This song by Tom Kendzia was used for the Corpus Christi mass at Ronald’s parish.
It is very slow but very meditative. It speaks in the voice of God, which is frowned on these days, but it is taken from John chapter 6.
I found the text here. I bought the sheet music at OCP as I didn’t have it anywhere.
This is a setting of Psalm 139 by Paul Inwood. It has his usual inventive style and the refrain is singable (OK there is a held D). The verses will need the cantors for which it is designed. I think sheet music should warn you if the 4/4 is going to go random like this does in the verses.
The text is in the sample at WLP where the sheet music can be purchased.
I had no idea how to get the backing right, especially tempo and feel so this is a bit of a fail.
This Eucharist song was an excellent choice for Corpus Christi at Ronald’s parish. It is by Martin Willett. He based the refrain text on John 1:29. It has a lovely harmony that kicks in from verse two.
The text is here (scroll down) and the sheet music can be purchased for download at OCP.
My backing has the harmony line as well.
More great work from Chris Brunelle:
I couldn’t get to last Wednesday’s talk by Archbishop Coleridge due to illness, and the live stream didn’t work so I listened to the audio here, and I’d recommend you do so too if you have the time. I like to keep up with the music that was played but as I wasn’t there I don’t know.
He tried to fit an awful lot in and wasn’t really able to do his subject justice as a result.
He returned to the theme of Biblical story and its aim of theodicy. We have the task of acquiring the eye that sees God’s justice in these stories despite the impression they give, as life does, of being unjust. He went back to the Garden to contrast the Tree of Life, which is merely about immortality that all gods had, to the Tree of Knowledge, which is uniquely a property of God. God always knows everything and our task is to move from our blindness to God’s vision, something that is not achievable in this life, but is to be worked towards.
Biblical story is a means to this by as we “cleanse the doors of perception.” (Blake) He quoted a lot of Blake.
He notes the light and shade in Biblical story, the gaps and silences in which the ambiguity resides. He also notes the irony in the tension between the way the world seems to be and how it really is. The characters in these stories are flawed, damaged people and not heroic in a conventional sense.
He gave a sadly brief example with the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11) and illustrated the technique of asking questions:
The plan of God unfolds in a tawdry story of adultery, murder and treachery. He didn’t have time to expand on how this particular story is a message of hope or how the death of the innocent child is an example of God’s justice. “The Lord caused the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to become very sick… a week later the child died.” (2 Sam 12: 15,18) Despite his championing the sophistication of biblical stories, which I certainly acknowledge, we also have to acknowledge their world view, mightily strange to moderns and needing to be fed into any interpretation, that clearly sees God in the death of a child rather than infant mortality being a huge problem in the pre-modern world.
He concluded by briefly discussing Law as being gift rather than somehow opposed to grace. In obedience to the Law, we have freedom, we have our own Exodus, moving from the things that keep us enslaved. He notes that in the Torah we see an evolution of the Law as the “counter society of God” grows in its understanding of God through its history.
I’m getting concerned about his oversimplistic contrast of the secular world as being without hope with the liberating world of obedience to God’s Law – there is a bit of a straw man argument going on here, but I suspect he is doing this for effect and would acknowledge the nuances needed in such an argument.
What really concerns me though, is that if he is heading toward the idea that obedience to God’s law is freedom – is the Garden – means God’s law as exemplified by the Church, and if he fails to acknowledge that this has to evolve, as it did for the ancient Israelites, we have a huge problem. Truth is by its nature relativistic and our task is to find God’s truth in our incarnated existence with no guarantee that ancient answers offer more than a hint. That is the point of story being ambiguous as he has noted repeatedly. If the freedom of obedience is nothing more than abdicating our sense of justice then it is just idolatry and another form of slavery.
His next session is more on the Law, so I will be interested to see where he takes this. I am concerned that he is trying to have things both ways, that is that the story is ambiguous but the Law is concrete.
Entrance: Canticle of Creation (Watts-O’Brien) AOV NG 20
Psalm 107 (O’Brien)
Give thanks, give thanks to the lord,
whose love is everlasting.
Gifts: Come the Set Us Free (Farrell) AOV 1/39
Communion: We Remember (Haugen) AOV 1/81
Take and Eat (mantra) (Russell) AOV 2/162
Thanksgiving: A New Heart for a New World (O’Brien/Watts) AOV 1/158
Recessional: Galilee Song (Andersen) AOV 1/15
This ballad by Ed Bolduc strikes me as a solo piece in style and text, especially the refrain. The verses are more liturgical but “I” songs can struggle in a communal setting.
The text is in the sample at WLP where the sheet music can be purchased and a snippet listened to.
This clip isn’t this song but a promo for Ed Bolduc doing instrumental versions of his songs.
This was the recessional at Ryan’s parish for Trinity Sunday – I’m catching up!
This is a translation of a German text (anonymous) by Irvin Udulutsch OFM and is set to GOTT VATER SEI GEPRIESEN a nineteenth century tune of uncertain authorship. Hymnary has the background.
The Trinitarian text is here. You can purchase the sheet music at OCP in Randall DeBruyn’s arrangement, but you would expect a public domain arrangement is lurking out there somewhere.
I’ve done a simple backing without organ sounds.
Organ…
More organ…
Piano… (very nice indeed)
Great harmonies…
This is listed as an Advent song by Ed Bolduc, but I’m sure it has wider uses than that (see below). It is a bright up-tempo piece with a piano riff to play with.
The text is in the sample at WLP where the sheet music can be purchased for download and you can listen to a snippet of the song.
My backing is a bit electronic.
This is a wild sprinkling Rite:
Yola’s parish have a lovely mix of old and new songs in their repertoire. This is a lovely Eucharist song by Chris Mulgia that they used for the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ. It’s relaxed style should let you get away with the constant syncopation.
I doubt we’ll use it locally because the parish has learnt John Burland’s song of the same name.
The text is at spiritandsong where you can hear a snippet and purchase the sheet music for download.
Muglia discusses and sings the song here:
I have a nasty cold and was planning to watch the webstream of Archbishop Coleridge’s talk tonight as I’m not up to driving into the city. The webstream isn’t working however so I’ll just have to catch up when it is archived. ( He’s just popped up but he keeps stopping and starting – I’ll watch later) If anyone was there and knows what music was played I’d like to know.
In the meantime, I’m still catching up with great musical selections from my correspondents in the comments section. This was the recessional at R.L.’s parish for Trinity Sunday.
It is by Father Richard Ho Lung and is a bright reggae song about the Trinity if that’s what you are looking for. It is very hospitable for children, which is a good reason for the rest of us to join in. It needs to skip along so don’t drag it.
The text is at spiritandsong where it can purchased as part of the “Never Too Young” collection and as part of the Caribbean Mass at OCP.
Some good advice from Chris Brunelle:
