The Rite of Election (2010)

Opening Hymn	The Church’s one foundation
Responsorial Psalm	Your love is finer than life (Marty Haugen)
Gospel Acclamation	Praise to you, O Christ (James Walsh)
Enrolment	Take, O take me as I am (John L Bell)
After the Election of the Catechumens	Who calls you by name (David Haas)
Welcome of Candidates	In the Lord (Taizé)
After Welcome of Candidates	Prayer of St Richard of Chichester (Malcolm Archer) — choir
Prayers of Intercession	Lord, in your mercy (mcb)
Recessional Hymn	O praise ye the Lord

The music for today’s packed and happy celebration followed the pattern we’ve laid down over the last few years. The opening hymn surely can’t be bettered, with its second verse beginning Elect from every nation, though we’ve rung the changes with various hymns of praise and thanksgiving for the recessional. David Haas’s Who calls you by name, too, is irresistibly appropriate for this occasion, and the assembly responded well to the call-and-response refrain, which I made time to rehearse with them before the celebration began.

John Bell’s Take, O take me as I am offers a more contemplative reflection on the call to which today’s candidates and catechumens were responding:

Take, O take me as I am
Summon out what I shall be
Set your seal upon my heart
And live in me.

and Malcolm Archer’s extremely Rutterish setting of the well-known prayer of St Richard, including the words May we know thee more clearly, love thee more dearly and follow thee more nearly was a prayer that could be offered not just for today’s protagonists, but for everyone there today, and the whole pilgrim Church.