Tag: Year A

Corpus Christi Sequence

Corpus Christi this week, and yet another Sequence to handle. So far we’ve treated each recent one differently. At Easter we used Lent to teach the congregation the Victimae paschali (plainchant, in Latin) so we could all sing it together for Easter Sunday. For Pentecost we sang the beloved familiar hymn translation that was printed in the missal (the Holy Spirit Lord of light version).
Corpus Christi has the Lauda Sion Sequence, written by Thomas Aquinas and source of much music over the years, from Cesar Franck’s Panis angelicus to the motet O esca viatorum and lots of loosely attached hymns (O Godhead hid, Godhead here in hiding) and so on.
For unfathomable reasons, our missal books offer the Robert Southwell translation. They admit to altering it, but it is still difficult to read and almost impossible to sing, as they haven’t even pointed out that any past participle ending -ed needs to be read as a separate syllable or it won’t scan or rhyme. We’re not using that one. Instead, I’ve gone for the more familiar translation just of the last four verses (the missal suggests using an abbreviated version), which starts Behold the bread of angels sent. That is easy to find on line. It comes out as five verses to sing. This both rhymes and scans and is comprehensible for both choir and congregation. It is irregular, though, which makes the tune a bit tricky, so we have repeated two lines of text, one in v.3 : O feed us still, still keep us thine, and then the last line of the whole thing : With saints whose dwelling is with thee. If we do this, we can sing it to Conditor alme siderum (Dear maker of the starry skies), which is in the hymn book, known to the choir, and has a beautiful haunting quality which fits the words well.
Apart from that we are singing good relevant hymns that aren’t too difficult for me to play and for the choir to sing without me standing in front of them, as this week is the first under the new dispensation without my organist who has had to retire. We’re starting with See us Lord, about thine altar (tune Drakes Broughton), which is very on theme. Then the Offertory hymn is Lord, accept the gifts we offer (Tantum ergo). There were lots of hymns to choose from for Communion, but I’ve gone for Be still, for the presence of the Lord, because I’m worried that the more traditional ones like Sweet Sacrament divine will slow down too much if I’m not conducting, and it’s much harder to steer with a keyboard than it is with an organ!
We’ll finish with Alleluia, sing to Jesus (Hyfrydol), a great rousing finisher with a verse about the Bread of Angels which all ties in with the earlier references. I’m hoping by then everyone will be singing so enthusiastically that no one will notice my mistakes.
The new Alleluia version and the old Psalm music are on the website, www.musicformass.co.uk If you need our Sequence version or music for the new psalm words, send me an email at singenofbingen@gmail.com and I will send you a pdf. Then it will be back to Ordinary Time for a bit, which will at least simplify things!
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.

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.