Time got ahead of me and I didn’t get back to this after my summer break quite as quickly as I wanted to. Never mind: better to start from where I am. I had a lovely summer that included two weeks of cathedral singing: in Ely with a Canadian choir, and in Ripon with the University of London Church Choir, which included one of my psalm chants and my Nunc dimittis.
So, anyway, the readings for, er, yesterday, were:
Proverbs: The Lord is on the side of the poor and afflicted
Psalm 125: Those who trust in the Lord are safe like mountains that cannot be moved
Isaiah: Do not be afraid! God will come with vengeance, heal people, and transform the land from desert to oasis.
Psalm 146: Happy are those who trust in the Lord, who executes justice, feeds the hungry, opens the eyes of the blind, frees the prisoners, watches over the strangers, upholds the orphan and widow, but brings the wicked to ruin.
James: A warning against showing favouritism or partiality toward the rich; faith without works is dead.
Mark: The healing of the Syrophoenician woman’s daughter; the restoration of hearing and speech to a deaf man.
Music:
Kate Keefe, Psalm 125
Responsorial psalm using the NRSV; cantor or unison choir and congregation, with keyboard and recorder (the recorder part looks optional to me).
PDF: https://www.musicformass.co.uk/episcopal/music/psalm-125-us-16th-after-pentecost-year-b.pdf
mp3 (robots): https://www.musicformass.co.uk/episcopal/sound/psalm-125-us-16th-after-pentecost-year-b.mp3
(and do read Kate’s recent blog post on women being given a voice by Jesus.)
It’s well worth looking at Kate Keefe’s other responsorial psalms and canticles, too; mind that the numbering for the psalms is slightly different for Roman Catholics.
The Syrophoenician woman’s challenge to Jesus, to heal her daughter even though they are Gentiles, is a strong one. Along those lines, Elizabeth Alexander’s No Other People’s Children is a good reminder that the divisions we find it so easy to make between people are false. Whether it’s appropriate for liturgical use will depend on your own church, though; written for a Unitarian context, the text doesn’t refer to God at all.
If you’re planning music ahead, I do have advance music recommendations available for December 2018 (£3.50) and January 2019 (£2.50), and I hope to have February online before the end of this month, PhD work allowing. If you’re not planning your music that far ahead but you want to support my work on this site, buying the music recommendations PDF is a great way to do that.
