Music for the Liturgy of the Family Meal
This Advent we began a new family practice. Before each meal, we lit the appropriate candles in the Advent Wreath and sang the first verse of O Come O Come Emmanuel as a family before saying grace. Now that Advent is over, we miss this practice. The children in particular loved to sing before each meal so much that they wanted it for lunch and breakfast too!
Tonight we thought we would try to sing a Christmas carol to continue our practice and chose Joy to the World, since it works well not just for Christmas Day itself, but for the whole season. That got us thinking: perhaps this is a practice we could continue throughout the year. After supper we had a little brainstorm to come up with some music for the rest of the liturgical year. Here are some of our ideas and we were wondering if you might be able to help us fill out the year a bit.
Boxing Day (Feast of St. Stephen) – Good King Wenceslaus
Mary, Mother of God – Canticle of the Turning
Epiphany – We Three Kings
Annunciation – The Angel Gabriel
Visitation – Some song that I can’t think of the name of that includes the lyric “Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of the word of the Lord.” (Anyone?)
Assumption – Hail Holy Queen
Easter – Jesus Christ is Ris’n Today
Corpus Christi – Tantum Ergo
Feast of St. Francis – Make Me a Channel of Your Peace
Pentecost – Lord Send Out Your Spirit
Anything come to mind for Trinity Sunday or Christ the King? Do you have other suggestions for the feasts already covered hear? What other feasts might work well?
We are thinking we’ll sing the doxology whenever we don’t have another season or feast:
(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)
Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of three (so far) and husband of one.
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“Holy, Holy, Holy” is a specifically Trinitarian hymn, suitable for Trinity Sunday. “To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King” always works on the Feast of Christ the King. “Alleluia, Sing to Jesus” might work, too.
The song’s gotta be short before the supper gets cold! My guys like to sing, “Humbly Lord we Worship You” and “Where Charity and Love Prevail” I guess for ordinary time?
Love it! I’m half tempted to break out a Mennonite hymnal (which has a wide range of borrowed material), but then I would bombard you with more hymn titles than you ever wanted, so I’ll just stick to what springs to mind.
For Christ the King I think of “Jesus Shall Reign” or “Crown Him with Many Crowns” – not just because of the royalty allusions in the titles but because of the strong Kingdom of God overtones in the texts, and the latter especially is packed with heavy-duty Christology. I was also recently introduced to an amazing hymn text called “Christus Paradox” with lots of rich both/ands.
Any hymn with verses addressed to each person of the Trinity would work well for Trinity Sunday, although I can’t really think of particular ones at the moment. Any Magnificat would also do nicely for the Visitation.
And if you can round up a quartet of Mennonites, they can give you a doxology that will knock your socks off.
I undertand that there is an indulgence granted for those who sing the Te Deum publicly on December 31 and the Veni Creator on January 1–not sure if the dinner table counts as “publicly”, but why not do it anyway, in English, Latin, or whatever? And I vote for the Magnificat on the Visitation, and maybe other Marian feast days too. “Come, thou almighty King” of “God, Father, praise and glory” would work for Trinity Sunday, and “Crown Him with many crowns” is good for Christ the King (you don’t have to do all the verses–there’s something like 15 total.) Singing as a family is a great idea–and a great opportunity to learn new songs.
(Alas, I live alone with my cat, and she doesn’t want to sing.)
I hope its the “Cistercian” Tantum Ergo and not the other one that is more common.
What a wonderful idea! I will definitely have to begin something like this in my home.
For the feast of St. Francis, rather than “Make Me a Channel of Your Peace” (which is based on a prayer St. Francis did not write) how about the old Shaker hymn, “Simple Gifts” which captures a great deal of the Franciscan charism.
For Corpus Christi, I love “I am the Bread of Life”. Actually, my community frequently sings this in November when we have our memorial service for our deceased members.
For All Saints I like “Faith of our Fathers”.
In Advent you might want to change things up with “On Jordan’s Bank”.