October 7, 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Prelude (Saturday 5pm): One is the Body
Opening: This is a day of new beginnings (GC 453)
Psalm: 95—If Today you hear his voice (PRM C97)
Presentation: Lord, whose love in humble service (WS 674)
At 10:45: The Love of Christ compels us
Communion:
At 5pm Saturday (Ensemble): Come and let us worship God! (Uganda)
At 10:45 Sunday (choir): This is the Body of Christ (Bell)
All liturgies: Christ, be our light (GC 512)
Closing: Come, Holy Spirit, wind and fire (WS 531)
Another difficult week for which to select music! I tried to stress the themes of hope, faith, and humility in the music selections. The general aura of patience and trust that comes through in the readings, the admonition to wait for the promise’s fulfillment and trust that even though we are not able to see and touch it it is there for us at the right moment…the reminder that this is simply what we are called to do, humbly and without question…(in hindsight, “Eye has not Seen” would have been a good song for this Sunday as well…)
The prelude at the Saturday 5pm, Rory’s lovely “One is the Body,” is not so much tied to the readings themselves as it is a reminder that we are all one (as well as a very brief not to Respect Life Sunday, which by the way really gets my goat when people assume it’s about nothing but abortion and stem cell research and forget that respecting life includes taking care of those babies after they are born and working to eliminate the structures of oppression and poverty that lead women into this cycle of death, often not by their own “choice” at all…but that’s a rant for another day…) and responsible to one another. It’s a beautiful song, but Rory probably wins the “could this refrain be any longer” award on this song, J, which is probably why it’s not in the Gather II any longer…too bad, it’s a lovely lovely song.
“This is a day of new beginnings” is another of those “we know it but we haven’t sung it in a while” songs, honestly not particularly connected to the readings of the day either—but it never hurts to re-remind ourselves and each other that every Sunday is its own little Easter celebration, that Jesus is alive and risen amidst all the painful Stuff of life. “Lord, whose love” is another song which reminds us that it is our responsibility to serve and heal one another in the “hands-on” stuff of life, not in order to be thought of as wonderful and holy, but because that’s simply what we are “obliged to do” (as the Gospel, Luke 17:10, puts it.) The 10:45 choir is singing Jeff Honore’s “The love of Christ compels us” at the same liturgical moment; a great and fun piece, one of those ones where the SATB parts make the group sound larger than it is—and its message of how the “love of Christ urges us on” is very apt for this week.
At Communion we are singing “Christ, be our light” at all the liturgies, but at the 10:45 I’m trying something a little different: John Bell has a pretty little refrain, “This is the body of Christ,” which I love. We’ll sing it twice before Communion, then sing “Christ, be our light,” and then repeat the little Bell refrain at the end. We’ll see how it works! (Got that idea from Ed Foley years ago, but haven’t ever tried it per se…) The Ensemble's "pre-Communion" piece is the little Uganda song we learned last October...a charming little piece, great fun to sing.
And the closing, “Come, Holy Spirit, wind and fire” is another call for God to come into our midst, this time as Spirit, to inspire our Church into faith and action. It’s to the same melody as “Faith of our Fathers,” a gorgeous tune which I honestly have trouble programming today—it’s much too male-dominant, yes, but my bigger problem with it is the whole “Soldiers of Christ” (in the literal sense) perspective it comes from—not to impugn the loving sacrifice of our martyrs throughout history, but in a world of religious fanatic suicide bombers I have difficulty with lines like, “How blest would be thy children’s fate if they, like them, should die for thee!” and such…
Anyway, this new text is lovely and wonderful and the parish sings it well, so there we are!
On a personal note: this coming Sunday is also my son’s 5th birthday, which is both exciting and bittersweet—he’s getting so big! And I never forget that my time here in this parish is closely related to his birth: I was 6 months pregnant with him when I started in the parish a little over 5 years ago, and he was born literally the day of our first choir Sunday of my first season here.
Life changes a lot, doesn’t it? And it’s all so very, very good…
Peace,
Jennifer
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1 comment:
I am amazed that you can maintain, however sporadically, TWO blogs, plus be a mom and work all day at Church. This should all be considered in your canonization proceedings, may they not begin for another 60 years.
I think an interesting thing (and impossible) to blog about would be why we _don't_ choose certain songs. But then, names would have to be named, feelings hurt, &c. Note to self - do not pursue this line of reasoning.
I've heard the comment before about the length of the refrain on "One Is." I get the same about "Do Not Fear to Hope," and it's half as long. Go figure. I always thought that with the built-in mnemonics of inrhyme, balanced phrases etc, if the song was good enough, people would want to sing it, and be able to remember it. I really hate the other implication - that "shorter" is necessarily better, because we have such limited intellects and attention spans.
Thanks for saying nice things about "One Is", though. Songs are like children - one loves them in spite of their shortcomings, and hopes that others will find in them the light that we see, or that we saw when we made them.
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