Category: The Tablet

Read Kate’s latest for The Tablet – Choosing Hymns for Special Occasions

This is the time of year for several special services. First Communions, Confirmations, Mothers’ Day, Lady Day all seem to be in spring or early summer, and we aren’t even into the wedding season yet, especially with the weather we’ve been having recently. Most people expect music at a celebratory service of whatever nature in church, and quite right too. Music brings people together, it wakes them up and calms them down, it can be a source of great comfort and solidarity. It is a prayer in itself; it gives a sense of community that is hard to beat (and that’s why people sing at rugby matches). It is powerful, but this power can also work negatively; people can be bored or irritated by music beyond what seems reasonable (imagine being stuck in a lift, or the dreaded holding on for a line to a doctor’s surgery)…

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I usually know before I start a blog whether it’s for The Tablet or for this website, but I was in two minds about this one. I wanted to write about choosing the hymns for Sundays, which meant it was about Church music, but it wasn’t specifically psalm-based. But after all, I have written about hymns here before, so it was a difficult decision to make.

In the end,  I did it for The Tablet, but in fact I do want to publish it here too, because I know several of you also have to choose the hymns for the congregation week by week. It’s a joy choosing the hymns, but it’s also quite a responsibility. So here’s a blog about how I do it and the different things I try to remember during the process. I hope you find it interesting, and maybe even a bit useful. The most important thing is that we all keep singing. There’s a Serbian proverb I was charmed to discover : Ko peva, zlo ne misli, which means ‘If someone’s singing, there’s no room for ill will’, which is a great thought when you see a congregation all joining in.

Tablet Blog – the art of choosing hymns for Mass

 

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