4th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Entrance Be thou my vision
Kyrie (Dinah Reindorf)
Gloria Glory to God in the Highest (John LBell)
Psalm Ps 70 (Sebastian Wolff)
Gospel Acclamation Sing a New Song (John L Bell)
Preparation of the Gifts Not for tongues of heaven’s angels (Timothy Dudley-Smith/Stephen Dean)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Community Mass (Richard Proulx)
Agnus Dei Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Postcommunion The Lord bless you and keep you (John Rutter)
Recessional All my hope on God is founded

Timothy Dudley-Smith’s hymn Not for tongues of heaven’s angels is a skilful setting of text from today’s second reading (1 Corinthians 12:31-13:13). The first two verses run:

Not for tongues of heaven's angels,
not for wisdom to discern,
not for faith that masters mountains,
for this better gift we yearn:
May love be ours, O Lord.

Love is humble, love is gentle,
love is tender, true, and kind;
love is gracious, ever patient,
generous of heart and mind:
May love be ours, O Lord.

There’s a musical setting by Michael Joncas which we’ve tried in the past, but I prefer the hymn tune version by Stephen Dean in Elgarian mood. Both are in Laudate.

Today’s Communion antiphon from Ps 30(31) included the words:

Let your face shine on your servant, and save me by your love.

We had John Rutter’s setting of the well-known text from Numbers 6, using the same image:

The Lord bless you and keep you,
The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you.
The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Entrance Bring to the Lord a glad new song (Michael Perry/C.H.H. Parry)
Kyrie Kyrie 2 from A Community Mass (Richard Proulx)
Gloria Glory to God in the Highest (John L Bell)
Psalm Ps 18 (McCarthy/Bévenot)
Gospel Acclamation Sing a New Song (John L Bell)
Preparation of the Gifts God has chosen me (Bernadette Farrell)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Community Mass (Proulx)
Agnus Dei from No Greater Love (Michael Joncas)
Communion Taste and See (Richard Proulx)
Postcommunion Haec Dies (Ludovico Viadana, 1564-1645)
Recessional Hail to the Lord’s anointed

In today’s first reading from Nehemiah the phrase This day is sacred to the/our Lord occurs twice. Viadana’s Haec Dies takes a different phrase – This is the day that the Lord has made – this time from Psalm 117(118), but embodying the same exhortation to rejoicing on the Lord’s day. The latter text is one especially associated with Easter, but for the ancient Church, and still today, every Sunday was and is Easter Sunday.

The Communion antiphon today was from Psalm 33(34):

Look up at the Lord with gladness and smile; your face will never be ashamed.

Richard Proulx’s Taste and See sets several verses, including this one, from the same Psalm. It's another entry on that short list of pieces which both challenge the choir and also give the people their proper role.

The same might be said of John Bell’s Sing a new song, with its Alleluia refrain imitating the alternating 6/8 and 3/4 of Leonard Bernstein’s America, and verses setting Psalm 95(96). This psalm provided the text of today’s entrance antiphon, and in addition to determining our choice of opening hymn, it also served, in John Bell’s setting, as a fitting way to acclaim the Gospel.

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C, 2010)

Entrance Praise to the Lord, the almighty
Kyrie Kyrie II from Paschal Mass (Alan Rees)
Gloria Glory to God in the highest (John L Bell)
Psalm Ps 95 (Eugene Monaghan/A Gregory Murray)
Gospel Acclamation Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts Cantate Domino (Giuseppe Pitoni, 1657-1743)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Community Mass (Richard Proulx)
Agnus Dei Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion Draw nigh and take the body of the Lord
Postcommunion Venite Comedite (William Byrd, c. 1540-1623)
Recessional O praise ye the Lord

Byrd’s Venite Comedite from Book II of the Gradualia sets the text of the Tract from the Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament:

Come, eat my bread, and drink the wine which I have mingled for you. (Proverbs 9:5)

It's one of the rare traditional liturgical texts which uses the word wine in a context referring to the Lord’s blood; a fitting text anyway, I thought, to accompany today’s Gospel reading recounting the wedding feast at Cana.

Modern writers tend to make more free with the W-word, as for instance in Bernadette Farrell’s

Hear our prayer, through this bread and wine we share.

Perhaps the traditional text we sang today indicates that those modern writers are not in the wrong.

Baptism of the Lord, (Year C, 2010)

Entrance Song of Consolation (Peter Jones)
Sprinkling Rite Springs of Water (Marty Haugen)
Gloria Glory to God in the Highest (John L Bell)
Psalm Ps 103 (Hall/Forrester)
Gospel Acclamation Celtic Alleluia (Fintan O’Carroll)
Preparation of the Gifts Songs of thankfulness and praise
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Community Mass (Richard Proulx)
Agnus Dei Holy Family Mass (John Schiavone)
Communion Spirit of the living God
Postcommunion O nata lux (Thomas Tallis, c.1505-1585)
Recessional Come down, O love divine

The water supply was cut off this morning at Cathedral House (a consequence of a burst water main leading to a broken pump). I sent a text round to all choir members warning them that there’d be no access to, ahem, essential facilities, but they declared themselves to be made of strong stuff by turning out in good number, and only one member, I think, had to disappear from our morning rehearsal to nip down the road to Sainsburys.

The music, it turned out, had all been chosen to underline our plight: from Marty Haugen’s Springs of Water (though obviously it was appropriate to omit the verse mentioning bogs) to And so the yearning strong in the final verse of our final hymn. Never has a truer word been sung, or with more earnestness.

Normal services, we hope, will be restored next week.

The Epiphany (2010)

Entrance As with gladness men of old
Gloria Gloria de Noël (Thomas Niel)
Psalm Every Nation on Earth (Marty Haugen)
Gospel Acclamation Celtic Alleluia (Fintan O’Carroll)
Preparation of the Gifts O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen Missa Ubi Caritas (Bob Hurd)
Agnus Dei Missa Ubi Caritas
Communion Laudate Omnes Gentes (Jacques Berthier) & Reges Tharsis (chant)
Postcommunion The Coventry Carol (trad., arr Martin Shaw)
Recessional The First Nowell

For our Communion processional song we took the short responsories for Terce, Sext and None of today’s feast, and interleaved them between repetitions of the Taizé refrain Laudate omnes gentes. The chant is simple but the rhythm of alternating plainchant and people’s refrain was effective, I thought, in creating the right atmosphere of purposeful prayer.

In the Coventry Carol we contrasted the women’s and men’s voices, each in three parts, in successive verses, which allowed a more dramatic exploration of the cruelty and the grief at the heart of the story than if we’d sung it straight.