28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

10 October 2010

Entrance	All people that on earth do dwell
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Psalm 97	The Lord has shown his salvation (All the ends) (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Beati (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Now we remain (David Haas)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Lamb of God 6 (mtgf)
Communion	Lord, your love has drawn us near (Stephen Dean)
Final	God is love, his the care

After careful practice before Mass our psalmist suddenly sang the other response given in the setting, the more familiar Christmas text of 'All the ends of the earth'. The congregation looked momentarily confused which at least shows they expect to sing the response and having the text on Mass sheet helps. In the event the two response are two sides of the same coin. In the given the Lord has shown his salvation to the nations; in the alternative all nations have seen God's salvation. What makes the psalm response interesting is that provides a particular focus for the first reading and gospel. The psalm could just be one of praise and thanksgiving for what God has done. The response draws attention that parallels between the two stories is not just healing but salvation being offered beyond Israel.

The opening hymn this morning reflected this with its invitation to all people. I was struck that we should bring out Vaughan Williams' arrangement again at some point and also remembered his comment about keeping the tune moving at the end of phrases.

Now we remain picked up on part of the text of the 2nd reading - though we never got to that verse (the last) today. The last two items wee chosen to reflect the praise and thanksgiving of the gospel. Apologies to the composer but I realised that one reason that we rarely do Lord, your love is that the choir parts which take the form of a 'four-part' descant demand larger resources than we can muster and it is not possible to 'salvage' something. A further heretical thought — I am not sure I am convinced of Holst's arrangement of the last hymn. This maybe because one often gets the Introduction (guess where to come in, isn't the Dorian mode fun!) and an adaptation of the rest. As far as I can tell text and arrangement have been together since the beginning in Songs of Praise though Holst's arrangement was first published with the original text from Piae Cantiones in the Oxford Book of Carols. Checking through various hymn books it is surprising which ones the text does not appear in.