4th Sunday of Advent (Year C, 2012)

Sunday, 23 December 2012

 

Entrance	Come Saviour, Come
Kyrie	Missal Chant
Psalm	Ps 79 (James Walsh)
Gospel Acclamation	Advent Gospel Acclamations (Alan Smith)
Preparation of the Gifts	Ave Maria (Edward Elgar, 1857-1934)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Missal Chant
Agnus Dei	Missal Chant
Communion	(i) O Clavis David (ii) Veni Immanuel (Bell)
Postcommunion	Rorate Caeli (Francisco Guerrero, 1528-1599)
Recessional	O come, O come Emmanuel

 

Today’s entrance antiphon begins

Drop down dew from above, you heavens
and let the clouds rain down the Just One;

Two of our musical choices were based on this text. Guerrero’s polyphonic setting uses a composite text that no other composer, to my knowledge, has also set, namely the entrance antiphon text (in Latin) followed by a verse from Ps 84(85) and the words veni Domine, et noli tardare (come Lord, and do not delay). Our entrance song, on the other hand, was Luke Connaughton’s translation of the so-called Advent prose, a seventeenth-century French composition which also takes the beginning of the antiphon text as its refrain, interspersed with penitential verses loosely (I think) derived from Isaiah and others.