As we know, the most important elements in a sung Mass are the parts of the Mass sung by priest and people together. The Gospel Acclamation and the Eucharistic Acclamations come first and if you don’t sing them then you should seriously question why you are singing anything. Next comes the Gloria and the Responsorial Psalm. Dialogues between priest and people and some of the prayers of the priest are also important. Only then do we get to any kind of hymn. See this post on the subject.
So why have a large proportion of the blog devoted to hymn choices for Sundays?
The answer is simply practical. I belong to a parish where it is taken for granted that the parts of the Mass will be sung.
We know a large number of settings so our greatest problem is usually when do we change the setting and which setting shall we do?
The first is fairly easy. We change settings according to the season, so Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Ordinary Time. During Ordinary Time we might change every seven weeks or so. For example, we are singing one setting now but we will change for during the summer holidays to make sure we can continue singing even when musicians may be few in number. It is really important to have a setting that the congregation can sing by themselves if necessary.
The second, which setting to do, can take a little longer to decide. We still don’t really have a good festive setting since the texts changed, especially for the Gloria.
Even so, the decision rarely takes more than fifteen minutes and is only once every few weeks at most.
Choosing hymns is a much lengthier process.
For a start, the readings are different every week so we start by looking at the readings. Are there hymns that immediately spring to mind? What other thoughts do we have? What does the commentary in the Missal say? What are the antiphons at Entrance and Communion? What hymns do these suggest to us? We find it really helpful to look at lists of hymns that someone has thought appropriate for the day as it often gives us ideas for other choices. In addition, it means that we don’t forget about a hymn we might not have thought of initially but really speaks to us.
Of course, there are dangers with just using a list to pick the hymns. There are many more factors to take into account.
- Do we know this hymn?
- Is it right for our assembly?
- Is it right for the resources we have?
- Is it the correct choice for where we want to sing it?
- When did we last sing it?
The liturgy planner on this blog has suggestions that come from other places. It also has my own suggestions. There is nothing on the list that I would not choose to sing myself although there may be some songs that I might not use right now. There is very little that I do not know, at least in the hymn book lists. And the things I don’t know I would be happy to learn.
I was already looking at possible suggestions in conjunction with the upcoming readings for our own planning meetings. Since looking at various livestreams I have become more aware that many places appear to have a narrow repertoire upon which to call. One of my reasons to publish these lists therefore is the hope that it may serve to increase the range of hymns in these churches.
I will blog more about the process of choosing music at a later date.
Finally, why have numbers from hymn books on the list? That’s a purely practical consideration. It’s much easier to look a hymn up if you know what number it is, especially in Laudate. I’ve gone with Celebration for Everyone and Laudate as they are the two big hymn books in England. There are others but I don’t have copies and I’m not really sure how widespread their use is anyway.
Music, Liturgy and ME 