Psalms Archives - Music for Mass

Read Kate’s latest for The Tablet – Learning by Heart

When was the last time you learned something off by heart?

It’s something we have to do as children in school, with vocabulary lists, spelling and times tables, but we also absorb rhymes, poems and song lyrics without even working at it, just by familiarity and repetition. No one sits down to memorise nursery rhymes, but they take up residence in our heads; with early prayers, you learn them even before you can read, so it’s all about repetition and rhythm. With small children, you can use body language to help, and this is how you learn Heads, shoulders, knees and toes; and we learn the Sign of the Cross in exactly the same way.

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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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