Life after a fall

Read Kate’s latest for The Tablet – Coping with the ups and downs of life after a fall

I fell down a couple of steps and broke my kneecap earlier this year. It was not a bad injury, being “fractured but not displaced”, which apparently meant that as long as it healed in position, I wasn’t going to need any sort of operation

But I’ve had to walk around with a crutch for the last few months. People have been astonishingly kind over letting me cross the road or giving me a little more time and space than usual. A crutch is a brilliant visual aid even more than a physical prop, as they told me at the hospital, when they told me to use it out and about even once I felt that I could manage without it at home.

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Psalms stripped of poetry and impossible to sing

Read Kate’s latest for The Tablet – Psalms stripped of poetry and impossible to sing.

The new lectionary has now been in force since the beginning of Advent last year. I say “in force” rather than a more neutral expression, because there was no question of parishes choosing to adopt it, or even vary the timing. It came to us out of nowhere and was presented as compulsory. Now we have sung our way through the joys of Christmas and Eastertide. We have experienced both the high points, the greatest feasts, of the Church’s year in this new format. How is it going for you?

My closest dealings with the New Lectionary are the Responsorial Psalm and the Gospel Acclamation every week. I have been setting these to music for the last twelve years or so, for all the different anglophone lectionaries I can get hold of (the US, Australia/New Zealand, and Canada), often needing a different setting for each. So far only the UK Lectionary (not even the “and Eire” version) has chosen to make this change, but in England and Wales we have been doing our best with it from week to week. Other jurisdictions have been discussing it for years, because anyone can see that the old lectionaries are not perfect, but have not yet taken the plunge.

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