5th Sunday of Easter

6 May 2012

Entrance	Christ is alive
Penitential Rite	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Gloria	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Psalm 21	I will praise your name (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Celtic (O'Carroll/Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Many are the lightbeams (Widestrand arr. Haugen)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Lamb of God	Mass of Wisdom (Steven Janco)
Communion	We have been told (David Haas)
Final	O praise ye the Lord

Today's Responsorial Psalm is a good example of the selectiveness of the Lectioney. It is from the same psalm that is used on Palm Sunday, probably the least hopeful response in the liturgical year, My God, why have you forsaken me? and here it is in the Easter Season - perhaps we are singing the words of Paul: You, Lord are my praise in the great assembly. I notice writing this that I changed the text of the response (probably 9 years ago) to I will praise your name, O Lord, in the assembly of the faithful.

The opening hymn tune Vulpius seems to have different underlay for the Alleluias at the end of each verse in different hymnbooks. I prefer the crotchets (as opposed to minim-crotchet) as it has more rhythmic drive. The division seems to be denominational and reminds me of being in Germany and discovering that for chorales such as Wie schön leuchtet die morgenstern Lutherans and Catholics sang different rhythms (the Lutheran was I think an attempt to restore the original rhythms - neither was that regular) and so were not able to sing together. One in Christ is the refrain of Many are the lightbeams which comes to us via Carthage in North Africa in the 3rd century, Lutheran Sweden, Lutheran US Midwest working in a Catholic context to an English hymnbook.