24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

12 September 2010

Entrance	There's wideness in God's mercy (FW Faber)
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Psalm 50	I will leave this place (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Beati (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of Gifts	Out of the depths (Scott Soper)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	Word of God (Quinn/Bach)
Final	Praise my soul the King of heaven

The psalm response is a quotation from the Gospel — the words of the prodigal son. Though both first reading and gospel are about God's mercy the protagonists are different. Moses is seeking mercy for the people of Israel: Have mercy on them perhaps. I am not sure what other examples there are in the Sunday lectionary where the psalm is more (directly) linked to the gospel.

God's mercy permeated the other choices. A penitential psalm at the Preparation of the Gifts — Psalm 129. I decided to choose the first response: Out of the depths rather God of compassion partly because we rarely cry from the depths preferring softer images and seems to me to be occasionally appropriate to give people these words. A second reason was that the second response is not in the hymn book.

I am always struck by the directness of the language of There's a wideness in God's mercy. It is a skill to convey meaning succinctly within one line of a verse. It was also nice to sing some Faber this week as I am sure we shall sing some Newman next week. Word of God was also partly chosen in preparation for later this week. We began with the chorale prelude before singing the hymn. Putting the two side by side it was possible to hear the link between the two of them.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

5 September 2010

Entrance	All that is hidden (Bernadette Farrell)
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Psalm 90	O Lord, you have been our refuge (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	The love of the Lord (Michael Joncas)
Eucharistic Acclamations	Creation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	Restless is the heart (Bernadette Farrell)
Final	Be thou my vision

When All that is hidden was new it seemed to me at least a piece that excited me but doubted that congregations would 'get'. One of choir speaks about trying to introduce it at the time and the group wishing to resolve the final chord — one of the strengths of the piece. The melody of the refrain requires a level of commitment from the congregation for it actually to work. I know that when I have introduced I have said that it may not seem immediately attractive but give it time. Well we have and it seems to have taken root. I think I recall Bernadette saying at the time of composition she thought it too American for here.

We have a regular group who come to Mass from the nearby Roy Kinnear Home which provides care for people with severe learning and physical disabilities. Today we prayed for a member who died a year ago. As often is the case we learnt this late in the day and in some ways I am not sure what we might have done differently as what we sang offered its own consolation I hope — Restless is the heart until it comes to rest in you.

We began our change to our Autumn music today. It is odd to think that this may be the last year in which we sing this translation. I know there are versions fitted to the new translations for these current settings but I think some more thought is needed for how we will move forward. I need to factor this into the forward planning.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

29 August 2010

Entrance	Gather us in (Marty Haugen)
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	Jeanne Jugan Gloria (Christopher Walker)
Psalm 67	In your goodness, O Lord (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	What does the Lord require (mtgf)
Eucharistic Acclamations	No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	Those who eat my flesh (Bob Hurd)
Final	For the healing of the nations

Many years ago when Gather us in was new I remember someone I know saying to me how much they like the song because they felt included in it and quoted the line 'we are the old who yearn for your face'. Though there is always a danger of too many we/me centred texts this sense of affirmation and inclusion — inclusion in the Body of Christ is important. What I now see as intriguing about that comment is realising the person was probably in their mid-50s at the time.
What does the Lord require? uses the familiar text from Micah 6 for the refrain and the verses are a simple chant setting of the Beatitudes. Originally conceived as a piece for a Saint's day — saints as embodying the beatitudes, saints as people who walk humbly with God. Today it picked up the strain of humbleness in both the first reading and the gospel.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time

22 August 2010

Entrance	All are welcome (Marty Haugen)
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	Jeanne Jugan Gloria (Christopher Walker)
Psalm 116	Go out to the whole world (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	Travelling the road to freedom (John Bell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	Those who eat my flesh (Bob Hurd)
Final	Tell out my soul

Size matters and sometimes small is more flexible than large. This often strikes me as we move through the summer. I am a firm believer that one reason that our congregation sings is that we sing every Sunday — it's what we do at Mass. We have an attitude of 'we never close'. I also realise that our smallness makes this easier. At any time one of might not be able to be there but we carry on, adapting if necessary. The two other factors are related and are about recognising the essentials. Firstly Mass repertoire is used consistently over a number of weeks so that, I hope, the congregation can sing it with confidence; secondly the key element of forward planning is the psalm which is always sung. Only occasionally is the Lectionary psalm replaced by another text and then it usually a common psalm.

Enough trumpeting. We sang once more Travelling the Road to freedom picking up the reference at the beginning of the Gospel to the road to Jerusalem which we began to follow a number of weeks back. Bob Hurd's song at communion reflected the antiphon and was written in part, so the composer's notes tell us, in reaction to those who are over precious/zealous about the use of Christ's words and forget the rich tradition of the Church. Amen.

Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

15 August 2010

Entrance	Sing we of the blessed Mother
Penitential Rite	Mass for 3 voices (Byrd)
Gloria	Jeanne Jugan Gloria (Christopher Walker)
Psalm 44	On your right stands the Queen (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	Ave Maris Stella (Monteverdi)
Eucharistic Acclamations	No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	O holy Mary (Owen Alstott)
Final	Hail Queen of heaven

I continue to be surprised by what hymn tunes our congregation knows or doesn't as the case may be. We sang the opening hymn to Abbot's Leigh (very pedantic footnote: the hymn tune has an apostrophe, the village doesn't), which I am sure we did not use last year and when we have used for other texts I am sure the response has been lukewarm. So we took a risk singing it unaccompanied but being unaccompanied we could hear people singing it. If there was any factor that might have changed the congregation's knowledge it may have been that the presider could be heard singing it. And it is a good tune. The text which in some ways is based on the mysteries of the rosary gives a good context to the feast and suits our building with its windows based on the rosary.
The arrangement of the Monteverdi Ave Maris Stella begins and ends with the chant melody on which it is based and so you can hear the skill with which Monteverdi transform this melody into one of rhythmic vitality. The psalm response and verse are also based on the same chant. Ave Maris Stella is the college hymn from which the motto is drawn: Monstra t'esse matrem. The chant is a much more interesting melody than the usual hymn tune.
Today is this blog's first anniversary. For those who wish to wind back the clock you will see there is a great deal of consistency between last year's celebration and this. I hope this is consistency rather than lack of imagination! Though I think that music for the liturgy works well when there is stability — so don't expect many changes this time next year!

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

8 August 2010

Entrance	Lord, you have come to the seashore
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	Jeanne Jugan Gloria (Christopher Walker)
Psalm 32	Happy the people (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	Let nothing trouble you (Bernadette Farrell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	I'll love the Lord (John Bell)
Final	Love divine

I am not sure that today's choices did justice to the texts we heard. As is often in the case hearing the readings proclaimed is a different experience to looking at them on paper. After the event the people that God has chosen as his own seems to ring out. It might even be a week when it was justifiable to sing about 'us' or least the people God has called us to be.

Let nothing trouble you by Bernadette Farrell has the refrain based on a text of St Teresa of Avile whereas the verses offer a rich mosaic of scriptural and liturgical texts. I'll love the Lord from John Bell has a simple responsorial patten with a cantor singing the first line which is varied in the repeat by all; the second phrase follows the same pattern and is followed by a repeat of the first phrase. The text suggest that it might have been written for a parish mission or the Church of Scotland equivalent, at least some sort of recommitment.

For various reasons I did not produce a Mass sheet for the last two weeks - apologies. Apart from the references to the readings it mostly serves as an aide-memoire for the Mass parts. The one exception is the psalm response so that has required extra enunciation these weeks. As the whole congregation is invited sing the complete text of the Gloria I have animated that more than I usually would. My impression is that the Mass parts are generally known and people weren't deterred by the lack of a piece of A5 paper. This does reinforce my apprehension about adapting current setting to the new translation. It seems to me laudable to aim for people to know Mass setting by heart. Though I think possible to change my guess is that we recognise that this not a case of reading and singing a new text (which maybe what the musicians will do) but of alerting the heart.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

1 August 2010

Entrance	Dear Lord and Father
Penitential Rite	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Gloria	Jeanne Jugan Gloria (Christopher Walker)
Psalm 89	O Lord, you have been our refuge (mtgf)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia (Murray)
Preparation of Gifts	In the land (Bernadette Farrell)
Eucharistic Acclamations	No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Lamb of God	St Gabriel (mtgf)
Communion	Where your treasure is (Marty Haugen)
Final	All my hope is founded ( )

Like a number of Sundays in Year C there is an alternative psalm today. I am not sure if the alternative, Psalm 94, was an addition with the 2nd edition and so was meant to clarify the text or is offered as a more familiar alternative to Psalm 89. We went with Psalm 89. So, to crudely paraphrase not - now is the time to listen to God's word - but - now is very short make the most of it.

In the land was when Bernadette Farrell worked for the Eastern pastoral area of Westminster diocese and the diocese was celebrating a Year of the Eucharist. It shows, I think, the influence of the 'Dutch school': Huijbers and Oosterhuis, particularly in the verses. To the strong text and melody Bernadette brings a propulsive harmony.