30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

 

Entrance	Dear Lord and Father of mankind
Kyrie	Taizé Kyrie I
Gloria	Coventry Gloria (Peter Jones)
Psalm	The cry of the poor (John Foley)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	My God, accept my heart this day
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	(Alan Rees)
Communion	Take, O take me as I am (John L Bell)
Postcommunion	Jubilate Deo (Orlande de Lassus, c. 1532-1594)
Recessional	Fight the good fight

 

It was a day for trying to live up to the challenges set out in the readings. Our offertory and communion songs both aimed to capture the humility of the tax collector in today’s Gospel story. Then for our recessional hymn we took up St Paul’s good fight from the second reading.

We rejoiced too, in thanksgiving after Communion, taking up the idea expressed in the antiphon:

We will rejoice at the victory of God and make our boast in his great name.

in the exuberant setting of the opening of Psalm 99 by Lassus. We may have got carried away at the end.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

 

Entrance	All ye who seek a comfort sure
Kyrie	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Gloria	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Psalm	Ps 120 (Claire Lee & Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury Alleluia (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of the Gifts	Lord, for tomorrow and its needs
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Communion	I lift up my eyes (David Ogden)
Postcommunion	God so loved the world (John Stainer, 1840-1901)
Recessional	Be thou my vision

 

Today’s Gospel reading from St Luke talks of the need to pray continually and never lose heart. Fr Tony’s homily, on personal prayer, also followed this theme. Our hymn at the Preparation of the Gifts was an old favourite on the same subject. The words are by a Sister M. Xavier, who (internet searches reveal) was Sybil Farish Partridge (1856-1917), in religion Sister Mary Xavier of the convent of Notre Dame, in Mount Pleasant, Liverpool. The words bear a resemblance to Mon chant d’aujourd’hui by St Therèse of Lisieux, though the latter is dated 1894, twenty years after our hymn was written. Perhaps the shared simple piety of the two nuns is just an unsurprising coincidence.

Stainer’s God so loved the world was intended as a reflection on one of the Communion antiphons proposed in the Missal for today:

The Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many.

The piece allows for plenty of drama, but for me its still centre is formed by the words but that the world through him might be saved. The silences which punctuate the piece are as important as its musical phrases.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Sunday, 10 October 2010

Entrance	All people that on earth do dwell
Kyrie	Kyrie II from Paschal Mass (Alan Rees)
Gloria	Glory to God in the Highest (John L Bell)
Psalm	Ps 97: The Lord has shown his salvation (Geoffrey Boulton Smith)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury Alleluia (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of the Gifts	Domine, non sum dignus (Tomás Luis de Victoria c. 1548-1611)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	(Alan Rees)
Communion	Now we remain (David Haas)
Postcommunion	He hath filled the hungry (Felix Mendelssohn, 1809-1847)
Recessional	Thanks be to God (Stephen Dean)

 

Today’s Communion antiphon, from Ps 33:

The rich suffer want and go hungry, but nothing shall be lacking to those who fear the Lord

finds an echo in the Magnificat:

He hath filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he hath sent empty away

We sang these lines from Mendelssohn’s unaccompanied setting, Op 69 no 3. This section is scored for four soloists, but it makes for a luminous and direct choir piece.

The story in St Luke’s Gospel of the healing of the lepers prompted us to pray for our own healing in the words of the centurion (in Matthew 8:8), set by Victoria, and to give thanks in our final hymn.

The second reading, from 2 Timothy, included the words

If we have died with him, then we shall live with him

The final, dramatic verse of David Haas’s Now we remain paraphrases this to

For to live with the Lord, we must die with the Lord

Inverting the two clauses like this turns St Paul’s words from consolation to challenge.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

 

Entrance	O thou who camest from above
Kyrie	Kyrie for 3 voices adapted from Byrd (mcb)
Gloria	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Psalm	O that today (Chris O’Hara)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	You are the Lord of all (Daniel Bath)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	(Alan Rees)
Communion	How good is the Lord to all (mcb)
Postcommunion	Oculi Omnium (William Byrd c. 1540 - 1623)
Recessional	All my hope on God is founded

 

Fan into a flame the gift that God gave you were St Paul’s words in this morning’s second reading. Our opening hymn took the same image:

O thou who camest from above
The fire celestial to impart,
Kindle a flame of sacred love
On the mean altar of my heart.

Today’s Communion antiphon came from Lamentations:

The Lord is good to those who hope in him, to those who are searching for his love.

Our music sounded the same note of reassurance with texts from Ps 144(145): firstly, our processional song (written first as a responsorial psalm for a wedding), with the words

He is close to all who call him, who call on him from their hearts

and then in William Byrd’s setting of lines from the same psalm, from Book I of the Gradualia of 1605. Having already sung verses form the psalm during the procession, we confined ourselves today to the opening section (the four-part setting of the Latin text The eyes of all creatures hope in you, Lord, and you give them food in due season). The remainder of this fine piece is an ongoing project for us, perhaps to be revisited when the psalm appears as Communion antiphon or responsorial psalm next year: respectively the twelfth and eighteenth Sundays in Ordinary time.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Sunday, 26 September 2010

Entrance	Immortal, Invisible
Kyrie	Kyrie II from Paschal Mass (Alan Rees)
Gloria	Glory to God in the Highest (John L Bell)
Psalm	Ps 145 (Stephen Dean)
Gospel Acclamation	Salisbury Alleluia (Christopher Walker)
Preparation of the Gifts	A touching place (John L Bell)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	Mass of Christ the King (mcb)
Communion	Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Postcommunion	O Quam Suavis (William Byrd, c. 1540-1623)
Recessional	Lord, whose love in humble service

The Gospel story of the rich man and Lazarus, and the responsorial psalm, taken from Ps 145(146), prompted several of our musical selections, extolling God’s preferential option for the poor, and declaring our aim to live up to it. In John Bell’s words:

To the lost Christ shows his face
To the unloved he gives his embrace
To those who cry in pain or disgrace
Christ makes, with his friends, a touching place

O quam suavis is an antiphon for the feast of Corpus Christi, and it includes the line inspired by the Magnificat: esurientes reples bonis (you fill the hungry with good things). Byrd’s elaborate and extended setting finds a new musical idea for each successive image in the text, moving serenely from episode to episode and ending almost militantly – boldly, at least – on the words divites dimittens inanes (sending the rich away empty).

In our recessional hymn Lord, whose love in humble service, with words by Albert F Bayly (1901-1984) and sung to the tune Abbots Leigh, we set ourselves the same Gospel challenge of compassion for the poor:

Called from worship into service
forth in your great name we go
to the child, the youth, the aged,
love in living deeds to show;
hope and health, good will and comfort,
counsel, aid, and peace we give,
that your children, Lord, in freedom
may your mercy know, and live.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Sunday, 19 September 2010

Entrance	Christ, be our light (Bernadette Farrell)
Kyrie	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Gloria	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Psalm	Ps 112 (Paul Wellicome)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	Blest are the pure in heart
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Mass of Creation (Marty Haugen)
Agnus Dei	Mass of the Creator Spirit
Communion	Where your treasure is (Marty Haugen)
Postcommunion	Laudate Dominum (William Croft, 1678-1727)
Recessional	Praise to the Holiest

 

Several of our musical selections coincided with those at the Mass of Beatification of John Henry Newman, which took place in Birmingham this morning. As at Cofton Park, we had Bernadette Farrell’s Christ, be our light, Blest are the pure in heart, Paul Wellicome’s new setting of Ps 112 and Newman’s own Praise to the holiest, which tied in with this morning’s second reading from the letter of St Paul to Timothy:

there is only one mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus, who sacrificed himself as a ransom for them all.

echoed by Newman’s

O generous love! That he, who smote
in man for man the foe,
the double agony in man
for man should undergo.

Yet another fine song from the prolific Marty Haugen took up the challenge of today’s Gospel reading: you cannot be the slave both of God and money:

Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be.
All that you possess will never set you free.
Seek the things that last; come and learn from me.
Where your treasure is your heart shall be.

Papal Prayer Vigil, Hyde Park

Saturday, 18 September 2010

Eight of our number joined the ranks of the choir of singers from round the dioceses, for the Vigil of Prayer led by Pope Benedict in Hyde Park. 150-odd singers joined forces with the excellent New English Orchestra and Singers, all led by the energetic and charismatic Nigel Swinford, for a day of eclectic music-making. The programme ranged from plainchant (Tantum Ergo Sacramentum) to Graham Kendrick (Shine, Jesus, Shine), with every genre of devotional song in between. The Hallelujah Chorus, Chris Walker’s Save us, Lord our God, Jacques Berthier’s Adoramus Te, Domine and Cardinal Newman’s own Lead, Kindly Light went by in a blur; and there was lots more too.

Preparations for the event had their ups and downs, and it wasn’t until the second day of rehearsals (the day before the event) that things came together as they needed to. But the vicissitudes of organisation and rehearsal were swept away during the Vigil itself, in a celebration which, to my mind, was stunningly, movingly prayerful.