OCP have chosen Michael Joncas’ Lenten text as reset by Scott Crandal (PREVAIL) for 2026.
They say:
Text writer Michael Joncas states that this piece “seeks to tie together Noah’s transforming experience surviving the Great Flood, Jesus’ transforming experience during forty days of desert-dwelling, and our transforming experience by giving ourselves to the disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that mark the Christian Lent.” Featuring a new hymn tune, PREVAIL, this intricate-sounding setting is scored modestly: two-part choir, descant, keyboard and/or guitar, and a solo instrument part in C. An accessible piece that can be quickly prepared by most ensembles, the third and final verse may be sung with the descant and the basses doubling the melody for a full, balanced texture.
If you have such modest personnel the sheet music is at OCP and the text in their preview.
This backing seeks and fails to make it something else:
Simple is better:
Their arrangement is undoubtedly fine while needing a lot of resources and goes beautifully “Voces 8” style in the descant:
Chris Brunelle shows it done simply and beautifully with taste and sensibly playing it capo 1.
Chris W has two other settings for this text – since BEACH SPRING is so well known it would make sense for a seasonal song:
Voces 8 are great:
It’s a really nice tune, and while I love the full-on OCP arrangement, Chris Brunelle’s singing with just a guitar is excellent and suits the “noble simplicity” that Lent requires perfectly.
I think they should have set the key to C rather than D flat to t0 help pianists.
The excellent text was originally published with the EIFIONYDD hymn tune (still available at OCP) and is part of a collection, “We Contemplate the Mystery” with specific texts for each liturgy in Lent. EIFIONYDD is a simple tune, but not well known, hence the setting with BEACH SPRING, which everyone knows.