Copyright © 1991 Rory Cooney
When we are not considering a season like Easter or Advent, you can expect to find in this column an individual treatment of each Sunday. To separate these Sundays of Easter, however, would do some violence to them. At least at first, we should look at them as a unit, since their scriptures are all derived from only three books (add two more for the feast of Ascension), and their meaning is derived from the liturgical context of mystagogy. The Sundays of Easter are meant to provide a context for intense celebration of the experience of God's grace, experienced once again in the lives of our neophytes and in the echoes which their experiences and our rites set off in us.
What do the fearsome and heartening stories of Acts and the surreal cosmogonies of Revelation have in common? What does their juxtaposition have to do with the Easter celebration in the late 20th century? There is a shadow here which is out of alignment with the triumphalism some parishes and preachers tend toward in Easter celebration. Throughout the Acts stories there is a current of rejection and hostility as there is in the Luke's gospel stories of Jesus. The apocalyptic tradition in Jewish literature is a kind of artistic pamphleteering, a politically resistant literature that promises the downfall of hostile or occupying powers in the language of metaphor, allegory, and imagination. Here are people in the middle of extreme difficulty, political turmoil and economic chaos, who not only cling to but actively preach a word of hope and victory. In this proclamation is a word for the modern world. It is not a matter of being done with the cross or pretending that the persecution and murder of innocents is over. Rather, Easter scriptures witness to a new reality. In Christ, death is not the final word. Solidarity, that crossroads at which love and service and community converge, is victor over the strategy of sin and fear to "divide and conquer."
The task of those whose concern is musical liturgy is to shape the liturgy in such a way that the truth is told in everything we ritually say and do. Christ was given victory over death by his Abba, and continues to serve the world through the community of the baptized. Just as we have so recently witnessed the initiation of new members of the body, so for us mystagogs the eucharistic liturgy continues to be initiation. Eucharist invites us again and again into the mystery of becoming verbum Domini and corpus Christi.
Musical attention in the Easter liturgy should give priority to those primary symbols and ritual elements which express the baptismal vows and paschal life most fully. Congregational singing is primary. The gospels and eucharistic prayer should be considered first when planning music, as should the gathering/sprinkling rite, responsorial psalm, and the communion song. Music in Catholic Worship tried to get us to focus this way when it told us about always singing the acclamations. These are all associated with these two ritual moments. It may be that singing the "Alleluia" before the gospel isn't enough during the Easter season. Many communities sing it at the end of the gospel as well, and even at times throughout the proclamation. [A script for weaving the Easter gospel and for the second Sunday of Easter with some verses and the refrain of "O Sons and Daughters" is available from GIA (G5109A) and recorded on This Very Morning (CD-431).]
Regarding the Eucharistic prayer, it is time for us to take the reform at its heart and begin to pray this prayer as the prayer of the whole assembly par excellence. It ought to be prayed by the assembly in its diversity of ministries, among which the whole itself is primary and empowering of all others. At my parish in Phoenix, we have worked with Mass of Creation and non-singing presiders to incorporate more acclamations into the peoples' part. Marty Haugen has more recently published with GIA a setting of Eucharistic Prayer II which adds a cantor/songleader's part to the score. This is not only an excellent "self-rehearsing" technique in the performance but adds another minister to the proclamation of the prayer The setting creates a legitimate and visible part for a woman, a part clearly within the bounds of liturgical orthodoxy.
Concentrating upon these two areas, of music in the liturgy of the word, especially the gospel, and music in the eucharistic prayer, will go a long way toward allowing the community to be its true self in its celebration. Add to this, during the Easter season, a weekly sprinkling rite incorporated into the gathering (cf. Gary Daigle's GIA collection Praise the Maker's Love, esp.Glory to God and Sprinkling Rite), a strong seasonal responsorial psalm and a communion song that truly stimulates communing in mutual presence and in the gift of God's presence, and you will have the flesh, bones, and blood of authentic worship. Add the breath of God, which only your assembly can bring to the feast with its other gifts of spring hues and lilies and forgiving, reconciling life, and our parishes may yet become what we long for: living temples, built on the foundation of the apostles, with Jesus Christ the chief cornerstone.
RESPONSORIAL PSALM. Of the seasonal (common) responsorial psalms for Easter offered in the lectionary, only one is "proper" to the Sunday C cycle. Psalm 118, common to all three cycles, is a psalm of lament with extraordinary imagery from which we derive so much of our Easter vocabulary. In the the year of Luke, however, there is a strong motif of evangelization of the nations which is carried through in Luke's second book. I suggest, therefore, the adoption of Psalm 66 with its antiphon, "Let all the earth cry out to God with joy" as an excellent alternative for this season. Most of the proper psalms are available in useful versions in a variety of styles, so many communities will choose from their common repertoire and sing the proper psalm each week.
Second Sunday of Easter Set the spirit for the rest of the season today. Why does the church bring up the story of Thomas year after year on the second Sunday of Easter? I think so we empiricists can have an advocate in the resurrection story. Psalm for today: Psalm 118. Try, if you haven't already, Michael Joncas's setting from Every Stone Shall Cry (Cooperative Ministries.)
Third Sunday of Easter The meal on the shore of Tiberias continues the lifelong tradition of Jesus's habitual tablesharing (which we saw interpolated even into Luke's infancy narrative by way of the manger story) as a sign of the universality and equality of God's reign. There is also the story of Peter's repentant love and the request of Jesus that he act on that love by caring for the community of disciples. Psalm for today: Psalm 30. If you have a competent guitarist, give Gary Daigle's setting ("I Will Praise You, Lord" [GIA]) a try.
Fourth Sunday of Easter Annually, the image of the shepherd is offered to the community on this Sunday. Taken with last week's "feed my lambs" pericope the community has an opportunity to reflect on its role in the neighborhood and its attitude toward ministry. Psalm for today: Psalm 100. Many will want to pull out David Haas's "We Are His People."
Fifth Sunday of Easter The emphasis has begun to shift from Jesus and the twelve to Christ and the Church as we head toward Pentecost. "People will know you are my disciples by your love for each other." Again, the language of response to the invitation of Jesus is used to describe the Christian life. "People in love show signs of love" is a simply stated theology of liturgy from Music in Catholic Worship. Our liturgical music should be a sign of our love, and give us a chance to sing that love into bolder and bolder action. Psalm 145 is the proper psalm for today: you might consider repeating Psalm 30 or one of the seasonal Easter psalms.
Sixth Sunday of Easter "The Father will send you the Holy Spirit." In John, Jesus "hands over his spirit" both to the Father and to the world, and at his dying breath the church is born from the womb/wound in his side. His breath/spirit is the wind of Pentecost, a feast suggested by today's gospel and the momentum of the Easter season. Psalm 67, the proper psalm for today, could fittingly be replaced by Psalm 66, mentioned above as a good choice for the whole season.
Solemnity of Ascension Why stand staring into heaven? Why do you look for the living one among the dead? Why? Because after all we've seen and heard, we still want the power of the Beyond to match our expectations of power. We still want Messiah to ride into Jerusalem on a winged white stallion, wielding, Jedi-like, a light saber. We want visions and weeping Madonnas and locutions and liquefying blood. The silence is God's messenger which bids us to look away from the skies, and at the abiding presence of Christ in the person right next to us. Lyrics of our hymns should reflect this latter reality, not the false triumphalism of the former.
General resources for music planners: When choosing the songs for worship, there are three publications available for a nominal charge which can assist us, each featuring the music of the publisher who edits it. Oregon Catholic Press issues a seasonal help for its missalette users called "Today's Liturgy;" it corresponds to the "GIA Quarterly" published as a companion to the Worship III/Gather/Lead Me, Guide Me hymnal tandem. The "Glory and Praise Leader's Guide" is available to users of NALR's hymnals. The sheer number of songs available, a number that increases constantly, can be daunting. These aids are handy as idea-starters or short cuts.
All of these guides are written by teams of working pastoral musicians, so they are not simply marketing tools. Nevertheless, the first criterion for hymn selection in our parishes must not be "what is convenient to use" or "what the cantor/choir will sound good singing." Rather, that criterion must be what words and music will articulate and inspire the assembly's faith? Obviously, I can only begin to answer that question for the assembly which I serve.
My answer occasionally moves me to write something new. The Vatican Council's emphasis on the paschal mystery and its centrality to the Sunday liturgy, the liturgical year, and the rites of initiation caught the musical community somewhat by surprise. There is less good Easter music, music and poetry of depth, than there should be. Even today, very little of our active repertoire reflects the paradigm shift in liturgy and theology which has been occurring in our lifetime. Most of our active repertoire paraphrases the cluster of scripture texts which surround the liturgical year. I would venture that this is not the role of hymnody and liturgical song, which is more akin to a "group homily." Sacred song is a reflection on the liturgical word and season, a heightened artistic-communal experience of that word. Nevertheless, at the request of the editor, here are some selections which I have used over the years. They include some of my own compositions.