26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A, 2011)

Sunday, 25 September 2011

 

Entrance	O God, thy people gather
Kyrie	Mass of the Creator Spirit (Ed Nowak)
Gloria	Mass of the Most Sacred Heart (Jacob Bancks)
Psalm	Remember your mercy (Paul Inwood)
Gospel Acclamation	Alleluia Mode 2 (Plainchant)
Preparation of the Gifts	The Servant King (Graham Kendrick)
Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen	Spring Sanctus (mcb)
Agnus Dei	Belmont Mass (Christopher Walker)
Communion	Christ laid down his life for us (Psallite)
Postcommunion	Christus Factus Est (Felice Anerio, 1560-1614)
Recessional	At the name of Jesus

 

Today’s second reading included the magnificent hymn to Christ’s kenosis (‘emptying’):

His state was divine,
yet he did not cling
to his equality with God
but emptied himself
to assume the condition of a slave,
and became as men are;
and being as all men are,
he was humbler yet,
even to accepting death,
death on a cross.
But God raised him high
and gave him the name
which is above all names
so that all beings
in the heavens, on earth and in the underworld
should bend the knee at this name of Jesus
and every tongue should acclaim
Jesus Christ as Lord
to the glory of God the Father.

Anerio’s setting of the key central section of the hymn is one we sing often as the Gospel acclamation for Good Friday, but today was different: on Good Friday we sing the words with defiance, in the face of our Lord’s shocking death; today we sang in full acknowledgement of the resurrection.

Musically the difference came in the section in triple time beginning Propter quod et Deus exaltavit illum (‘But God raised him high’). For Good Friday we keep the tempo the same; today we skipped along at three-in-the-space-of-two, and the sense of irrepressible joy was, well, irrepressible.