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.

Most Holy Trinity

19 June 2011

Entrance	For God so loved the world (mtgf)
Penitential Rite	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Gloria	Glory to God (Berthier)
Canticle - Daniel 3	To you glory and praise (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	Hymn of the Cherubim (Russian)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Gathering (Paul Inwood)
Lamb of God	(Berthier)
Communion	God beyond all names (Bernadette Farrell)
Final	Holy God, we praise thy name

Today was a relatively normal Sunday. The accoutrements of Easter have gone. Usually like to make a complete change of Mass settings this Sunday - it may be a Solemnity, but it ain't Easter. Originally I had planned that we would be using new settings today, however we have a conference at the College next weekend and they will be coming to Sunday Mass so we will stick with settings the congregation are confident with for another week.

It seemed appropriate to repeat the Lenten Entrance song with a couple of Trinitarian verses as the refrain is drawn from today's Gospel.

Over the yearsI have noticed that this is supposed to be hard feast to preach on. Though in general clergy are good at taking the scripture as the focus on this feast it disappears and it is not as though the rest of the liturgy gets a look in even though in liturgy we are brought in to the life of the Trinity. I suspect that just as last week is about the Holy Spirit we are bound by themes and subjects rather than experience. By experience I do not mean shared emotions but celebrating liturgy is doing theology.

Pentecost

12 June 2011

Entrance	Veni Sancte Spiritus (Christopher Walker)
Penitential Rite	Lux et Origo (mtgf)
Gloria	Glory to God (Berthier)
Psalm 103	Send forth your spirit (mtgf)
Sequence	Veni Sancte Spiritus (chant arr. mtgf)
Rite of Baptism	Litany of the Saints (chant)
	Celtic Alleluia (O'Carroll)
Rite of Confirmation	Veni Sancte Spiritus (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Come Holy Ghost (Schubert)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Gathering (Paul Inwood)
Lamb of God	(Berthier)
Communion	Christ has no hands (mtgf)
Final	Christ be our light (Bernadette Farrell)

Today we celebrated the Sacraments of Initiation for 2 adults and also Infant baptism. This was a first for us, Though we have a lot of infant baptisms, or so it seems at times, the RCIA group runs in term time and so people are not usually around for the Easter Vigil. We have needed to sing a Litany of the Saints before. I used the chant setting from the new Missal - partly because of convenience. It was for our congregation, unknowingly, their first taste of the translation and the chant. The plan was to sing the Celtic Alleluia after each baptism. One of the problems of applause in the liturgy is hat it is not an acclamation. The focus of the applause is usually the newly baptised whereas an acclamation, such as Alleluia, offers praise to God for the gift of new members. We then repeated the Veni Sancte Spiritus from the beginning before the Confirmations — this allowed some 'stage-management' and a pause between the rites.

Ascension of the Lord

5 June 2011

Entrance	At the name of Jesus
Gloria	Glory to God (Berthier)
Psalm 46	Our God goes up (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Celtic (O'Carroll/Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	One is the Body (John Bell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Gathering (Paul Inwood)
Lamb of God	(Berthier)
Communion	Alleluia hymn (Orthodox arr. mtgf)
Final	Lord, you give the great commission

This morning we had five baptisms so opening and closing hymns we chose ones which would be well known. The final hymn was chosen because of the specific reference to baptism and we sang it to Ode to Joy on the assumption that more people would know that tune rather than Abbot's Leigh.

One is the Body is a well-crafted song based on the Ephesians text. The Alleluia hymn is based on well known Orthodox chant which I have added words in praise of Christ and made it more rhythmic than chanted.

We also had a conference in the college this weekend and were asked to sing at Mass on Friday evening and at a second Mass on Sunday morning. In preparing the music choices the key questions are how many people and are they English speaking alongside the purpose of conference and the liturgical texts. As I understood it the group was English speaking/comprehending - so the task was to identify hymns that would be widely known and appropriate. For Mass parts we sang de Angelis on Friday - which worked fine they were a group who sang well. I was interested that few seemed to know the chant of the memorial acclamation Mortem tuam. For Sunday we sang much the same as our normal Mass above but used the Mass of Creation instead of the Gathering Mass — I think was the last time we will sing as an acclamation Christ has died. We used the Penitential Rite I wrote based on the Easter chant Lux et origo and I added a Lamb of God based on the chant as well.