What did we sing…the weekend before the Queen’s funeral?

I wondered last week what would happen to the music and liturgy around the country the day before the Queen’s funeral. Would there be more places saying requiems? Would people still sing the national Anthem? Would the death of the Queen be marked at all in the choice of music sung?

This time I’ve again looked at my own diocese and also the ones from around England.

So, what was sung in my diocese?

• Sung on 4 occasions – Make me a channel of your peace
• Sung on 3+ occasions – The cry of the poor (with one more using it as the psalm)
• Sung on 3 occasions – Christ be our light; Love divine; One bread, one body; Praise my soul; Seek ye first; Take me Lord

And what was sung elsewhere?

• Sung on 9 occasions – Christ be our light
• Sung on 7 occasions – Seek ye first
• Sung on 6 occasions – Sing of the Lord’s goodness
• Sung on 5 occasions – God forgave my sin; O Lord all the world
• Sung on 4 occasions – Blest are you Lord; The cry of the poor
• Sung on 3 occasions – Amazing grace; Here I am Lord; O let all who thirst; Take our bread; The Lord’s my shepherd

The one that really surprised me from our diocese this week was ‘Make me a channel’. I think it reflects the second reading which doesn’t fit quite so well with the other readings this week as it sometimes does. I wouldn’t have picked ‘Seek ye first’ as an obvious choice for these readings either. I can see where it comes from as if you cannot serve two masters as we are told in the Gospel then we want to seek God first.

The readings for today, 25th Sunday Year C, were all about social justice. In fact, our visiting priest who, yet again, preached an excellent sermon on the reading and social justice, was moved to wish that the chaplain of the House of Commons would read the Amos reading before Friday’s ‘mini budget’. ‘The cry of the poor’ was a good choice and, being a common psalm, was a reasonable substitution for the psalm of the day. ‘Christ be our light’ was another good fit but it was quite interesting to note that ‘What does the Lord require’ was only sung by one place out of about sixty streams.

So, was the Queen’s death visible in any of the music sung this weekend? Well yes, it was, but not to the same extent as last week. The National Anthem was sung only a couple of times. We had ‘I vow to thee my country’ and ‘Jerusalem’ so maybe people were looking towards praying for the new king and the country as a whole. Incidentally, ‘Jerusalem’ really doesn’t work with a plucked guitar. It sounded rather more like a cricket match than a Catholic Mass. One parish also sang ‘May the choirs of angels’ so they were definitely praying for the Queen. From our diocese we had two places who went for ‘Abide with me’ and one sang ‘The day thou gavest’. I’m assuming this was for the Queen as it was a morning Mass.

I’ve got to say though, that these readings might have been hand-picked for a country going through a change of sovereign. They were perfect. The government might do well to heed them too!