The Ascension (2012)

Sunday, 20 May 2012

 

Entrance	Praise him as he mounts the skies
Gloria	Mass of the Most Sacred Heart (Jacob Bancks)
Psalm	Ps 46 (Shaun MacCarthy)
Gospel Acclamation	Easter Gospel Acclamation (Brian Luckner)
Preparation of the Gifts	God is gone up (William Croft, 1678-1727)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei	Lamb of God II (mcb)
Communion	I will be with you (Gerald Markland)
Postcommunion	Haec Dies (Charles Wood, 1866-1926)
Recessional	New Praises be given

 

A good mix of music, I thought, including both ancient and modern, and both choral and congregational. We hadn’t sung I will be with you for a good few years, but it was clear from the energetic singing of the refrain by the assembly that this was an old favourite. We sang it as a communion processional song, with the choir supplying the verses, in my arrangement in four parts written thirty years ago this year (gulp) for the choir of Fisher House, Cambridge to sing at the episcopal ordination of Archbishop Couve de Murville in Birmingham.

We had chant too, in the muscular guise of Brian Luckner’s arrangement of O filii et filiae; and in the sung orations and the dialogues between priest and people. I don’t usually give all the sung prayers and dialogues here in our ‘music’ list, but they are the essential backbone of our sung celebration each week. We’re very fortunate to have in Canon Tony and Fr Anthony two priests who take seriously the celebrant’s role in making the Mass an inherently sung rather than spoken event, the way all priests should.