Read Kate’s latest for The Tablet – Light in the darkness: hymns for Ordinary Time.
We are roughly in the middle of the first section of Ordinary Time in the Church’s year at the moment, the first of the two sequences of Sundays that can be expanded or contracted to make sure that the big dates fall at the right time.
The readings in them can be sequential from Sunday to Sunday; the Gospel usually is, but the First and Second readings can dodge around a bit, and the Responsorial Psalm is a reaction to the First Reading, so that too can come from anywhere (including the odd canticle). This first batch of Ordinary Time, after Christmas, before Lent, is much shorter than the second one (after Pentecost, before Advent), and this year it has only five Sundays, with an early Easter; but because the First Sunday of Ordinary Time is always overtaken by the Baptism of the Lord, the count starts at two. And it’s Year A, so the Gospels are mostly Matthew.
Choosing hymns for these Sundays is an interesting job.
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