The Body and Blood of the Lord

26 June 2011

Entrance	Of the glorious Body telling ()
Gloria	Glory to God (Berthier)
Psalm 147	O praise the Lord, Jerusalem (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	(A G Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	Our blessing cup (Bob Hurd)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Gathering (Paul Inwood)
Lamb of God	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Communion	Take and Eat (Michael Joncas)
Final	My God, and they table spread ( )

Today we a Deacon's Conference at the College, I'm not sure i what the collective noun is, and an Archbishop. The deacons and their wives certainly sang lustily. We were joined by members of the music group and by their accompanist as our usual one was away. What I had not factored in that as opposed to our usual low-style celebration and just one verse of the hymn covering the procession was we needed more music at beginning and end. The hymns were the same as last year - I decided to repeat them as the tunes were well known — at least to the congregation. As we had a full leaflet we could have had an alternative translation to J M Neale for the first hymn - what we had, though familiar, is hard work. It reinforces the idea that the words we sing are carried along by the music.

Last year I also wrote about the danger of particularity. This year we sang Bob Hurd's setting of Psalm 115 which has a refrain drawn from 1 Corinthians. At Communion we repeated Take and Eat which we had sung on Maundy Thursday - a link for those who might remember.

There was a good reason to sing the Memorial Acclamation When we eat today but as today was also the last Sunday we will sing the Gathering Mass, at least in its present form, it seemed not worth introducing it. We certainly gave it a good send off.