Church Music

David MacGregor based this song on Psalm 78:1-7, and so it is a psalm of praise I suppose.

Looking at the text it could have a use a recessional.

The sheet music is available at his website.

I made these backings a while ago, so they often a surprise to me. I must have interpreted “purposeful” as light funk/soul.

Give ear to God’s teaching
Lean into God’s word
Hear all God’s saying
we’ve long known and heard
Truth from the saintly
Truth we’ll share forward
In praise of God’s wonders
In praise of the Lord

We won’t hide them from our children
May they tell their children too
May they trust in you, O Holy One
Your commands we’re called to do

Give ear to God’s teaching
Lean into God’s word …

Your wonders will not be forgotten
We will teach our children well
Your word, your truth, your life, your love
Have we a tale to tell!

Give ear to God’s teaching
Lean into God’s word
Hear all God’s saying
we’ve long known and heard
Truth from the saintly
Truth we’ll take forward
In praise of God’s wonders
In praise of the Lord
In praise of God’s wonders
In praise of the Lord

David MacGregor
© 2023 Willow Publishing
from Psalm 78:1-7

More children’s song goodness from David MacGregor.

The sheet music is hard to download so I have posted a pdf version below.

Oh-oh-oh
Happiness begins with Jesus
Happiness begins with love
It’s living Jesus way
today and ev’ry day
Oh – hap-ap-appiness is love.

1. Means sometimes doing things differently
   than all our friends would do.
   When sometimes people say things that hurt
   God’s there to pull us through …
2. Happiness as we help someone.
   God’s happiness we’ll bring
   With Jesus always our Lord and friend,
   for joy, we’ll dance and sing …

coda: Oh-oh-oh, hap-ap-appiness is love.
Oh-oh-oh, hap-ap-appiness is love.
Jesus’ love! (shouted)

© David MacGregor 1992

I was daydreaming at Mass yesterday – mea culpa Father Bala – and was wondering what the best mass I had ever attended was.

I can think of a lot of worse ones: our only Irish mass in Tralee with zero assembly participation and a rush for the doors after communion by all but a couple of stunned tourists. I recall some mechanical twenty minute Cathedral masses at sixish at St Mary’s in Sydney.

I was greatly uplifted by the masses at the APMN conventions. When the assembly is entirely made up of singers it is astonishing.

My mind wandered to Kagoshima at St Francis Xavier Church in the chapel at the base of their steeple with no more than twenty people singing the mass in Japanese, call and response with a cantor and a Vietnamese priest. I had sat inadvertently in an elderly lady’s favourite chair at the end of a row of seats and with her struggling to move she needed it. You have to be tough to be a Catholic in Japan. She wouldn’t leave at the end until she had given us a small gift – this has happened once or twice in Japan over the years.

The priest interrupted his homily to give us precis in English, which was most pastoral.

I think that was about perfect. I have been to mediocre masses in Japan as well mind you. I have been at masses that may have appeared perfunctory but touched me. I have been to elaborate masses that left me feeling alone.

I invite comments.

BTW I recovered in time to play the Sanctus … just.

The prolific and celebrated American hymn writer, Ruth Duck, died on Boxing Day. Her text for “As a Fire Is Meant For Burning” is a favourite of mine and set here to the traditional shape note tune BEACH SPRING.

This just about gets us to Lent.

Entrance: Gather Us In (Haugen) AOV 1/12

Psalm 91 (McKenna)

Lord, it is good to give thanks to you,’

To give thanks to you.

 Gifts: Open My Eyes  (Manibusan) AOV 1/166

Communion: To the Table We Are Called (O’Brien/Harvey) AOVD

Recessional: As a Fire is Meant for Burning  (Duck) GA 481

Entrance: All Are Welcome (Haugen)

Psalm 102 (McKenna)

The Lord is kind and merciful.

Gifts: Be Merciful (Haugen)

Communion: To the Table We Are Called (O’Brien/Harvey) AOVD

Recessional: Go Make a Difference  (Angrisano/Tomaszek) AOV NG 52

Listening to the backing for the psalm reminds me that I made these quickly, some time ago just to learn them and I was paying no attention whether the style was suitable. This one isn’t.

Entrance: A New Heart for a New World   (O’Brien/Watts) AOV 1/158

Psalm 1 (McKenna)

Happy are they who hope in the Lord.

Happy are they! Happy are they!

Gifts: From the Many Make Us One (Huck/Alonso)

Communion: Beatitudes (Balhoff/Ducotte)

Recessional: Send Us Out (Bryant) AOVD

All but one Australian song, this week.

Entrance: Come, Now is the Time to Worship (Doerksen) AOV NG 29

Psalm 137 (McKenna)

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord.

Gifts: Harvest (Grant) AOV Digital

Communion: To the Table We Are Called (O’Brien/Harvey) AOVD

Recessional: Galilee Song (Andersen) AOV 1/15

No fourth week in ordinary time this year. This liturgy has only Australian music as we use Paul Taylor’s Mass of St Francis.

Entrance: Gather As One  (McKenna) AOV NG 48

Psalm 23 (McKenna)

Who is this king of glory? It is the Lord!

Gifts: Bless Our Gifts (Grant) AOVD

Communion: Come to the Table (Burland) AOV NG 33

Recessional: Christ Light, Shining in the Darkness (Grant) CWBII 468

It is the weekend of the Tamar Valley Folk Festival here in George Town, Tasmania, so this is a good day to look at this folk song from David MacGregor of Brisbane, Australia.

It is a reflective song that is about grace and baptism without mentioning water.

It’s range is out of my league, but as a solo vehicle for someone talented, it is a nice find. He has let lose all his tricks – modulations, triplets, extra 2/4 bars – all under a folk-pop style – sweet. The sheet music is at his site.

My understated backing shows how good BIAB is at this style.

When the days in the spotlight seem over
When your life‘s like a page ‘bout to turn
When you’re entering a space rarely travelled
and your pride knows there’s much yet to learn
That it’s time to step back in the shadows 
to realise it’s time to move on
Time for looking afresh at the Saviour
for brand new depending upon

Hand it over
Over to Jesus
Hand it over
Let it all go
In the dying is rising
In losing is finding 
Hand it over
Over
Over
To grace, to God 

When a new generation starts rising
When the ways of the past must give way
When you’re seen as an elder but wonder
What this all has to do with today
Sure it’s time to start passing that baton
But in passing, there’s pain letting go
Time to see myself newly in Jesus
The hope, the comfort I know

David MacGregor
© 2017
Willow Publishing

This is David Macgregor‘s joyous setting of Charles Wesley’s Easter text.

The sheet music is at his site.

Christ the Lord is risen today
Let the whole creation say
Raise your joys and triumphs high
Sing now, heaven, and earth reply

Hallelu, hallelujah
Hallelu, hallelujah
Hallelu, hallelujah
Hallelu, hallelujah

Love’s redeeming work is done
Fought the fight, the battle won
Vain the stone, the watch, the seal
Christ has burst the gates of hell
Hallelu, hallelujah …

Lives again our glorious King
Where O death is now your sting
Once he died our souls to save
Where’s your victory, O grave
Hallelu, hallelujah …

Love’s redeeming work is done
Fought the fight the battle won
Death in vain forbids Him rise
Christ has opened paradise
Hallelu, hallelujah …

Soar we now where Christ has led
Following our exalted Head
Made like Him, like Him we rise
Ours the cross, the grave ,the skies
Hallelu, hallelujah

Charles Wesley
© Words: Public Domain
Music: David MacGregor
© 2023 Willow Publishing