Author: Kate Keefe

Kate Keefe composes music for responsorial psalms, gospel acclamations and the Mass for English speaking Catholic congregations all over the world, using the local lectionary for UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the US and the Philippines. She writes about what comes up in the process, and blogs about the Synod, family life and women in the Church for The Tablet.

Trinity Responsorial Psalm

The week after Pentecost is Trinity Sunday, and this year (liturgical year A) the Responsorial Psalm prescribed in the Missal is a canticle from the book of Daniel, chapter 3.

In form it’s actually more like a litany, a sequence of short lines followed by a Response. It was quite tricky to set even in the old version before the new translation, because that was divided into four line stanzas and the Response occurred twice in each stanza, as line 2 and line 4. Both lines were nearly the same, but the first one went up, to show we were still in the middle, and the second one went down, for the full stop. Simple, obvious, and easy to grip on first hearing. Even though it was not the usual format for a Responsorial Psalm, we made it work and I found that the congregation sang it with enthusiasm. That’s still on the website, and I did reuse the tune where I could for this version.

Fast forward to this year, and we have the new translation of the psalms (and other words used as psalms). This new Trinity Responsorial Psalm is really bad. It is so bad that I’ve decided to post a link to the music for it here to help any other struggling Church musician who would like it.

It’s not authorised in any way. But it might help someone else because I had to go back and draft it practically from scratch. The new translation is in single-line stanzas, or two-line if you count the Response.  I’ve changed the format of the lead sheet to make it a bit easier to read, I hope. It’s like a sea shanty, or a call-and-response folk song. That is not a problem. The problem is the words.

Like all Responsorial Psalms, it starts with the Response. The cantor sings it, the congregation repeats it, and then they know what they are singing after each stanza or, here, line. The Response line we are given is “To be praised and highly exalted for ever!” – no subject, no verb except a passive infinitive, and then an exclamation mark to top it all off. I don’t care how exactly it translates the original text, this is bad English. It is difficult to put across as a cantor and difficult to sing with any enthusiasm (presumably that is why we are allowed a rare exclamation mark, even though our Alleluias still don’t have one). It makes sense only once the Psalm has started, because the verse line gives the subject, but that’s not the way any Responsorial Psalm is either sung or even laid out on the page. The Response is written at the head and sung first, and then repeated. So there’s plenty of time for everyone to think, “What?”

I’ve set it very simply as a call-and-response. I haven’t got time to road test it before I put the link here, because it’s coming up so soon. As I said, it’s not authorised or cleared with anybody (no time), but if anyone wants a Responsorial Psalm for Trinity Sunday which has the correct words for the (poor) new translation, here is one.

I am planning to explain to my congregation before we start that it’s like a shanty, with us taking alternating lines. The Response begins as the beginning of the tune and then comes down again, so it will work to end each stanza of the psalm as well, but I think we’ll be singing the last Response twice, just to finish it off.  It should go with a swing.

Good luck with it, and any feedback welcome! 

Kate Keefe

© 2026 Kate Keefe and Music for Mass. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Keefe and Music for Mass, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Lent Gospel Acclamations : the New Lectionary

It’s that time of year again…

I’ve written about Lent Gospel Acclamations before, those little tags we use during Lent to replace the Alleluias before the Gospel. I feel prophetic, because the main message of my first blog about them was about how they always manage to creep round and bite you when you aren’t looking, and here we go again.

drowning people underwater
with Lent Gospel Acclamations, nowhere is safe

I have spent a lot of time on them over the last several years, trying to make sure we have all the versions and that the words are correct. They cause an astonishing amount of trouble for something so short and repetitive, and this is why I had to deal with the topic more than once. Here’s the back catalogue : a general introduction and attempt at explanation here    and  the update for when I realised there was more stuff that I hadn’t covered there. 

…but this year it’s going to be different

This year (since Advent 2024) we have the New Lectionary, and all the previous work no longer fits the changed words. So far this only affects England and Wales, so all the other versions are still valid. The UK ones simply no longer correspond with what people have in their new Missals and Mass books, and this is no good if we’re priding ourselves on being word-perfect with the Lectionary. The changes are often quite minor, and they are often not an improvement, but they regularly alter the rhythm and stresses of the words of the Gospel verses. The big consolation, however, is that these are not part of the US copyright on the psalms, so we are allowed to share our music for them with anyone else who wants to be able to sing them (as we are encouraged to do by the rubric, but you’d never guess it from the chosen texts themselves).

Volmar the Vebmeister and I trying to subdue a Lent Gospel Acclamation
 

One feature of the New Lectionary is that it no longer seems to have alternative verses for the Lent Gospel Acclamations/Alleluia verses. I suspect this is a question of space, because the new translation is much longer and wordier than the old version, but it does mean that I have just had enough time to do a full set of the Lent Gospel Acclamations for Year C as Lent begins. 

Shape and structure

The Lent Gospel Acclamations are made up of two parts, the top-and- tail (the bit that would be Alleluia on a non-Lent Sunday), and the Gospel verse. This has not changed. However, where we had four possible options before, for the top-and-tail, we now have eight. I haven’t yet had time to set all of them, so I’ve simply done the ones that turn up week-by-week in the Missal for this Lent, Year C. I have been careful to keep them all in the same key, though, and they are modular, so if you want your choir or congregation to stick with just one, it’s perfectly easy to keep to the same top-and-tail and just drop in the different verses each week.  If you need an easily printed pdf of a changed version, just email me (singenofbingen@gmail.com) and I can send it to you, thanks to my brilliant music software (thank you, Musescore) and the equally brilliant son who found it for me (thank you, sweetie).

Lent Gospel Acclamations refusing to come quietly

We’re still trying to work out how to be able to post the new versions of the psalms which we are all having to cope with, but here at least is the list of the Lent Gospel Acclamations for the next few weeks. We will add as we get more done, but hope that at least these will help. Have a happy Lent and keep singing.

©Kate Keefe and Music for Mass 2025. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Kate Keefe and Music for Mass, with appropriate and specific direction to the original content