Monday, October 31, 2011

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time

30 October 2011

EntranceDear Lord and Father of mankind
Penitential RiteSt Gabriels (mtgf)
GloriaSt Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 130Keep me safe (mtgf)
Gospel AcclamationSalisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of GiftsThere is a longing (Anne Quigley)
Eucharistic AcclamationsCreation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of GodLamb of God 6 (mtgf)
CommunionMany are the light beams (Widestrand)
FinalGuide me, O thou great Redeemer

Some small changes this morning. We began using the second Memorial Acclamation 'When we eat' — my intention is to introduce all three so that we do not always turn to the same one. There seems to be a common view that composers in setting the new acclamations either start with one text and then work out what to do with the other or two or at least write one successful acclamation and two other also-rans. So far I am not sure this is true with the revised Mass of Creation; it seems to me that one of its advantages is that each acclamation is distinctive. The other change is that we began using the Lamb of God in a litany rather than a responsorial form - so the congregation comes in with 'you take away…'

I was wondering why I don't think we have used this psalm since it was written in 1999. I presume that the Sunday has been replaced by All Saints in the intervening years,

Sunday, October 23, 2011

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time

23 October 2011

EntranceYour love is finer than life (Marty Haugen)
Penitential RiteSt Gabriels (mtgf)
GloriaSt Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 17I love you, Lord, my strength (mtgf)
Gospel AcclamationSalisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of GiftsNot for tongues (Dudley Smith/Joncas)
Eucharistic AcclamationsCreation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of GodLamb of God 6 (mtgf)
CommunionLove one another (mtgf)
FinalNow thank we all our God ( )

Love of God; love of neighbour. I wanted the opening hymn to be about love of God and the final hymn to be about neighbour and was surprised that hymns about our love for God were not obvious. This seems odd and it may be a comment on my knowledge, our repertoire but my guess is that hymnbooks/writers may be more comfortable with love of neighbour.

So Your love is finer became the opening hymn; it always seems good to start with a psalm.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

16 October 2011

EntranceRejoice the Lord is King
Penitential RiteSt Gabriels (mtgf)
GloriaSt Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 95Give the Lord glory and power (mtgf)
Gospel AcclamationSalisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of GiftsThe love of the Lord (Michael Joncas)
Eucharistic AcclamationsCreation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of GodSt Gabriels (mtgf)
CommunionHe became poor (John Bell)
FinalO God beyond all praising

The image of money shone in a number of ways today. In The Love of the Lord the text takes images from St Paul that we may not have silver or gold but we are rich by our faith in Christ. And at Communion we become rich because Christ became poor.

The hymns took the other part of the image - to render God what is his — due worship.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time

9 October 2011

EntranceAll are welcome (Marty Haugen)
Penitential RiteSt Gabriels (mtgf)
GloriaSt Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 22I shall dwell in the Lord's house (mtgf)
Gospel AcclamationSalisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of GiftsShepherd me, O God (Marty Haugen)
Eucharistic AcclamationsCreation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of GodSt Gabriels (mtgf)
CommunionOne in body, heart and mind (Christopher Walker)
FinalPraise we our God with joy

New members today learnt one of our realties. What do you do when our accompanist is unable to come? Well, you sometimes have to discard the couple of pieces of music you prepared last week. What we replaced them with were part of what I recognise as some of our basic repertoire which is good to build up familiarity with so that it can be used as needed.

Shepherd me, O God was another version of the psalm. I presume the psalm was chosen for the image of a banquet and the Haugen setting reserves the 4 part verse for that text. I though the Walker One in body sound lovely unaccompanied with some gentle 'ahs' underneath the verses.

Monday, October 3, 2011

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

2 October 2011

EntranceHere I am, Lord
Penitential RiteSt Gabriels (mtgf)
GloriaSt Gabriels (mtgf)
Psalm 79The vineyard of the Lord (mtgf)
Gospel AcclamationSalisbury (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of GiftsOurs were the griefs (Stephen Dean)
Eucharistic AcclamationsCreation (Marty Haugen)
Lamb of GodSt Gabriels (mtgf)
CommunionNow we remain (David Haas)
FinalLove divine

Today's Liturgy of the Word is a good example of one of the relationships between the readings. Jesus takes Isaiah's prophecy and retells it - and when the owner of the vineyard sends his son? The psalm response is taken from the first reading and spells out the meaning of the tale — the psalm verses are poetic retelling of the first reading.

There seemed to be a number of options for the Entrance song. Some ideas took the image of the cornerstone from the Gospel — The stone which the builders rejected or Christ is made the sure foundation. For familiarity at the beginning of term we went for Here I am, Lord for the image of being sent.

A new translation note. I have know accompanist during the Eucharistic Prayer desperately needing the text so that they come in at the right time. This is something our accompanist has never needed not because of deep attention to the text but I think an (unconscious) appreciation of rhythm and structure. This does not seem to have been affected by the new translation — in other words he knows his eschatocol from his elbow.