28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	Christ is made the sure foundation
Kyrie	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Gloria	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Psalm	Ps 89 (Stephen Dean/James Walsh)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Wisdom, Come Softly (Martin Barry/Diane Murden)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Eucharistic Acclamations (Bernadette Farrell)
Agnus Dei	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Communion	Restless is the heart (Bernadette Farrell)
Postcommunion	O Quam Suavis (William Byrd)
Recessional	All my hope on God is founded

Today’s Communion antiphon The rich suffer want and go hungry, but nothing shall be lacking to those who fear the Lord mirrors the Gospel reading from Mark concerning rich men, camels and needles. We had Byrd’s O Quam Suavis from Book II of the Gradualia of 1607, which includes the line fastidiosos divites dimittens inanes (“sending the haughty rich away empty”). It’s a revolutionary text, like the Magnificat, but here clothed in the most graceful and irenic disguise.

The first reading (Wis 7:7-11), placing wisdom above riches, was the main scriptural source for Diane Murden’s and my Wisdom Come Softly. It was conceived as a piece for Pentecost, with the last verse based on the prayer Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, but it seemed just as appropriate to sing it today. We used to do it as a choir piece, but we’ve sung it enough times in the last eight years for our our assembly to sing it confidently, and we did it that way today.

There was more wisdom in today’s responsorial psalm, Ps 89(90): Make us know the shortness of our life, that we may gain wisdom of heart. This and other verses from the same psalm are also set in Bernadette Farrell’s Restless is the heart. With the refrain echoing St Augustine (from the Confessions), it’s a good addition to our repertoire of Communion processional songs.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	O Perfect Love
Kyrie	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Gloria	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Psalm	Ps 127 (Monaghan)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	You are the Lord of all (Daniel Bath)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Eucharistic Acclamations (Bernadette Farrell)
Agnus Dei	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Communion	Bread of Life (Bernadette Farrell)
Postcommunion	Quaerite primum regnum Dei (G.B. Martini 1706-1784)
Recessional	Love divine, all loves excelling

Today’s readings had the theme of marriage, and our opening and closing hymns reflected this. For O Perfect Love we had Sir Richard Terry’s magnificent tune Highwood, which must be the best hymn tune that (almost) no-one ever sings.

Daniel Bath’s superb setting of today’s entrance antiphon, beginning O Lord, you have given everything its place in the world to my mind worked well at the Preparation of the Gifts, where it didn’t need to be well-known and instantly singable, in the way an entrance song might if it is truly to serve the purpose of fostering the unity of those who have been gathered, as GIRM tells us.

Ed Nowak’s Mass of the Creator Spirit is that extraordinarily rare bird, a musical setting that gives the singing assembly its proper role, while offering something genuinely musically challenging and rewarding for an ambitious choir. The Gloria, in particular, fits the bill, and the fiery organ part holds out interesting challenges too. I wish there were more pieces like it.

Martini was Mozart’s teacher, and by all accounts his setting of the Latin text Seek ye first the kingdom of God was proposed by way of a corrective to a more wayward and inspired setting by his teenage pupil. We’ve done Mozart’s version in the past, and we’ll come back to it soon. It’s much the better of the two.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	All ye who seek a comfort sure
Kyrie	Missa de Angelis
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Ps 18 (McCarthy/Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation	Celtic Alleluia (Fintan O’Carroll)
Creed	Credo III
Preparation of the Gifts	Lord for tomorrow and its needs
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Gathering Mass (Paul Inwood)
Agnus Dei	Mass XVIII & Missa Aeterna Christi Munera (G.P da Palestrina, c. 1525–1594)
Communion	(i) Living Bread, Bread of Heaven (mcb) (ii) O Quam Gloriosum (Tomás Luis de Victoria, 1548–1611)
Postcommunion	Soul of my Saviour
Recessional	Holy God, we praise thy name

Our Mass today was celebrated in the presence of the relics of St Thérèse of Lisieux. The congregation was bigger than I’ve ever seen for a Sunday Mass at the cathedral, and the music was chosen to suit the occasion.

The opening hymn approximately reflected the entrance antiphon—the hymn’s …opens to you his sacred heart, O to that heart draw nigh. Ye hear how kindly he invites… matching the antiphon’s But now show us your greatness of heart, and treat us with your unbounded kindness, while also acknowledging our distinguished visitor with the words Jesus, thou joy of saints on high, thou hope of sinners here, and the highly apposite all ye that labour come to me, and I will give you rest. We used Colin Mawby’s festive arrangement of the tune St Bernard from his collection Hymns for Occasions. I think it set the right tone for a grand and solemn celebration.

For the Communion procession we had a new piece – a simple setting for assembly of some words from Thérèse’s Mon chant d’aujourd’hui:

Pain vivant, Pain du Ciel, divine Eucharistie
O Mystère sacré! que l’Amour a produit…
Viens habiter mon cœur, Jésus, ma blanche Hostie
Rien que pour aujourd’hui.

which I’d paraphrased to:

Living Bread, Bread of Heaven, Eucharist divine
O sacred Mystery, fruit of Love
Come into our hearts, Lord, come into our lives
This is all we ask for today

and in between the refrains, the choir sang verses of Psalm 50(51), beginning A pure heart create for me O God.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	Be thou my vision
Kyrie	Kyrie I (Taizé )
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Ps 53 (Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	All that is hidden (Bernadette Farrell)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Eucharistic Acclamations (Bernadette Farrell)
Agnus Dei	from Beneath the Tree of Life (Marty Haugen)
Communion	In the Lord (Taizé)(alternative text by Paul Inwood)
Postcommunion	Teach me, O Lord (Thomas Attwood, 1765-1838)
Recessional	O God our help in ages past

Another of those Sundays that are difficult to plan for because there seem to be fewer items in our repertoire that directly connect with the readings and propers. But Be thou my vision and All that is hidden linked nicely to the theme of discipleship set out in today’s Gospel reading from Mark:

If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.

Jacques Berthier’s Kyrie I formed the backbone of our Penitential Rite in the third form, with Fr Tony singing the tropes (with the choir accompanying) in between the people’s refrains.

After our recessional hymn Anthony treated us to Bach’s St Anne Fugue in E♭, BWV 552. The striking resemblance of the fugue’s subject to the opening line of the familiar tune for O God, our help in ages past is said to be fortuitous, but the two pieces go together splendidly.

At Communion we had Attwood’s Teach me, O Lord, the way of thy statutes, reflecting today’s Communion antiphon:

You have laid down your precepts to be faithfully kept. May my footsteps be firm in keeping your commands.

Attwood is claimed to have been a “favourite pupil of Mozart”, but judging from the workmanlike simplicity of Teach me, I’m not sure a whole lot actually rubbed off.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	Praise to the holiest
Kyrie	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll
Psalm	Ps 114 (McCarthy/Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury Alleluia (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of the Gifts	Let all mortal flesh keep silence
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Eucharistic Acclamations (Bernadette Farrell)
Agnus Dei	Mass of Christ the King (mcb)
Communion	The Blessing Cup (Sue Furlong)
Postcommunion	Lord Jesu Christ, my life and light, BWV 118 (J.S. Bach)
Recessional	My song is love unknown

In today’s Gospel reading from Mark, Jesus – seen the previous two Sundays as teacher and healer – reveals his impending suffering and death. The first reading and the responsorial psalm reflect the starkness of this disclosure. To get the choir in the right frame of mind for rehearsing O Jesu Christ, mein Lebens Licht (in John Rutter’s excellent translation) I pointed to the phrase “I have set my face like flint” in the first reading from Isaiah, to encapsulate the sense of grave steadfastness in Bach’s solemn motet.

Our opening and closing hymn choices too had a Passiontide feel, though Let all mortal flesh at the preparation of the gifts was intended as a more numinous reflection on Christ’s kingship, acknowledged (obliquely) by Peter in the Gospel reading.

A first outing in three years for Bernadette Farrell’s Eucharistic Acclamations (also published as the Mass of Hope). They have the merit of versatility, working well, in my experience, with parish music group resources, as much as in the solemn and stirring arrangement by Paul Inwood for choir and organ, which is how we did them today.

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	Praise my soul, the king of heaven
Kyrie	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll
Psalm	Ps 145 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Fugue alla Gigue, BWV 577 (J.S. Bach)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion	(i) Like the Deer (mcb) (ii) Godhead here in hiding
Postcommunion	Sicut Cervus (Palestrina)
Recessional	Thou whose almighty Word

We returned from our Summer break today, and were fortunate to have members of Province 1 of the Catenian Association with us once again. As usual for these occasions, the music was chosen to take advantage of the large and enthusiastic singing assembly.

Today’s readings touched on healing, and two of our hymns took up the same theme: Praise my soul, the king of heaven (“ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven”) and Thou whose almighty Word (“Thou who didst come to bring/on thy redeeming wing/healing and sight,
health to the sick in mind, sight to the inly blind, ah! now to all mankind,
let there be light!”)

Psalm 42’s thirsty deer had two contrasting outings, in my simple setting and Palestrina’s famous gem. (One-nil to Palestrina then.)

The Ordinary of the Mass was mix-and-match, the items by Joncas and Schiavone providing instantly accessible but musically strong congregational responses for a gathering of people from disparate worshipping communities with a limited common repertoire. And if anyone didn’t know the Sanctus from the Mass of Creation, perhaps they should have, and they do now.

All that plus Bach’s Jig Fugue during the Preparation of the Gifts, carried off by our inimitable organist with verve and panache, and stuff like that.

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B, 2009)

Entrance	Be Thou My Vision
Gospel Acclamation	Easter Alleluia
Preparation of the Gifts	In Bread We Bring You Lord
Sanctus & Acclamation	Gathering Mass (Paul Inwood)
Communion	This is My Body
Recessional	O Praise our Great and Gracious Lord (tune: Kingsfold)

Not bad for a Sunday with no organist, no choir and no music director. Credit goes to the Dean, Fr Tony, for choosing a sung Gospel Acclamation and sung Eucharistic Acclamations, and for starting everything off barring the Gospel Acclamation, which fell to the reader of the second reading, who just happened to be stood at the ambo at the right time.

Only the last hymn was a little less well-known (I'm told by a Soprano Who Was There), but members of the choir were scattered among the congregation – this is their regular place of worship, after all – and they helped to carry it along.

It doesn't take great musical resources to have an effective sung liturgy; just an understanding of what's important and a willingness to go for it.