real sense of acclamation using a setting which people know by heart. It also, I hope, gives an extra depth to when we the sing the text in the Eucharistic Prayer.

In the proclamation of the Passion we sing a short acclamation. The Passion is read by four readers: narrator, Christ and two reading the others parts. The choir act as a crowd for a couple of lines. I have long seen the giving of parts to whole congregation as an example of 'false participation' — involvement for its own sake together with adding the air of a re-enactment. The use of acclamations to punctuate the narrative seem to be a more authentic response. As a rule such acclamation should be be just that — acclamations, short phrases rather than hymn verses and I favour a single text and just a few entries: less is more. Though I appreciate the idea of Delores Dufner's Acclamations in Cantate providing an appropriate text for each gospel writer in the end a familiar chant which all can again sing by heart Behold the Lamb of God.

Stephen Dean's Ours were the griefs he bore was this year's innovation replacing his setting of the Communion Antiphon Father, if this cup with its tangled chromaticism and suffering servant verses. I think I preferred the gentle, meditative setting of the canticle from 1 Peter, otherwise sung at Lent Sunday Evening Prayer. We sang it unaccompanied and it seemed to provide a moment of repose before the week ahead.