Lent to Pentecost (A)

You might be one of those people who plan the music long before the event, but it’s sometimes worth being flexible (and confident) enough to let the settings choose themselves according to what is going on in people’s lives, the parish, the Church and the world. That actually means more preparation, because you need lots of music to be running through your head as you make the decisions. A single person being received? Maybe this setting. A great throng coming for baptism? Maybe this one. One of the most useful things a liturgist can develop is a listening ear: not just for the messages of the liturgy but of how they might sound in the ears of the Church at any particular time. What does Lent sound like, when the main local employer has given notice? How can families celebrate Easter, if they don’t know whether they’re going to keep their homes? There are lots of messages about this sort of thing in the Scriptures – but how to make them real options when people are getting used to a different way of life?

And it’s not just music. If the economic situation is becoming more precarious, if the war is going badly, if, God forbid, anything hideous is happening in the news, then we as parish musicians and liturgists are part of the ‘response team’, trying to give people space and words to live through what is going on. A parish I once knew did nothing whatever to mark the events of 9/11 on the Sunday afterwards, presumably because the bidding prayers had been written on the Monday, and into the gap the musicians had to step; not just for that Sunday, when everyone still had the most harrowing images before their eyes, but for weeks and months afterwards. Thank God, also, that there are good things happening in the world, and we should recognise those too.

When we gather around a font to baptise a baby it’s easy to see it as a new beginning; when those who have followed the RCIA process emerge from the waters, it’s tempting – hedged about with ‘courses’ and ‘programmes’ as we are – to see it as the end of a journey. It’s not, of course, and the liturgy makes that clear, encouraging the newly baptised – and all who are initiated during the Easter season – to be a visible presence, maybe still in their festival clothes, amongst the Christian assembly when it gathers. These people are a witness to the life and growth of the Church, especially at Pentecost. As they take their places amongst the praying, celebrating community, they support and are supported by the faithful in the intercessions. We all witness to the Resurrection, but the newly initiated have a special role as those who have made a public profession, an example to other members of the Church at whichever stage of the faith journey they are.

The message this gives to the Church and, through us, to the world, is that Easter is not just a Bank Holiday weekend but a whole fifty days set aside which complements the time of recollection which was Lent. Lent is also often described as a journey but, again, it’s not a journey which ends at the Easter Vigil: all that prayer, being sparing with food and other consumption, and extra looking for ways to do good things, is a preparation for the new life of Easter. If living a more consciously Christian life is good enough for the forty days of Lent, then it’s right for the days which follow – all of them! And Pentecost doesn’t so much call us to a celebration of ourselves as the Church as to a realisation (prepared for by hearing the progression of Scripture during the weeks of Easter) that we are not called to feel good about being part of the Church but to do the uncomfortable, sometimes even dangerous, work of taking the Gospel to others. Go out to the whole world, proclaim the Good News!

In the calendar

• 9 March – Ash Wednesday
• 10 March – St John Ogilvie, feast in Scotland
• 17 March – St Patrick, feast in England and Wales, also Scotland, solemnity in Ireland
• 19 March – St Joseph, solemnity
• 25 March – Annunciation of the Lord, solemnity
• 17 April – Palm Sunday
• 21-23 April – Paschal Triduum
• 2 May – St George, patron of England, solemnity in England (delayed until after Easter Octave; note also that St Catherine of Siena’s feast on 29 April is not celebrated this year because its date falls within the Easter Octave, which takes precedence)
• 3 May – SS Philip and James, apostles, feast
• 4 May – English Martyrs, now feast in England
• 14 May – St Matthias, apostle, feast
• 27 May – St Augustine of Canterbury, now feast in England
• 31 May – Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, feast
• 2 June – Ascension of the Lord, solemnity in Scotland
• 5 June – Ascension of the Lord, solemnity in England and Wales, also Ireland (transferred from the preceding Thursday)
• 9 June – St Columba, feast in Scotland and Ireland
• 12 June – Pentecost, solemnity

Seventh Sunday of Easter, Sunday 5 June

Still celebrated in Scotland and other places where Ascension is 40 days after Easter Day. Readings 1 and 2 speak of the time ahead for the Church: a people of intense prayer, but also seeing the persecution that being a Christian is likely to bring. The psalm sings out yearning, but not for the hereafter: it’s about the goodness of God here and now. John’s Gospel has Christ’s prayer to the Father of completeness, of commending his people to the love of God. While we celebrate God’s love, the music should also reflect our prayers for the coming of the Spirit, looking ahead to Pentecost next Sunday.

The content of Preparing the Liturgy for Sundays and Feastdays is the work of several authors and is copyright © 2011 John Ainslie, Ann Blackett, Peter Harrison, Kevin Hartley, Alan Smith and Paul Wellicome. This compilation is copyright © 2011 Society of Saint Gregory. All rights reserved.