Grassroots Liturgist

Three weeks ago, I again attended the annual Summer School that is organised by the Society of St Gregory (SSG).  The aims of SSG are to "promote study, understanding and good practice in the celebration of the liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, in accordance with the teaching of the Church."  I gave an acount of my own experience of the 2017 Summer School on this blog, but here you will find an account of the experiecnes of a first-time attendee at this year's Summer School. SSG has been very important in my own formation as a liturgist and music leader and you don't have to live in the British Isles to be a member.  As well as receiving its journal  which includes a liturgy planner, there are opoprtunities of attending the Compopsers Group meetings,  Taking Liturgy Seriously course and the Annual Crichton Lecture, all via Zoom.     Click here for more information including how to join.

The  Society of St Gregory aims to promote study, understanding and good practice in the music and liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church in the UK.   One way in which it does this is through the discussion forum , which was how I first came across the Society after an internet search on some liturgical topic.   Another way is through the annual Summer School, from which I recently returned.  This was my third Summer School in four years and I have greatly enjoyed and gained from each one. People from all over the country – from cathedral music directors to guitarists in small parish music groups, choristers, cantors, psalmists, lectors and servers – headed towards Leeds, some taking as much as eight hours, thanks to chaos on the motorways, to share a few days with other like-minded individuals.   Old friendships were renewed, new friendships forged, smiles etched on everyone’s face – even this gruff northerner’s. There are three reasons why the Summer S...

At the end of the month I am attending the annual Summer School run by the Society of St Gregory (the national society of liturgy and music for the Catholic Church in the British Isles).  One of the workshops is called " Accompanying on a budget: Two guitars and a tin whistle?  Whatever your resources, you can be effective ".  I rather wish that this session had been available some years back when we first started the Vigil Music Group, as some of the things that I expect will be suggested in the workshop came to us slowly over a period of time. For example, it was only after we had two flautists, both simply hammering out the melody line, that it dawned on me that this was such a waste of the available talent.  So we began to introduce harmonies for at least one of the flutes, which made a massive difference all round; it made the music that much more rich and beautiful for the liturgy (a good thing), but it also permitted a greater artistic expression for the mus...