Grassroots Liturgist

Last year, the SSG’s Annual Crichton Lecture was given by Cardinal Roche.   One point that he made stuck with me; bad practice is resolved through good theory. And a recent personal epiphany moment has illustrated this point very well indeed. I have had a growing awareness that there are members of our community who do not appreciate the significance of the Offertory Prayers – the fact that it's linked with, for example, Temple practices; we bring our gifts, bread and wine, and they are offered up to God by the priest for sacrifice.   That is what priests do.   This lack of appreciation of the importance of the offertory is perhaps not helped by the fact that most priests, in my experience, seem to pray them inaudibly.   I have been racking my brain what to do about this.   Then it dawned on me. I had forgotten that the offertory song is essentially a processional song – it’s purpose is to accompany the procession only, until the gifts are placed on the ...

As I read through the Triduum feedback forms, one sentence made me pause and caused my spirits to rise. Ever since the end of lockdown, when I was asked to lead the music and aspects of the liturgy for the Paschal Triduum, I have been giving these forms to those involved in the planning and ‘delivery’ of the liturgies as well as some members of the congregation. The planning group met in mid-January, though my own planning had been going on at a gentler pace for 12 months.  At that meeting, we discussed new, improved procedures, established who was responsible for what, and then went our separate ways to fulfil our roles.  There was a further meeting between myself, the Parish Priest and the Deacon for some of the finer details.  Meanwhile, we all kept in touch via a chat room. Our numbers and singing are such that we cannot entirely dispense with instrumentation between the two Glorias of Maundy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.  So, although we don’t use the or...