The Body and Blood of Christ (Year C, 2010)

Entrance	Sweet Sacrament divine
Kyrie	Taizé Kyrie I
Gloria	Coventry Gloria (Peter Jones)
Psalm	Ps 109 (Geoffrey Boulton Smith)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury Alleluia (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of the Gifts	Ave Verum Corpus (Charles Gounod, 1818-1893)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	German Mass (Franz Schubert, arr Richard Proulx)
Agnus Dei	Hurd Mass (Bob Hurd)
Communion	Take and Eat (Michael Joncas)
Postcommunion	O Sacrum Convivium (mcb)
Recessional	O Jesus Christ, remember

Lo, round thy lowly shrine with suppliant hearts we come seemed fitting words for our gathering hymn; more so, perhaps, than to sing a much-loved hymn of Eucharistic adoration such as this one during Communion. At Communion we echoed the words of today’s second reading: this is my body, in Michael Joncas’s Take and eat. Our Lord’s command entails something deeper than adoration: an encounter with Christ from which it is impossible to emerge unchanged.

I wrote my setting of O Sacrum Convivium the week I joined the cathedral choir, in November 1990. It’s my attempt to sound French, I think: not Messiaen, but maybe somewhere around Ravel. Have a listen here if you have the Scorch plugin installed on your computer.