Church Music

This is a text suitable for funerals by Frederick Lucian Hosmer set to GELOBT SEI GOTT.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP.

1.
O Lord of life, where’er they be,

Safe in your own eternity,

Now live your children gloriously.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

2.
All souls you call, both here and there,

Do rest within your shelt’ring care;

One providence alike they share:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

3.
Your word is true, your ways are just;

Above the chanted “Dust to dust”

Shall rise our song of grateful trust:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

4.
Happy are they in God who rest,

No more by fear and doubt oppressed;

Living or dying, they are blest:

Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!

I am in OCP’s Guitar Accompaniment Book and if I skip something it means I have blogged it elsewhere from another source.

This song by Genevieve Glen OSB is a night time prayer that would work for All Saints.

It is set to WAREHAM.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP where the text is their preview.

This Christopher Walker song is for anointing or Lent and based on Psalm 61:2-5.

I gather it is the same tune as his song”O God, Hear Us”.

I can’t find the lyrics anywhere but OCP sell it as part of this collection.

Entrance:  Prepare the Way (Boniwell) CWB II 250

Psalm 39 (McKenna)

Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.

Gifts:  Holy Spirit of Fire  (Mangan) CWB II 110

Communion:  Table of Plenty (Schutte) AOV 2/20

Thanksgiving: Here I Am Lord (Schutte) AOV 1/90

Recessional:  The Spirit Lives to Set Us Free (Lundy) AOV 2/165

Somehow, despite this being in our Christmas liturgy every year, I don’t appear to have blogged this song.

The text is by Phillips Brooks and OCP set it to the tune we use as well, ST LOUIS by Lewis H Redner. It is also sometimes set to FOREST GREEN. OCP sell the sheet music here. Their guitar version keeps things admirably simple.

[Verse 1]
O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by
Yet in the dark street shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight

[Verse 2]
For Christ is born of Mary
And gathered all above
While mortals sleep, the angels keep
Their watch of wondering love
O morning stars, together
Proclaim the holy birth
And praises sing to God, the King
And peace to men on earth

[Verse 3]
How silently, how silently
The wondrous Gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven
No ear may hear His coming
But in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him still
The dear Christ enters in

[Verse 4]
O holy Child of Bethlehem
Descend to us, we pray
Cast out our sin and enter in
Be born in us today
We hear the Christmas angels
The great glad tidings tell
Oh, come to us, abide with us
Our Lord Immanuel!

Back in my old copy of OCP’s Guitar Accompaniment Book is this Carey Landry song. While it has an obvious use for an anointing mass it’s recurrent theme of light opens many other liturgical uses.

The sheet music can be purchased at OCP where the text is in their preview.

This is another old Michael Mangan song that might suit an Australia Day liturgy. I have it in his out of print collection Sing Jubilee, but it resurfaced in True Colours Shine and so can be purchased in that collection at Litmus. Michael has his lyrics up on his site in word and powerpoint form, so I put them up below. As usual I made a backing on BIAB.

1 Gathering together to understand,

      To hear the whispers from this ancient land.

      Dreamtime people sing us your song,

      Tell us the story of where you belong.

      The Earth is our mother, this land is you and me,

      She holds us deep within her heart

      Now everyone can see

Chorus

      We’re building one future for this nation,

      Come together for reconciliation,

      Living in the land of the Southern Cross.

      We are many melodies making harmony,

      Lift your voice and sing your song with me,

      Living in the land of the Southern Cross.

      2 Our clans have come from far and wide,

      From the Rainbow Serpent, Mother of Life,

      Or on a refugee boat or a jumbo plane,

      Or a sailing ship in a prisoner’s chains.

      She welcome us with open arms

      And claims us as her own.

      We all belong together in this land that we call home.

Chorus

      3 Sing this song to everyone.

      The winds of change have now begun.

      Blowing clouds of pain away,

      Bringing in a bright new day,

      Where everyone is striving for justice in this land.

      We carry this dream within our hearts,

      Together we can make a stand.

© 1997 Litmus Productions, Brisbane, Australia. All Rights Reserved.

Australia Day falls on a Sunday this year, which I believe means you can use the liturgy for that day rather than the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

We will have Australian music featured, including Michael Herry’s “A Blessing Hymn for Australia”.

Does anyone have suggestions for other liturgical songs about Australia for such celebrations. The song “We Are Australians” is often used but it is hardly liturgical.

I was thinking about church music specifically for Australia and remembered a couple of Michael Mangan songs from the out of print collection, Sing Jubilee. I can’t find these for sale at Litmus, so you might have to talk to Michael yourself if you want to use them.

It was written for the 2000 Jubilee so you substitute as indicated. The idea was to put your local places in the song. Since the song has disappeared I’ll put the lyrics up unless Michael tells me to take them down.

1 All through the ages since time began

Back through the mists of the dreaming

The Spirit has moved in this Great Southern Land

Making God’s creation sing.

Chorus

This Great Southern Land, Holy Spirit Land,

Sing out your praises to God.

Gathered side by side we’re standing hand in hand,

Singing Jubilee [to our Lord] in this Holy Spirit Land.

2 From Uluru and Alice to the Harbour Bridge,

From Perth to the Great Divide,

From Port Arthur to Bendigo and Lightning Ridge,

We celebrate God’s gift of life.

Chorus

3 From Broome to Ballarat and Bondi Beach,

To the land where the Murrumbidgee flows,

From Adelaide and Melbourne and the Barrier Reef,

That’s where God’s Spirit blows.

Chorus

4 We’ve gathered here from across the seas

to call this land our home.

We celebrate our differences with unity,

and make God’s peace our own.

Chorus

© 1998 Litmus Productions

This song by Genevieve Glen OSB has verses for Christmas and Easter and Ascension so is most useful liturgically. It is set to CANONBURY by Robert Schumann.

The sheet music is at OCP where the text is in their sample.

Usually found with “thy” for “your” this text by Henry E. Hardy (aka Father Andrew) is the next song in my survey of my old Guitar Accompaniment Book from OCP. It has an obvious use for veneration of the cross of Good Friday.

The text is at Hymnary. OCP set this song to DETROIT.