Well I really enjoyed putting together the post analysing the music choices for the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time (see the post here) so I thought I would do it again for the 18th Sunday.
It was harder to do as there wasn’t really an obvious choice of hymns for this Sunday, unlike the previous week when almost everyone went for ‘Seek ye first‘. This time I’m not going to mention all the hymns sung because I think a lot of them had very little to do with the scripture of the day.
The most obvious selection of ‘One bread, one body’ came from the 2nd reading which referred to there being no distinction between Jew and Greek.
The overarching theme of all the readings was keeping your thoughts on heavenly things rather than the things of earth. This was reflected in such hymns as ‘Be thou my vision‘ (Riches I need not nor man’s empty praise) and the fourth verse of ‘O Lord all the world’.
‘Immortal, invisible’, with the line ‘we blossom and flourish as leaves on the tree and wither and perish’ reminds us that, like the rich man in the gospel, we do not know how long our life will be.
‘We hold a treasure’ has a direct reference to the gospel of the man building up his earthly treasure. Unfortunately, one parish chose to replace the psalm with this hymn which is not permitted as well as being totally unnecessary.
‘All my hope on God is founded’ and especially the second verse ‘Pride of man and earthly glory, sword and crown betray God’s trust; What with lavish care man buildeth, tower and temple fall to dust’ echoes both the gospel and the first reading and has a link with the second reading too. There is a similar connection in ‘O God of earth and altar‘.
Putting things of God first comes across in the hymns ‘Blest are the pure in heart‘ and ‘All ye who seek a comfort sure’. ‘The kingdom’, ‘This is what the Lord asks of you’, ‘Take my life’, ‘O the love of my Lord is the essence‘, and ‘In the Lord I’ll be ever thankful’ continue this idea. ‘Take me Lord’ and ‘Take my hands’ might also fit here though the connection is looser.
‘For the healing of the nations’ was a good choice if your priest chose to link the gospel to social justice.
The communion antiphons both referred to bread so maybe this is why people chose to sing ‘O bread of heaven’.
There were a lot of general purpose hymns sung this week, including one or two which struck me as rather strange choices, especially ‘All things bright and beautiful’.
‘God forgave my sin’ and ‘Love is his word’ were quite popular choices though I’m not sure why. ‘Love is his word’ is a good, all-purpose choice but I’m baffled about the other.
Music, Liturgy and ME 