First Sunday of Advent

27 November 2011

Entrance	Litany of the Word (Bernadette Farrell)
Psalm 79	God of hosts (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	In the day of the Lord (M D Ridge)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Advent (mtgf)
Communion	There is a longing (Anne Quigley)
Final	Hark a herald voice

And so we begin once more. The Litany of the Word made a simple beginning - the challenge of its simplicity is making sure that it goes somewhere. A contrast was In the day of the Lord by M D Ridge. I always enjoy its infectious rhythms — the parousia is going to have some bounce!

The psalm setting is quite old now - this is a relative term, we looked at some Palestrina and Monteverdi in rehearsal, at least 99, if not 96, yet I can remember writing it on an Andalucian terrace in October sunshine while looking ahead at the coming weeks. I am not sure that it has any 'Spanish flavour'; it does a slight march-like quality with a walking ground-bass. I remember reviewing a psalm collection which had a very different setting of the same psalm - lyrical and bringing out a different quality in the words, gentle pleading rather than a stronger plea. It is one of the gifts that composers bring to the liturgy is different insights into the same text.

Christ the King

20 November 2011

Entrance	Rejoice the Lord is king
Penitential Rite	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Gloria	Mass of the Angels and Saints (Steven Janco)
Psalm 22	The Lord is my shepherd (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Shepherd me, O God (Marty Haugen)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Communion	Jesus, you are the bread (Bernadette Farrell)
Final	Hail Redeemer

Well it might have been our last use of the 1973 translation but I suspect like a many places as soon as the Missal arrived it was put in to use and therefore I think people may not have noticed the shift. We began withe Gloria and Eucharistic Acclamations in July, used the Order of Mass from September and now the liturgical texts are all from the new translation. Even for the Order of Mass, however, there are texts to be discovered. We have only used the third form of the Penitential Act so far, the Apostles' Creed will wait until Lent, and we will begin to use the third Memorial Acclamation from next week.

We used Rejoice the Lord is King /em> a number of weeks ago - at which point the musicians all suggested that they did not know it. So it was worth repeating it again.

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Remembrance Sunday

13 November 2011

Entrance	Eternal Rest (mtgf)
Gloria	Mass of the Angels and Saints (Steven Janco)
Psalm 127	o blessed are those (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Funeral Ikos (John Tavener)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Agnus Dei XVIII (Chant)
Communion	God remembers (Marty Huagen)
	Good and faithful Servant (Andrew Everson)
Final	Lord of all hopefulness

Today we were joined by members of the College Choir which gave us a fuller sound and the opportunity to do a piece such as John Tavener's Funeral Ikos. In preparing today's liturgy there was a balance between the Sunday scriptures, Remembrance and the musical resources. Today is a day when we recall the 65 students who died in the First World War and the 75 in the Second World War. It is also when we remember those, students, staff and local community, who have died in the last year.

I have long thought that though it is possible readings from the Masses for the Dead at one Mass today that the eschatological themes of the Lectionary in these last Sundays of the Year work well so that they are appropriate. I noticed this morning that though you could pigeon hole each piece under a particular category (Remembrance or 33rd Sunday) in the context of the liturgy they spoke more broadly.

An aspect I enjoyed about this morning, and I think worked, was the variety of the music: Plainchant, Orthodox, Gospel, traditional hymn and contemporary liturgical. It worked, I think, because the liturgy provided the space and context. By this I don't mean that the liturgy is necessarily big enough that you can 'bung anything at it' but that if the choices draw their origins from the liturgy, the liturgy deepens the meaning of the chosen pieces. So the choices are about entering mystery and therefore about helping others to enter - participation. I wonder if liturgy is stronger if there are different styles. That one style might be bland and therefore the difference might be about engagement. More importantly it is about the mystery we celebrate is exhaustible in the ways we can approach and begin to understand it.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

6 November 2011

Entrance	Awake, awake fling off the night
Penitential Rite	St Gabriels (mtgf)
Gloria	Mass of the Angels and Saints (Steven Janco)
Psalm 62	For you my soul (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	How far is the night? (Huijbers)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	Lamb of God 6 (mtgf)
Communion	As the deer longs (Bob Hurd)
Final	Love divine

Today's Gospel says Advent is close — in some ways it has already begun. We had 3 Baptisms today so I was pleased how the themes of the liturgy also spoke of baptism. The opening hymn we have not sung for at least 10 years, I think, not with our current hymnbook at least. I like both text and tune - but in the scheme of things there was time to learn the melody so we sang it to WInchester New instead - it fitted quite well and added a further baptismal resonance - the only slight problem was that in wishing to make the hymn inclusive 'men renewed' had become 'people renewed' adding an extra syllable - 'folk' or 'ones' - depending on your level of demotic? As the deer longs both picked up the idea of thirsting for God and had water imagery.

I am fond of 'How far is the night?' a simple idea, well executed - would have even better if we had 6 parts.

Today we began a new Gloria. It is intended that it will be a common setting which we will use on the College Feast Day. It is new to use — but it is a rewritten setting, however, the joins are not obvious to us.

It was interesting today that we had the baptismal parties at the front of Church many of whom may not have been wholly au fait with the new translation and one might have expected this to have 'upset' the local congregation who were further back — but the responses came back good and clear.