NOVEMBER 2022
Cup, no Sign of Peace, no full complement of liturgical ministers, ran the risk of being seen as the new norm. You can hear the question being asked by some: “If we did fine without them then, do we really need to bring them back?” As we continue to restore good liturgical practices, we are given the opportunity to remind the assembly of how and why we do things. We may find ourselves in the happy position of needing to welcome new liturgical ministers as roles and practices are restored. Time can also be a great cleanser! Perhaps some customs, bad habits, and insufficient or dated repertoire fell out of use these past three years. We can use the gift of time as a stated or unstated rationale for letting some things slip away. Might we hope to use this gift of time to our advantage?
Singing at home
Another happy circumstance of pandemic worship was the reclaiming of the hymnal, subscription publication, or missalette as an element of home prayer. Early on in the pandemic, when gathering in church was not possible, some parishes invited parishioners to take hymnals home for private and devotional use. Some offered hymnals for parishioners to purchase, increased their copies of pew resource subscriptions, or instructed people how to purchase a hymnal. Some may have even learned how to download a hymnal onto their device. Cantors and accompanists: you will never know what a blessing you were to so many as they sang along with you at home.
It was certainly better for a hymnal to be used at home than boxed up in storage at the church. Piano racks, bedroom night stands, and dining room tables became repositories for hymnals. I’d like to think there was an increase in instances of families singing at home together. Perhaps more common was an individual’s use of a hymnal not for singing, but personal prayer and devotion. Even as musicians we need to ask ourselves if we have ever read, not sung, our way through the hymnal. Are you able to coordinate a way for parishioners to buy or be given a worship resource for home use? Might we hope that hymnals and songbooks remain a part of home prayer and devotion?
“Encourage one another to delight in the sound of a congregation singing together. ”
“I rejoiced when I heard them say…”
Psalms of lament—both of the individual and the community—comprise the largest genre of psalms in the psalter; many commentators categorize more than a third of all psalms as being psalms of lament. Common to all of these psalms, save only a few, is that they end with a vow of praise. Parishes and parts of the country find themselves emerging from the pandemic at different paces. Present-day individuals and communities continue to mourn, grieve, and find themselves in the psalms of lament. What praise and thanksgiving can you and your congregation make at this time? What do you believe that God will still do for you and your parish? What can you look back upon with gratefulness, thankfulness, and even humor? Encourage one another to delight in the sound of a congregation singing together. Where do you find hope for the future?
Te blessing of our fixed pattern of Lectionary readings is that they stay the same year after year because we are different year after year. And how different we were these last three years! How fortunate that this is that wonderful year where the last Sunday psalm of year C— Psalm 122—is also the first Sunday psalm of year A. We end a three-year cycle and begin a new cycle rejoicing that we are going to the house of the Lord. After nearly three years of restrictions, it’s good to be back home!
Michael Silhavy is Senior Project Editor at GIA Publications and has worked in parish, school, university, cathedral, and diocesan settings.
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