This is Paul Mason’s setting of Psalm 24 for the fourth Sunday of Advent Year A, which is also an obvious choice as an entrance hymn. It would be fine as a hymn for Christ the King as well. It is from Psalms for All Time Volume 2, which you can purchase at Liturgical Song.
In my grumbling about texts, I haven’t made it clear what the issues are and why I am somewhat bemused and confused by it all.
Currently in Australia we (mostly) use the ICEL refrains and the Grail verses. The Revised Grail has been approved for use in Australia but the new Australian Lectionary is not available yet, so most parishes still use the old Grail texts. Then you have the translations wars for readings between Jerusalem, New Jerusalem, NRSV etc and I have no idea who won that one and no idea when it will be sorted out within Australia.
To increase confusion and anarchy, the English speaking world could not come to an agreement about any of this, including the psalms, so the US is different to Canada which is different to England and Scotland which are in turn different to Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. The copyright for the texts is not surprisingly all over the place with the revised verses from Conception Abbey administered by GIA, while I think their originals are ICEL like the refrains. And just so you can know and despair, Paul Inwood has given us the background to the Grail revisions.
As a parish musician who usually bristles at being told what to do, this is one situation where you would think some uniformity would keep things simple. I propose:
1 Psalms should not be subject to copyright as it is more than seventy years since the author of the original text (maybe King David) died. The Pope should tell the Abbey to make their translations a gift as part of their vocation.
2 The people in Rome who made some terrible top down decisions to screw up the new uniform enforced translation of the mass, don’t get to now make the opposite mistake of unleashing anything goes in the English speaking world for psalms and readings.
3 Just put Paul Mason in charge – simples.
Paul Mason with a view to future is using the Revised Grail, so if you aren’t then you just have to see whether his tunes fit.
Somebody annoyed by all this put the revised texts on the net here. Otherwise check Universalis or your missal or Kate Keefe’s amazing site and do your best. Don’t worry it will all change again soon.
Back to this psalm – it is meant to be joyful and acclamatory. He uses one of his favourite descending melody lines in the verses – for “It is he who set it in the seas” – it turns up in other psalms settings of his.
As usual Paul gives the history and his commentary on the psalm and its usage. These are sometimes adjacent to the sheet music, as in this case, or they may be scattered somewhat randomly throughout the book. Just as randomly the guide to the random distribution of notes is randomly sited at the base of page 24 because … that’s just the way Paul rolls. I’d still put him in charge.
After all that I made a backing:
From a contact involved with ACU Centre for Liturgy in September of last year:
“At this stage we are looking at the revised version of the Jerusalem with the Abbey Psalms and Canticles. We will also be publishing our lectionary with other countries, so it is an international project.”
The Abbey psalms are revised Revised Grail Psalms and copyright is now held by the United Stated Conference of Catholic Bishops, not GIA. My understanding is that differences with the original RGP are very minor.
The Revised New Jerusalem bible is distributed by Garratt Publishing in Australia. The texts were apparently designed with proclamation in mind.
What really irks me is that we Catholics still don’t have an English bible translation that is owned by us (outside of the “New American Bible”, which doesn’t read well to my brain), and have to license use from a commercial publisher. To make matters worse, this translation is not on the Internet, and neither is the current lectionary, except for pay sites like LiturgyHelp.com or Universalis.com.
Having said all this, the UK is moving to the English Standard Version, the US is using the New American Bible, Canada the New Revised Standard Version, while Ireland, Australia and a number of other countries are targetting the Revised New Jerusalem Bible, so your point about a mess is well made! If there wan one official English translation that we owned …
As an aside, I have had Universalis on my phone for quite a few years, and consider the the one-off payment of around $40 for life-time usage good value. Its a very good app that goes beyond a missal, and I don’t think it unreasonable to charge for this, unlike a basic bible or lectionary site which should be free. We are supposed to be a missionary church!
Thanks for the information, Chris.
I read that at one point Australia was planning their own lightly revised Jerusalem Bible until it was pointed out that never going to fly with copyright.
So the revised Revised Grail (Abbey) + Revised New Jerusalem will be the go whenever it happens. Paul Mason at the conference last year suggested the international lectionary had fallen apart and Australia/NZ/Ireland might have their own. I don’t think we will see anything for a while myself.
cheers
Geoff
It is quite a mess. This is another area where the GIA parish vs. OCP parish problem comes into play here in the US.
Many parishes, including mine, don’t use the responses provided in the “readings” section of the hymnal, so the words that are sung don’t always match the book.
We use Breaking Bread from OCP, which includes the Respond & Acclaim psalms in its readings section. Those psalm settings use the NAB Lectionary translation, but we usually use GIA’s Lyric Psalter, which uses the Revised Grail. The responses are the same (usually with some repetitions added), but the verses the people hear don’t match what they are seeing in their books.
The same thing happens the other way. My old parish uses GIA’s Worship 4th edition hymnal, which has the Revised Grail translation, but they often use OCP’s Respond & Acclaim, which uses the Lectionary translation.
And then of course many parishes still use at least some paraphrases because… well… the people know and like them, so why not? Marty Haugen’s “Psalms for the Church Year” collections are widely used even though they’re paraphrases.
None of this bothers me that much, but I’ve definitely cringed when I’ve heard these used as responsorial psalms…
Sing a New Song (Dan Schutte)
All the Ends of the Earth (Bob Dufford)
On Eagle’s Wings (Michael Joncas)
I Have Loved You (Michael Joncas)
Center of My Life (Paul Inwood) – I don’t mind this one as much, but still…
Thanks for letting me know the situation you are experiencing in the US. I agree the paraphrases should be left as hymns elsewhere in the liturgy, but I suppose if there is no uniformity in the text of the psalms, it’s hard to be too picky about it.
One aspect that strikes me is a lack of courtesy to the assembly and especially people visiting from elsewhere. If you don’t know what the texts are, you are less active in your participation.
Geoff