Church Music

Fiona Dyball and Damian Whelan continued their swing through road tested songs for sacraments with songs for penitential rites.

Again, they note the suitable songs from CWB II:

120 Forgive our sins as we forgive Text: Rosamund Herklots Music: BELMONT

121 We turn to you (Mangan) see below sheet music

122 O Father, I know I can count on your mercy (Kathleen Boschetti)

I appear to have accidentally skipped this song when I was doing CWB II. To make up for that here are two backings – the first is probably too noisy and fast:

123 Take from us now Text paraphrased by Bernard Kirkpatrick from Ezekiel 11:14-21, Isaiah 58:1-11, Micah 7:2-7,18-20, Roman 6:16-23) O WALY WALY

Their advice for a responsorial Psalm is:

Fill us with your love, O Lord and we will sing for joy CWB I (Roger Heaney) sheet music

Other songs they suggest:

Bear with one another (Haugen) sheet music I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of this gem from Marty Haugen. Be careful the melody splits for a couple of bars in the chorus.

Open My Eyes (Manibusan) AOV 1/166/CWB II 582 sheet music

Touch the earth lightly Text: Shirley Erena Murray Music: Tony Alonso sheet music I have blogged backings of several other settings of this worthy text, but not Alonso’s so here it is.

Be the hands, the heart of God (Friedman/Vogt) sheet music

I received some extra material from Fiona Dyball and Damian Whelan about their use of Michael Mangan’s “We Turn to You”:

RECONCILIATION

Michael Mangan’s “We Turn To You” has been used in the Sacrament of Penance at Loreto Mandeville Hall, Toorak in the following way:

On our Reconciliation Retreat day (which begins with a parent and student workshop in the morning), the girls write a short “Sorry” prayer. Their teachers prepare this with a time of reflection, asking the girls to think about things that they would like to improve in their lives. They choose one main thing that they will aim to improve and write a prayer about it. Once completed these prayers are placed on individual PowerPoint slides with the child’s name. These are then inserted into the hymn “We Turn To You”.

Refrain

Verse 1

Refrain

4-5 Sorry prayers

Refrain

Verse 2

Refrain

4-5 sorry prayers

(etc)

The hymn and “Sorry” prayers are used when the children come forward for individual confession and assist in keeping this time a silent and prayerful one. Parents and family members are invited to sing each time the song appears on the screen. The hymn and quiet music playing in between allows for privacy to be maintained during the time that the children go to individual confession. At Loreto this happens in designated spots around our school chapel.

The next piece in Fiona Dyball and Damian Whelan’s presentation related to Eucharist and First Eucharist in particular.

They pointed to CWB II 115-118 which is:

115 Jesus calls us to his table (Jennifer O’Brien)

116 Jesus, you are bread for us also AOV 1/42 sheet music

117 Take and Eat (Maggie Russell) also AOV 2/162 sheet music

118 Given for You (Michael Mangan) also in Setting Hearts on Fire.

They once again turn to Michael Herry’s archive of psalms with their suggestion of Psalm 33:

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord,

Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

Beyond those in CWB II they recommend:

Come to the Table (John Burland) AOV NG 33 sheet music – a well known winner

Bread Broken, Wine Shared ( Robyn Horner) AOV 2/155 sheet music – a less well known delight

Our Blessing Cup AOV 1/7 (Bob Hurd) sheet music

I would add don’t overlook Paul Mason’s setting of Psalm 115 for this and Frank Andersen’s “This Blessing Cup“. sheet music

Table of Life (Erica Marshall) sheet music (My backing is the two verses in the sample)

These four posts so far cover about half of a presentation that was less than an hour – not kidding.

When the handout got to confirmation, they don’t mention CWB II’s selections this time but it won’t hurt to go through them. My copy of CWB II has an awful lot of penciled in approximate chords here. In its defence, there are quite useful pieces of liturgy revision scattered throughout the first volume of CWB II:

108 Instructions for the Rite of Confirmation

109 This is our faith Text ICEL Music Arthur Hutchings

110 Holy Spirit of Fire (Mangan) A favorite over many years. sheet music

111 Holy Sacred Spirit (Brown) The assembly sings the ostinato refrain with a soloist singing the verses – works very well. Her website to purchase sheet music.

112 The gift of the Holy Spirit (Kathleen T. Boschetti)

113 Gifts of the Spirit (Text Bell/Maule, PERSONENT HODIE)

Dyball and Whelan do however link to Jenny O’Brien’s amazingly comprehensive list of confirmation music suggestions and her psalms for confirmation. (freely available sheet music)

For example:

Psalm 117 (O’Brien)

You will be my witnesses, my witnesses to all the world.

Their own music recommendations that weren’t also in CWB II were:

Spirit, Come Down (Friedman/Vogt) sheet music

Veni Sanctus Spiritus (Berthier) sheet music Can be very moving.

Enter the Journey (Friedman/Vogt) sheet music

May You Walk (Hart) sheet music

Fiona Dyball and Damian Whelan’s session kicked off with songs for baptism.

In the workshop notes they mention the songs from CWB II that are recommended 99-107 – actually 97 as well, so for completeness.

97 Up from the waters (Haugen) sheet music – the syncopated “up”s are great.

98 text from GIRM re Baptism

99 Baptised in water (Saward/BUNESSAN) sheet music – well known tune for participation.

100 Father welcomes all his children (Robin Mann) also AOV 1/24 and TIS 491 if you don’t have CWB II. sheet music.

101 This is a joyous happy day (Tappert) set to LASST UNS ERFRUEN sheet music.

102 Litany of the Saints

Blessing over the Baptismal Water

103 Blessed be God who chose you in Christ (text ICEL, music Arthur Hutchings)

104 Springs of water, bless the Lord (Text ICEL, music Percy Jones)

( Don’t forget Haugen’s setting from “All Are Welcome”)

Profession of Faith

105 You have put on Christ (text ICEL, music Percy Jones)

Presentation of the Lighted Candle

106 Receive the light of Christ (Erica Marshall) also AOV 1/53 sheet music.

Reception

107 There is one Lord (Jennifer O’Brien)

They didn’t go through all of those but started with suitable psalms, if you wanted an alternative to the psalm of the day.

Psalm 22/23 The Lord is my shepherd – they suggest…

Michael Herry’s setting:

Sarah Hart’s setting:

You could also look at Paul Mason’s setting – sheet music.

… or Kate Keefe‘s:

… or Amanda McKenna

… or Jenny O’Brien

Psalm 26/27 The Lord is my light and my salvation:

They suggest Francesca La Rosa‘s setting: sheet music.

This me busking her psalm response on BIAB:

If you type “the lord is my light” into my search machine you find many others, but I still think the best ever is by John Bell, from the collection I Will Not Sing Alone:

They suggest two songs for Baptism that aren’t also recommended in CWB II:

We belong to you (Trevor Thomson) also in AOV NG 144. sheet music – this is lovely.

Baptismal Acclamation (Erica Marshall) sheet music – most useful as always from Erica.

Of course you could just type “Baptism” into the search engine here at sixmaddens and find a lot more suggestions.

That was covered in the talk in less than ten minutes – go figure.

This was the title of easily the most useful presentation that I attended at the recent APMN conference. It was run by Fiona Dyball and Damian Whelan and it was basically advice for parish music liturgy teams on what works. They demonstrated the music with no time wasted.

The only issue is that it should have been a whole day not one hour, so I gather the idea was to take it home and unpack it like a zip file. I contacted Fiona and she was happy for me to go through it on my blog, probably for that reason. She also sent some additional ideas for reconciliation, which was very kind. I will add a few of my own suggestions, for which Fiona and Damian are not responsible.

They gave a handout with lots of useful links – I would add AOV’s music selections and that sixmaddens thing:

…and also one outlining the music choices with even more links:

Using that as a guide I am going to go through things much more slowly.

They list hymnals and music sources: AOV 1, 2, and NG; CWB I and II and digital downloads. For digital downloads they add Michael Herry’s archive (Marist Music) to Willow/GIA/OCP, but I would also suggest Hope Publishing as always being worth a look. For most parishes CWB1 is an unlikely resource these days, but many still use Gather Australia – in a lot of ways still better than CWB II. After our recent conversation here about American churches often having to be either OCP or GIA, it is nice to note the varied sources.

They note that CWB II is the official collection of liturgical music for Australian Catholic worship. I would suggest that official doesn’t mean best. The drawbacks of CWB II are well known and I don’t detect that it has been received in the parishes, which have in many cases clung to whatever hymn book they have used for the last fifty years or have given up on hymnals altogether, using multiple sources, especially downloads, and projection. CWB II is an extraordinary work of scholarship and cathedral music but also an offence to all guitar players. It is a collection with a lot traditional resources and these can be accessed in the public domain (eg see Liturgy Share) and a second hand copy of Together in Song will give you the missing chords. I still bought a copy of CWB II and do find it useful, but I believe it is a failure as a parish hymn book.

They suggest Mass Shalom as an inter-generational setting, available for purchase here. I haven’t played it in years and recall I found it difficult on guitar but it is certainly singable and was sensitively refurbished by Paul Mason. I would recommend that or Taylor’s Mass of St Francis or Mason’s Mass of Glory and Praise. My unscientific impression is that it is those three that have penetrated into the suburban parishes of Australia.

They recommend the Celtic Alleluia, which we use every week. With a bit of help from correspondents here, we have abandoned the verses provided and sing the acclamation as listed for each week. It is a small job to make them fit – the short ones need repetition and the longer ones ingenuity. If you don’t have it in AOV or elsewhere you can buy it here.

They leave the psalms for individual sacraments, but Amanda McKenna’s simple singable responses are still great for participation, if your parish is never likely to have a cantor singing the verses. All that depends on what psalm text we will be singing in the future too. Paul Mason gave a talk at the conference about what a bin fire the English language psalms have become and if he has no idea what’s going to happen then heaven help the rest of us.

I’ll take each sacrament and go through their selections with some commentary and suggestions of my own along the way. Once I have finished you will be astonished what some people can do in less than an hour.

Sarah Hart was at the APMN conference this year and was a sparkling asset. I will catch up with a few of the sings she sang that I haven’t yet blogged soon.

For now, there is this one that has uses for confirmation, graduation, blessings and RCIA. It is up to her usual bright standard – memorable and singable.

You can purchase the sheet music at OCP and the text is in their sample.

I made a backing on BIAB, surprising no-one.

One of the highlights of any APMN conference is the conference mass. Even if you don’t attend the conference, if one turns up in your city go to the mass. When everyone in the assembly is a musician or singer the participation lifts the roof off and this year at St Stephen’s was no different. They also had two choirs, brass, organ and band to shove things along.

The music was:

Mass of Praise of Glory (Mason) – fun to sing that again

Entrance: Praise to the Lord, the Almighty LOBE DEN HERREN (Willcock’s arrangement)

Prayer of the Faithful:

O God of life, you raise us up.

Hear us, hear our prayer

Erica Marshall

Gifts: Bread of Angels (Stephan)

Communion: Come to the Table (Burland)

From the Many Make Us One (Huck/Alonso)

Thanksgiving: Bread of Angels (Stephan)

Recessional: In Faith and Hope and Love (McAuley/Connolly)

The only one I have never blogged of these, apart from Marshall’s prayer, is “From the Many Make Us One”, which has a text by Gabe Huck and is set by Tony Alonso. It is meant to be cantor and assembly alternating but I reckon it can be done sung through just as well.

The sheet music is available at GIA, where the text is in their preview. Astute readers of thes blog will note I have strayed from Australian only material – to cover the conference and new OCP releases that will be necessary. Normal service will be resumed when able.

I made a backing of this song for learning purposes, but I recommend you hear it sung by an assembly that sings.

I have already blogged this when I did Gather 3, but I noticed my previous parish was using it for Advent this year so I made a new backing for fun.

It is by Kathy Powell and based on the “O” Antiphons. The sheet music can be purchased at GIA where the text is in their preview. I found a couple of very good You-Tube clips that weren’t available when I first looked at the song.

This is the last song in Patrica Smith’s And the Angels Sang collection. The are lots of great songs for the end of the year at schools and churches in this album. If you haven’t got anything planned yet just download it and get cracking.

“Who Is At The Stable” is a fun song for children along the lines of “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” With each verse an extra line is added describing who is at the stable. In between everyone sings the chorus.

You can purchase the sheet music for this song at Willow.

My backing is just to sing along with to learn the tune.

Who is at the stable?

1 Mary, full of love, and …

2 Joseph, standing watch, and …

3 shepherds, come to see him, and …

4 star, shining brightly, and …

5 kings with gifts to honour him, and …

(last line each verse) Jesus in the manger, Jesus in the manger

Refrain x2 each time

Come, let us worship!

Glory, glory, glory to God in the highest.

© 2023 P A Smith published by Willow Publishing

She suggest further verses if time and patience permit:

ox and sheep and donkey

angels singing joyfully

everyone is welcome

She has suggestions for staging this in the book along with actions for each line.

I’m nearing the end of my survey of Patrica Smith’s collection for Advent and Christmas, And the Angels Sang.

The pleasant surprise is that there are so many wonderful songs written from the maternal perspective about Mary – I suppose it takes a woman to do this properly.

The individual sheet music is available at Willow.

Sing along with my backing to learn the song:

1 Who is this child, warm in my arms, come suddenly into my life?

Who is this child?

A great king they say, born to be king of the world.

Who is this child?

Refrain

Whoever he may be I will give him a home,

I will give him my heart.

I would willingly give him my life, this little child.

2 Who is this child? How tiny the hands, holding my fingers so tight,

Who is this child?

A Messiah, they say, who’ll lead his people back from the grave.

Who is this child?

Refrain

3 Who is this child gazing at me, touching the depths of my soul?

Who is this child?

A Saviour, they say, who’ll give up his life for the world.

Who is this child?

Last refrain

Carpenter of Christ? Whoever he may be,

I will give him a home, I will give him my heart.

I would willingly give him my life, this little child.

© 2012 P A Smith published by Willow Publishing