Sunday 30 March 2014

4th Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

  • Entrance:   Here I am Lord - Dan Schutte
  • Psalm:       The Lord's my Shepherd - CRIMOND
  • Offertory:  Open my Eyes Lord - Jesse Manibusan
  • Communion:   You are Near - Dan Schutte 
  • Sending:          Amazing Grace
  • Impromptu afterwards:   A Mother's Love is a Blessing

What I'd like to have sung

Today it looked like we weren't going to have a musician, so the first-cut list was based on what I had backing tracks that I think the congregation would sing to without strong leadership.   (We haven't tried unaccompanied since moving to the new building.)

However it turned out that a strong musician was available after all, so we switched off the CD player, and she had a sense of using "You are Near" instead of the instrumental "God of Mercy and Compassion" that was planned.    Didn't try to change any of the rest at short notice, though.

City of God fitted the readings a little better, but we thought it was a little too cheerful for Lent, and also because the parish mass included a memorial for the brother of one of our leadership team - a lovely man who's done an incredible amount for the parish.

And I wish I'd had a backing track for something appropriate for Mother's Day - must keep an eye out for that.

Sunday 23 March 2014

3rd Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

  • Entrance: How Great Thou Art
  • Psalm: we didn't
  • Offertory: I Will Give You Living Water - Maddec
  • Communion: Only a Shadow
  • Sending: Our God Reigns

What I'd like to have sung:

There's a setting of today's psalm "O that today you would listen to his voice, harden not your hearts" in my head, and looking at the files on my computer I see that I've never been able to find out where it came from. But there are verses, the first one starts "Let us sing for joy to the Lord, let us hail the God who is our saviour;". Mmm, must search more on this.

Also, I was remembering Frank Andersen's "Come to the Water" - although it's only somewhat related.

And there must be some hymns about of Moses striking the rock at Horeb - it's such a good story that I'm sure some hymn-writers have worked with it.

The overall tone was a little more cheerful and not as Lent-ish as I would have liked, but we're likely to head that way next week.

Sunday 16 March 2014

2nd Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

  • Entrance:   How Great Thou Art - Stuart Hine
  • Psalm:       Not sung
  • Offertory:  My God Accept my Heart this Day - Bridges
  • Communion:   Céad Míle Fáilte Romhat
  • Sending:          As I Kneel Before You

On holiday from the regular parish this Sunday - they'll get my company tomorrow for St Patrick's day instead.    So went to an inner city church.   Thoughtful sermon about looking for truth vs looking for love, which was linked back to the day's scripture.    I couldn't see any links in the hymns though.   But people have started singing, which is a big step up since I was last there a couple of years back.

What I'd like to have sung:

Shine Jesus Shine.    Well maybe not exactly liked - it's a bit too charismatic for my tastes.   But this is the one day when it's such a fantastic fit for the readings that it seems almost compulsory.

The psalm:  there's a Frank Andersen (I think) setting of "May your love be upon us O Lord as we place our hope in You" lodged in my mind.    Can't find the music for it, but it's what I wanted to sing this week.

Wednesday 12 March 2014

Use of music is the New Testament vs Old Testament

Spotted this interesting sentence in a mailing list that I read:
"Music is mentioned fairly infrequently in the New Testament ... but in both spots that Paul mentions it, he mentions it in the context of the congregation doing things to each other (encourage, admonish). We seem to have flipped this and think one of two things; it's either the congregants doing something to/for God, or it's the stage-peeps doing something to/for the congregants.
This should not be. It should be to glorify God and to encourage each other. No "worship bubbles" where I just praise God in my own way and forget anyone else is around, and no "audience" worship, where I just watch someone else worship..."

This is one of those ideas what I'd love to unpack some more, and dig into questions like:

  • What's the difference in use of music in the OT and NT?
  • What does this difference tell us about how Christ-focussed liturgy should be?


It's going to have to wait until another day though:  so many interesting topics, so little time!





Sunday 9 March 2014

1st Sunday of Lent, Year A

What we sang 

  • Entrance:   Christ be Beside Me
  • Psalm:  Spoken
  • Offertory:   Instrumental
  • Communion:  Ubi Caritas
  • Sending:  Bind us Together

What I'd like to have sung:

The psalm:  I've known an arrangement of Create in me a New Heart (it feels like) forever.   Never found it published anywhere, it must be one that travelled "through the ether" back in the 1980s.   I did once see a cowboy version of it on YouTube -and tried to put that sound out of my mind ever since!      And though I've sung some fancy Miserere settings in choirs, none of them have the same impact on me as the English words do.

Also, while I was listening to the readings yesterday, John Foley's Turn to Me kept coming to mind, more for the tone of it than any particular words.    It's been a while since I was in a parish with the musical resources to pull it off, so it's definitely one that I miss.

Sunday 2 March 2014

Expressing the mystery of faith, in sound - and evangelising in the concert hall

Came across an interesting quote (reportedly) from JPII today, while researching a hymn:

Today, as yesterday, musicians, composers, liturgical chapel cantors, church organists and instrumentalists .... should be especially conscious of the fact that each of their creations or interpretations cannot escape the requirement of being a work that is inspired, appropriate and attentive to aesthetic dignity, transformed into a prayer of worship when, in the course of the liturgy, it expresses the mystery of faith in sound.

It's attributed to JPII "in one of his letters" in a paper by NAJI HAKIM titled "Music in the Catholic liturgy in France at the end of the 20th century" (ref: http://www.najihakim.com/writings/musiqliturgifr-e.html

The paper itself is quite depressing: yet another "professional" musician who thinks that the pipe organ is the be-all-and-end-all of church music, doesn't think that active participation requires more than just listening, and thinks that musical activity should NOT be the realm of everyone.

But the quote above can be interpreted in a different way: it's saying that in by the nature of liturgy, musical pieces that are

  • inspired (ie motivated by Godly thoughts about God or sacred topics)
  • appropriate (ie fits the situation it is played in - which includes the age, culture, etc of the people present)
  • attentive to aesthetic dignity (ie match the cultural expectations of "beauty" that the listeners have)

are changed so that they express faith in sound.

I'd take that even further:   various musical forms with heavy percussion or a strong emphasis on rhythm (think tribal drumming or Irish music) both require and develop a high level unity.  

And the paper makes one interesting point:

"... today on a large scale within the French Catholic cultural landscape - musical art inspired by Christianity has deserted the liturgy and taken refuge in concerts or in recordings"

That's by no means uniquely French: all over the world, people with "high art" musical tastes and faiths that reject all "liturgical trappings" or no faith at all - see no irony in going to concert performance of Masses, Requiems, Magnificats and the like.

It seems to me that Christian artists have one of the best chances of evangelising a very difficult-to-reach group - maybe just maybe the work that they put into the concert hall actually has as much importance as any church-sanctioned liturgy.

8th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

What we sang 

  • Entrance:  Seek Ye First - a last blast of Alleluias before Lent
  • Psalm:  John Michael Talbot's Only in God - http://youtu.be/HAiGAyp22JI 
  • Offertory:  Isaiah 49 / I will never forget you my people - Landry 
  • Communion: Hiding Place - Liam Lawton 
  • Sending:   Our God Reigns


What I'd like to have sung:

I really had John Foley's Only in God (http://youtu.be/t4Cw-NH9lYU) in mind for today, but our musician suggested the Talbot one instead.   Musically Foley's work is probably better - but the Talbot one has been in my head all afternoon so practically pretty successful.

And if we hadn't done Isaiah 49, then the Schutte "Though the Mountains may Fall" would have been an obvious choice.