Church Music

One of the nice things about the APMN conferences is to get hard copies of the sheet music from the booths. I caught up with Paul Mason at the Liturgical Song booth and they have an expanded version for 2025 of Hymns and Spiritual Songs Vol 1. It contains some of Paul’s music as well as songs by Fiona Dyball, Angela Gorman, Mana and Marie-Louse Nankivell, and Carmelo Sciberras. It has full keyboard arrangements with guitar chords (CWB II please note) as well as full scores for many of the tracks.

I have already looked at this song, but I wanted to have another look at it. A feature of Mason’s books is the extensive guide to suitable liturgies, which he sometimes places in spare places at the end of other songs so you have to go looking for it – it’s a puzzzle book too. For this song, however, under the title he notes its use at the Plenary Council in 2020 and rightly highlights its suitability for Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Confirmation.

The range for a low A to D is daunting for me but if you have the voices and especially if you have two violins, viola, cello, double bass, flute and oboe to get the most out the score you can start practicing now for Holy Week next year (Ok after Christmas perhaps). It would survive solo guitar accompaniment and since even the basic keyboard arrangement is six pages we are obviously going to have to get it down to two pages somehow.

This song is also available as a single download, which also mean yiu can have a look at sample pages here.

I did look at the amazing full score but baulked at putting that all into Realband (I did start but it my hands it sounded baaaad), but I did tone down my P&W version and incorporate more of his keyboard arrangement into a revised backing:

The Power of the Spirit (O come, Holy Spirit, come!)
Composer: Paul Mason

Verse 1:
Enter his presence singing his praises.
Jesus, the Lamb, is arisen!
Worthy of power, wisdom and honour,
riches and glory and blessing!
He said at table he’d send us
what, in Scripture, the Father had promised:
send out the spirit, pour out the spirit,
the Holy Spirit, the pow’r of the Spirit!

Refrain:
O come, Holy Spirit, come!
Kindle in us
the fire of your love.
Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Speak to our hearts,
Holy Spirit, come!

Verse 2:
Anyone having ears to hear,
Then, let them hear! Let them listen!
The Spirit is speaking to the Churches!
If you have ears, let them listen!
I know your faith, works and service,
and your patient endurance. So listen:
Listen to what the Spirit is saying.
the Holy Spirit, the pow’r of the Spirit!

Verse 3:
You, yourself, humbled. Worthy are you, Lord,
Word of the Father almighty!
So we walk humbly, Lord, to be worthy
clothed with the power from on high,
burning with fire of your love,
building bridges of peace for your kingdom,
pow’r of forgiveness, pow’r of our witness,
the Holy Spirit, the pow’r of the Spirit!

Text based on Lk 24:49; Jn 14:26, 17:26; Acts 1:4, 2:3-4; Rev 2-3, 4:11, 5:12.

Text: © 2007, 2018 Paul Mason. All rights reserved.
Tune: POWER OF THE SPIRIT © 2007, 2018 Paul Mason. All rights reserved.
Published by Liturgical Song, PO Box 1871 Wollongong NSW 2500 Australia.
www.liturgicalsong.com. Liturgical Song is a One License Member Publisher.

We have a meeting coming up to look at seasonal songs selections for Advent this year.

What I would like is the same music across the whole month – laying it on with a trowel liturgy wise.

Entrance: Advent Song (Browne/Wood) GA 281

Candle Lighting: Like a Candle (O’Brien/Ogilvie) AOV NG 91 – it has a verse for each week.

Seasonal Psalm: To You O God, I Lift Up My Soul (Hurd) AOV 2/14

Advent Gospel Alleluia to the tune of “O Come O Come Emmanuel”

Gifts: All the Hungry, Come (Doherty)

Communion: Maranatha (Smith) tune O WALY WALY

Recessional: O Emmanuel (Mangan)

It is mostly Australian. I like Paul Mason’s “To You O God” but we know the Hurd one very well.

Don’t forget all the Advent resources at liturgyshare.

Including this one:

This is the last song added to Breaking Bread by OCP for 2026.

It says something that this gentle minor key song for Easter is one of the more uplifting songs added. I can’t really fault any of the songs chosen individually, but there isn’t a lot of range in the songs selected and there is a lot of looking back to traditional sources.

This one is a Sarah Hart text set by Katie Wills in part based on O FILII ET FILIAE.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP where there provide the text in their previews.

OCP have chosen this Cyprian Consiglio funeral song for Breaking Bread in 2026.

Unfamiliar songs like this at a funerals have to be solos, so if that is that you need it may be a useful hymn.

The sheet music is at OCP and the text is in their previews.

I like this version:

This is Sarah Hart‘s setting (GAUDENS) of the Caswell translation of Aquinas’s Pange Lingua Gloriosi, which has been added to Breaking Bread by OCP for 2026.

This ancient communion hymn is especially suitable for Holy Thursday, Corpus Christi and Adoration.

For my range I’d probably drop from Dm to Bm which also makes the guitar chords easier for my poor old hands.

The sheet music is at OCP.

Sing, my tongue, the Saviour’s glory
Of His Flesh, the mystery sing;
Of the Blood, all price exceeding
Shed by our Immortal King
Destined, for the world’s redemption
From a noble Womb to spring.

Of a pure and spotless Virgin
Born for us on earth below,
He, as Man, with man conversing
Stayed, the seeds of truth to sow;
Then He closed in solemn order
Wondrously His Life of woe.

On the night of that Last Supper
Seated with His chosen band,
He, the Paschal Victim eating
First fulfills the Law’s command;
Then as Food to his disciples
Gives Himself with His own Hand.

Word made Flesh, the bread of nature
By His Word to Flesh He turns;
Wine into His Blood He changes:
What though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest
Faith her lesson quickly learns.

Down in adoration falling
This great sacrament we hail.
Over ancient forms of worship
Newer rites of grace prevail:
Faith will tell us Christ is present
When our human senses fail

To the Everlasting Father
And the Son who made us free
And the Spirit, God proceeding
From them each eternally
Be salvation, honour, blessing
Might and endless majesty.

Looking further at the new entries for OCP’s Breaking Bread for 2026 is this Bob Hurd text. He has set it to Dvorak’s “Largetto” from the New World Symphony.

It is a prayer and a lament for a world that is not peaceful in any language.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP where they provide the text in their preview.

BIAB and Dvorak – hmmm.

This is basically a single sentence mantra from Timothy R. Smith that has been added to Breaking Bread for 2026 by OCP.

You can leave it as simple a prayer as you like or build it up into a choral piece.

As always, the sheet music can be purchased at OCP who provide the words in their previews.

My backing is very long in case you need a lot of mercy.

This is a moving funeral song from Sarah Hart and Francesca LaRosa with inspiration from In Paridisum. It would be suitable as a solo during the ceremony – OCP suggests the Procession out of the church. It was selected for Breaking Bread in 2026 by OCP.

OCP will sell you the sheet music and the text is in their preview. This song is only from 2023 and there are a lot of YouTube clips already, which usually means a song is a hit.

Everything sounds a little bit country to me these days and my backing leaned that way too.

I love this from the blessing that is Chris Brunelle.

Sarah Hart: Behind the Mic.

This is a choral song for the Holy Family and Christmas from OCP, that they have added to Breaking Bread for 2026. It was written by Angela Birkhead-Flight who suggests it as a wedding song.

It’s a simple text and should be singable enough.

The sheet music is available at OCP where they provide the text in their preview.

In my backing I used the lower melody line in the second verse as indicated in the sheet music, but in general you wouldn’t except for a choir.

This is another new song for 2026 in OCP’s Breaking Bread with a text by Owen Alstott and a setting by Rick Modlin.

OCP describe it thusly:

This new text by Alstott is full of social justice concerns and the call to service. Its four verses and memorable refrain cover a wide range of topics including discipleship, evangelization, charity, unity, and love for others making it appropriate for use throughout the liturgical year. Musically reflected by Modlin’s strong, rugged setting, featuring striking harmonic shifts and an assertive foursquare rhythmic profile, it is scored for SATB choir with descant, keyboard, guitar, and trumpet in C.

The first verse suggests a problem, the second Jesus as the answer and the third and fourth the preferred outcome. With such a structure the whole song needs to be sung and the chorus is pretty short so that should work.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP (at least 7 copies) and the text is there in their preview.

I resorted to fake BIAB organ yet again and aimed for “vigorous” as suggested: