4th Sunday in Ordinary Time

29 January 2012

Entrance	God whose almighty word
Penitential Rite	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Gloria	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Psalm 94	O that today (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Song of God among us (Huijbers)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Lamb of God	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Communion	Blessed are they (Russian)
Final	At the name of Jesus

I don't know when was the last time I used a whole Mass setting. Sometimes this is because there is just a Gloria or, perhaps more often, one movement or section is good and the rest less so. This morning we introduced the Eucharistic Acclamations and Lamb of God. I find the Lamb of God the weakest or least interesting section I think this is both intrinsic but also a complete setting can have a sameness which is static rather than a dynamic unity. As the reason for using this setting now is so that it will be our regular Easter setting - the Lamb of God may be on probation.

We had one of our usual supply priests this morning. In the past he has commented that one of the reasons he enjoys coming to us is that we sing proper hymns - though we only sang the first 3 verses of the last hymn rather than all 7. I do try when shortening a hymn to both pick out the verses which were the reason it was chosen and so that it makes some sort of narrative sense.