4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

Entrance Save us, Lord our God (Christopher Walker)
Kyrie Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Psalm Ps 145 (Rees/Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts Make me a channel of your peace
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei Missa Ubi Caritas
Communion Come to me (Martin Barry/Diane Murden)
Postcommunion The Beatitudes (Bob Chilcott)
Recessional Forth in thy name, O Lord, I go
 

I came across Chris Walker’s sparkling Save us, Lord our God as the curtain raiser to the celebrations in Hyde Park for the Papal visit last year. It's an exact setting (barring an inconsequential and in the Missal text) of the Entrance antiphon from the Missal, coupled with verses from Ps 95(96). Since this antiphon is in the Missal but not the Gradual, it doesn't come with an ‘official’ accompanying psalm; the unpublished ICEL Antiphonal of 1997 proposes Ps 121(122), but Chris Walker’s choice is excellent too.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 
Entrance Bring to the Lord a glad new song (Parry/Perry)
Kyrie Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Gloria Mass for John Carroll
Psalm Ps 26 (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation Here in our Midst (Peter Jones)
Preparation of the Gifts Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion The Lord is my light (Marty Haugen)
Postcommunion A Song of the Light (Simon Lole)
Recessional Shine, Jesus, Shine (Graham Kendrick)
 

Two fabulous hymn tunes by Hubert Parry today – Jerusalem and Repton. Simon Lole’s reworking of Lumen Hilare is also characterised by a finely crafted melody, and it was well-suited to a celebration in which two of the readings and the responsorial psalm talked about Christ our light.

On the same theme we had Graham Kendrick’s either-love-it-or-hate-it barnstormer, in yet another excellent choral arrangement from the RSCM collection Sing with all my soul. This one (by William Llewellyn) has a coruscating choral ending, quoting the last line of Thou whose almighty Word (with which we ended last week’s celebration):

Through the world far and wide,
Let there be light!

with the sopranos ending in three part harmony, including a top B♭. It was properly uplifting, I thought. We stuck with the English version rather than the impressive-looking Latin version. Anyway, if the song was good enough for a Papal Prayer Vigil it was certainly good enough for us.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 
Entrance Let all the world in every corner sing
Kyrie Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Gloria Mass for John Carroll
Psalm Ps 39 (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation Here in our Midst (Peter Jones)
Preparation of the Gifts Jesus the Word has lived among us
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion Behold the Lamb of God (Psallite)
Postcommunion The Lamb (John Tavener)
Recessional Thou whose almighty Word
 

Our opening hymn, setting the words of George Herbert, was a good fit for today’s entrance antiphon:

May all the earth give you worship and praise, and break into song to your name, O God, Most High.

Some of our other music took up John the Baptist’s words of acclamation – there is the Lamb of God – including the antiphon from Psallite accompanying Psalm 34, and Tavener’s setting of William Blake’s poem.

I’m not sure about the latter as sacred music, beautiful and strange though it is. I can't think of many other sung texts addressed not to the persons of God or the saints, or, at a pinch, our fellow human beings here on earth; here the poet apostrophises a common-or-garden lamb. The nearest I can think of is Crux Fidelis, addressing the cross on which our Lord hung, and the nails which held him there. But there’s quite a different between that and this. Any closer suggestions?

Peter Jones’s Gospel acclamation, an exuberant medieval 6/8 folk-dance chiefly in the Dorian mode, goes under several different names – seemingly a different one in each published source. It’s the Wulstan Alleluia or Here in our midst or Alleluia the Christ. Whatever it’s called, it deserves to be more widely known. We adapted the words of the verse slightly: Here in our midst, the Lamb of God.

Baptism of the Lord (Year A, 2011)

Sunday, 9 January 2011

 
Entrance On Jordan’s Bank
Sprinkling Rite Springs of Water (Marty Haugen)
Gloria Gloria de Noël (Thomas Niel)
Psalm Ps 28 (McCarthy/Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation Celtic Alleluia (Fintan O’Carroll)
Preparation of the Gifts Songs of thankfulness and praise
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Gathering Mass (Paul Inwood)
Agnus Dei Mass of the Angels and Saints (Steven Janco)
Communion Spirit of the living God (Daniel Iverson) & Ps 103 (John Ainslie)
Postcommunion O Nata Lux (Thomas Tallis, c. 1505 - 1585)
Recessional Come down, O love divine
 

References to the Holy Spirit during the seasons of Advent and Christmas, it seems to me, are relatively few. So the image of the Spirit descending like a dove, found in today’s Gospel and in those for the other two years of the Lectionary cycle, is a significant one.

We responded to it with Spirit of the living God, interspersed with verses from John Ainslie’s setting of Psalm 103 (104), and with Come down, O love divine, set to the tune Vaughan Williams must have named after his dog.

The Epiphany (2011)

Sunday, 2 January 2011

 
Entrance As with gladness men of old
Gloria Gloria de Noël (Thomas Niel)
Psalm Ps 71 (Eugene Monaghan/Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation Celtic Alleluia (Fintan O’Carroll)
Preparation of the Gifts What child is this
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Gathering Mass (Paul Inwood)
Agnus Dei Mass of the Angels and Saints (Steven Janco)
Communion Laudate Omnes Gentes (Taizé) & Reges Tharsis (chant)
Postcommunion Bethlehem Down (Peter Warlock, 1894-1930)
Recessional The First Nowell
 

Peter Warlock’s Bethlehem Down sets words (by the poet Bruce Blunt) imagining Mary and Joseph pondering what to do with the gifts of the Magi:

“When He is King we will give Him the Kings’ gifts,
Myrrh for its sweetness, and gold for a crown,
Beautiful robes”, said the young girl to Joseph,
Fair with her first-born on Bethlehem Down.

As in Sabine Baring-Gould’s The Infant King, the image of the sleeping child mixes with that of the crucifixion:

When He is King they will clothe Him in gravesheets,
Myrrh for embalming, and wood for a crown,
He that lies now in the white arms of Mary,
Sleeping so lightly on Bethlehem Down.

But the whole ends in tranquility: here and now the baby has what he needs:

Here He has peace and a short while for dreaming,
Close huddled oxen to keep Him from cold,
Mary for love, and for lullaby music
Songs of a shepherd by Bethlehem fold.

The organ packed up just before our recessional hymn, and our visiting organist Anthony Dawson, kindly filling in for our own Anthony, was left pawing a dummy keyboard or four. But I plucked an approximation to F♯ out of the air, and between us the choir and congregation shook the rafters with The First Nowell. Who needs an organ?