3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

27 January 2013

Entrance	God has spoken through his prophets
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	Newman (James MacMillan)
Psalm 18	Your words are spirit (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Beati (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	God has chosen me (Bernadette Farrell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	St Annes (James MacMillan)
Lamb of God	Newman (James MacMillan)
Communion Antiphon	I am the light of the world (mtgf)
Communion	The spirit of the Lord (Elgar)
Final	The kingdom of God

In the past the ideal time for writing this blog has been Sunday afternoon, while thoughts from the experience have been fresh in my mind. As I have also been helping with music at our Sunday evening Mass as well this writing up time has been lost. Part of the purpose of this blog is to suggest that a strength of the our liturgy is that there is not one 'perfect' choice to be made but different response which are affected by a number of things including the resources available. A theme over the last few weeks has been the lack of good hymnody that seems to speak of what the Lectionary provides. But available resources demand different approaches: in the morning we can at least singGod has spoken to another hymn tune (Austria) than the one given in the hymnbook (Heil'ger Joseph) - a system of some flexibility; in the evening I am aware of, or suspect, a more limited repertoire (I have been surprised that older members of the music group have not know Spirit of the living God or Lord, make me a means of your peace) - I have to admit we do pieces that I would not consider in the morning (unless I was in 'retro' mood, for example, the last hymn in the evening was God's spirit is in my heart. We have been learning new hymns/songs in the evening but I have been concentrating on developing the Mass parts (i.e. a second setting of the new translation).

Using Elgar's The spirit of the Lord had been at the back of my mind for a number of weeks when thinking about this Sunday but I had dismissed it as too difficult. I was surpassed to see when I actually looked at the music that it was predominantly in unison - the hard graft is in the accompaniment. There was a time when I knew what all the various leitmotifs were and I wonder (a little bit) if it truly stands on its own or whether the passing incidence of motifs which will be played out in a whole evening's work make it a little incidental or bitty. It is a good sing and did pick up the gospel of course.