Preparing for Lent and Easter

I have been tossing ideas around my head about how we can improve our Paschal Triduum liturgies since last year's were actually happening.  But we have been pitched a curve ball in that we have lost our organists for Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.  So, much more thought will be required.

Our parish planning meeting for Lent and Easter took place in January.  Last year, we introduced sung Evening Prayer for the Sundays of Lent up to Easter Sunday, which completed the Triduum.  This year, we will continue with this through the Easter Season until pentecost, so I will have the composing of Antiphons and the production of booklets to add to my list.

Easter is very late this year, only five days shy of being as late as it can be.  Therefore, since we are obliged not to start the Easter Vigil until the hours of darkness, I fear that our numers will be down.  I find this a shame; it is THE most important celebration of the Christian calendar, but it hasn't permeated the mindset of some.  Bizarrely - to my mind - the best-attended of the three is Good Friday; it seems to me strange to celebrate the crucifixion but not the first Mass of the Resurrection.  The drama of Holy Week, especially the Paschal Triduum, is so intense and powerful if we allow ourselves to enter into it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Welcome!

Welcome to my new blog. It has been suggested to me for a while to start this blog.   But I was reluctant for a number of reasons; not least of these being (I must admit) that I didn’t really have an idea of what a blog is as I don’t follow any myself.   When I started looking at some liturgical blogs there were a couple of things that struck me – it seems that virtually all of them are somewhere between “rather” and “very” traditionalist; and more often than not they aspire to a “quality” (for want of a better word) of music than most parish groups (in my experience) are incapable of – much as I love a bit of Byrd, Palestrina and Allegri I have never been involved in a parish where we had the resources and skills to pull it off. So, deeply influenced by the Dirty Harry philosophy of life (“A man’s got to know his limitations!”), this blog is aimed at grassroot liturgists like myself.   Based on my own experiences – successes and failures – it will contain refl...
Read more

Not "either/or" but "both/and"....

Although of less importance than other elements of the Mass, the reality is that the first thing that most parishes will consider when preparing music for a Mass is the hymns to be sung – the oft-derided "hymn sandwich".  Building up a repertoire of hymns, rather than just singing the same old-same old, is good and healthy on so many levels – for both the music group and the Assembly.   The learning-curve for our Vigil Mass congregation, the Music Group and myself has been very steep over the last 4+ years. There is no great secret but, for what it’s worth, here is how I work. The first criterion for me, as much as possible, is that the hymns we use are relevant to the season and/or “theme” of the Mass.   Unless you have an encyclopaedic mind then you need some help here and I use two sources; the suggestions at the back of the hymnal and suggestions provided within the pages of “Music and Liturgy” – the periodical produced by the Society of St Gregory.   I n...
Read more

Gospel Acclamation

Image
I have said  previously that I don't like Gospel Acclamations and Responsorial Psalms to be too lively - rapidly switching between exuberant singing and attentive, "heart"-listening doesn't come easily to me.  However, after some years I began to feel that the standard, triple-Alleluia was in need of some......enhancement; and, after getting an idea from watching a Papal Mass on TV, we began to make use of a short fanfare to introduce the Gospel Acclamation. Two flautists play this simple fanfare (the top line is the melody, the bottom line is a harmony that I came up with), then the cantor sings unaccompanied followed by choir and congregation (with the harmony); the cantor then sings the verse and all repeat the Alleluia (again, with harmony). It's a simple embellishment but it does to serve to highlight the Gospel Acclamation a little more. As well as this we have also been introducing Gospel Acclamation tones from John Ainslie's  Sing the Psalms Si...
Read more