25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 23 September 2012

 
Entrance Be thou my vision
Kyrie (Dinah Reindorf)
Gloria Psallite
Psalm Ps 53 (Laurence Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation St Agatha Alleluia (mcb)
Preparation of the Gifts Make me a channel of your peace
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei from No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Communion In the Lord (Taizé) (alternative words by Paul Inwood)
Postcommunion Cantique de Jean Racine (Gabriel Fauré, 1845–1924)
Recessional O God our help in ages past
 

Today’s second reading, from St James, speaks of peace:

Peacemakers, when they work for peace, sow the seeds which will bear fruit in holiness.

We sang Sebastian Temple’s much loved setting of the text often known as the Prayer of St Francis, but which actually seems to have been first published in 1912 in France. As a child in school I remember singing it with the section beginning O master, grant that I may never seek… used as a refrain separating the verses. In recent hymn books that section is usually labelled verse 3, with the first two verses sung in succession before it. I like it better with the recurring refrain, and I’m pleased that the version we sang today – William Llewellyn’s arrangement from the RSCM collection Sing with all my soul takes the same view.

We haven’t sung the Angus Dei from Michael Joncas’s collection No Greater Love for two or three years. Its verses, drawn from 1 Corinthians 10, John 6 and the Didache, are (I imagine) out of line with the prescriptions regarding sticking to the text, which accompanied the introduction of the new translation of the Missal last year. So we confined ourselves to three repetitions of the strong and memorable refrain, with just a bar in between on the organ to catch one’s breath. I thought it worked well.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 16 September 2012

 
Entrance Praise to the holiest
Kyrie Kyrie Litany for Lent from Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd) [UC 46]
Gloria Missa Ubi Caritas
Psalm Ps 114 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation St Agatha Alleluia (mcb)
Preparation of the Gifts The servant King (Graham Kendrick)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Missa Ubi Caritas
Agnus Dei Missa Ubi Caritas
Communion Our blessing cup (Michael Joncas) & verses from Ps 115(116) (Stephen Dean)
Postcommunion Lord Jesu Christ, my life and light, BWV 118 (J.S. Bach)
Recessional My song is love unknown
 

Michael Joncas’s setting of the Communion antiphon text has a tuneful refrain, but the wide tessitura of the verses makes them rather more soloistic than to my mind would be ideal for a Communion song. I expect that means that this particular setting is better suited to use as the responsorial psalm for Holy Thursday; in any event, we got round the problem by singing chant verses from Ps 115(116) to a tone by Stephen Dean. This also meant that the song could be prolonged to cover more of the Communion procession than Joncas’s two verses, so in all it felt like a successful adaptation of the original.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2012)

Sunday, 9 September 2012

 
Entrance Your hands, O Lord
Kyrie Kyrie Litany for Lent from Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Gloria Missa Ubi Caritas
Psalm Ps 145 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation St Agatha Alleluia (mcb)
Preparation of the Gifts Do not be afraid
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Missa Ubi Caritas
Agnus Dei Missa Ubi Caritas
Communion As the deer longs (Bob Hurd)
Postcommunion All things bright and beautiful (John Rutter)
Recessional Thou whose almighty Word
 

Tday’s Gospel reading told of the healing of a man unable to hear, or to speak clearly, and our opening and closing hymns took up the healing theme. The first reading, from Isaiah, also talked of healing, with the words Do not be afraid, and at the Preparation of the Gifts Gerald Markland’s hymn set the same words from elsewhere in Isaiah.

At the end of the Gospel story, our Lord’s act of healing is acclaimed with the words He has done all things well, a phrase echoed in Cecil Alexander’s hymn All things bright and beautiful:

He gave us eyes to see them
And lips that we might tell
How great is God Almighty
Who has made all things well

which we sang in John Rutter’s charming choral setting.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

Sunday, 2 September 2012

 
Entrance Praise my soul, the King of heaven
Kyrie Kyrie I (Taizé)
Gloria Glory to God (Peter Jones)
Psalm The just will live (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation Easter Alleluia (chant)
Preparation of the Gifts O Lord, you are good (mcb)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei Take and Eat (Michael Joncas/Gary Daigle)
Communion Come to me (Martin Barry/Diane Murden)
Postcommunion Lead me, Lord (Samuel Sebastian Wesley, 1810-1876)
Recessional Tell out, my soul
 

A small but perfectly-formed subset of the choir reassembled for our first outing since the summer break. As usual for the first Sunday in September, we were joined by a large contingent from Province 1 of the Catenian Association, who sang with as much verve as ever. This was the first Sunday for a few years when their visit coincided not with the 23rd Sunday but the 22nd. (I wonder if they imagined until this week that the only motet we knew was Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus?)

Our song at the Preparation of the Gifts was a setting of the same psalm as the Entrance Antiphon text from Ps 85(86):

O Lord, you are good and forgiving
Full of mercy to all who call to you

while our opening hymn had similar themes taken from Ps 102(103).

The readings spoke of following the Lord’s commandments, as did Samuel Wesley’s simple choral anthem, setting the psalm verses Ps 4:8 and Ps 5:8.