6th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

Sunday, 13 February 2011

 

Entrance	O God, thy people gather
Kyrie	Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Ps 118 (Martin Hall)
Gospel Acclamation	Here in our Midst (Peter Jones)
Preparation of the Gifts	Eye has not seen (Marty Haugen)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	from Beneath the Tree of Life (Marty Haugen)
Communion	Teach me, O God (Christopher Walker)
Postcommunion	Tantum Ergo (Maurice Duruflé, 1902-1986)
Recessional	Praise the Lord, ye heavens adore him

 

Today’s second reading, from Corinthians, spoke of

the things that no eye has seen and no ear has heard, things beyond the mind of man, all that God has prepared for those who love him.

Our song at the preparation of the gifts was Marty Haugen’s thoughtful setting of the same text.

The first reading, the responsorial psalm and the Gospel reading all talked about the law, and our Lord’s completion of it. So Chris Walker’s Teach me, O God, to follow your ways was our communion song.

Christ’s completion of the law finds its fulfilment above all in the Eucharist. In the words of Thomas Aquinas,

Et antiquum documentum
novo cedat ritui

(And let the old practice yield to the new rite.)

We sang Duruflé’s dreamlike setting of the traditional chant melody. I’m pretty sure I could hear some older members of the congregation humming along.

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

 

Entrance	Come, ring out your joy (arr. Martin Foster)
Kyrie	Jubilation Mass (James Chepponis)
Gloria	Mass for John Carroll (Michael Joncas)
Psalm	Good people are a light (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Christ be our light (Bernadette Farrell)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Assisi Acclamations (Nick Baty)
Agnus Dei	from Beneath the Tree of Life (Marty Haugen)
Communion	Blest are they, the poor in spirit (David Haas)
Postcommunion	Beati Quorum Via (Charles Villiers Stanford, 1852-1924)
Recessional	Tell out, my soul

 

Martin Foster’s setting of Psalm 94(95), from which today’s entrance antiphon is drawn, to the music of the 17th Century Peruvian Hanacpachap Cussicuinin, made for an imposing Entrance Song. We used the opening verse

Come, ring out your joy to God,
Hail, the Lord, the rock who saves us
Let us come before him giving thanks,
With songs let us hail the Lord.

as a refrain, which the people joined in with heartily, while the choir supplied some of the other verses, variously in two- and three part harmony for women’s and men’s voices.

Our final hymn, well-known as an adaptation of the Magnificat, echoed the communion antiphon from Ps 106(107): He has filled the hungry with good things.

Today’s readings spoke of the good and the just as a light shining in the darkness. Stanford’s unaccompanied six-part motet Beati quorum via extols the same virtues. It would have done nicely for next week too, when the psalm response is They are happy who follow God’s law.

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?