I need Christmas Mass music ideas

  • Thread starter Thread starter VAC
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
V

VAC

Guest
Please give me your **best suggestions **for offertory and communion songs. This will be a lightly attended 8:30 am Christmas morning mass, at which I have inherited the honor of leading the music. Most of my group will be out of town, but I have a handful of talented singers who are singing with me. No keyboard, organ or pianist is available. Just some light accompaniment with one guitar.
 
What about:
  • What Child is This? (I could picture this played beautifully on a guitar)
  • Angels We Have Heard on High
  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  • Once in Royal David’s City (It’s one of my favorite hymns we do every Christmas. I always have to fight from losing it by the third verse. ) I know the video shows a boy’s choir, congregation and organ playing, but I’ve heard it done with guitar at a parish where they didn’t have an organ or piano and it worked out. I’m pretty sure it is in the Worship III hymnal, although I’m not sure if it is in the OCP. Something tells me it was at least a few years ago because I remember teaching it to the children’s choir and they had OCP hymnals.
youtube.com/watch?v=1RC34N1TfCQ&feature=related

Text:
Once in royal Davids city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.
 
All beautiful songs and some of my favourites too. I also like “Wake from your sleep” by Dan Shutte. It’s a good Christmas morning song.
 
Sarabande said:
What about:
  • What Child is This? (I could picture this played beautifully on a guitar)
  • Angels We Have Heard on High
  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  • Once in Royal David’s City (It’s one of my favorite hymns we do every Christmas. I always have to fight from losing it by the third verse. ) I know the video shows a boy’s choir, congregation and organ playing, but I’ve heard it done with guitar at a parish where they didn’t have an organ or piano and it worked out. I’m pretty sure it is in the Worship III hymnal, although I’m not sure if it is in the OCP. Something tells me it was at least a few years ago because I remember teaching it to the children’s choir and they had OCP hymnals.
youtube.com/watch?v=1RC34N1TfCQ&feature=related

Text:
Once in royal Davids city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.
Click to expand...
Interesting, Sarabande - I love Once in Royal David’s City too, but I’ve never come across that third verse! We do sing four verses though, but what you have as verse 4 we sing as v.3. Our verse 4 reads like this:

Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in Heaven.
Set at God’s right hand on high;
Where like stars His children crowned,
All in white shall wait around.
  • But it seems that Ms C.F. Alexander did write the verse that you mentioned…I don’t know how I never came across it though; I don’t think it’s in any of our hymnals!
VAC, I know you say you are looking for music for a morning Mass, but I don’t think it would be too odd to sing something such as “Silent Night” - it’s a nice, restrained carol for that time of the morning! I suggest “Silent Night” because, as you may know, it was first accompanied by a guitar, when the organ of Franz Gruber’s church was found to be out of action (the mice always get the blame for this). So it would be quite authentic for the group you have to sing this with a guitar accompaniment.

What about some Gregorian Chant? Two beautiful and appropriate chants are “Puer Natus est Nobis” and “Ecce Nomen Domini Emmanuel”… As long as it doesn’t drag, either one of these chants could sound great.
 
According to legend, Silent Night was written originally to be accompanied by a guitar.

May I suggest the last two stanzas of O Little Town of Bethlehem for a communion hymn?

How silently, how silently the wond’rous gift is giv’n.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessing of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

Quite Eucharistic, no?
 
What I’m using for Christmas for the Offertory and Communion:

Offertory Hymn: Angels We Have Heard On High
Communion Hymn: Silent Night, Holy Night
 
Actually, O Little Town of Bethelehem may not be a bad choice at all for Holy Communion. After all, Bethlehem means the “House of Bread.” The imagery is beautiful because the true Bread come down from Heaven was born in the “House of Bread.”

You could use “Silent Night” for the offertory.

Something else that is interesting is that the Sistene Chapel Choir sings Adeste Fideles (O Come, All Ye Faithful) for Communion for the Midnight Mass.
 
NPC said:
Interesting, Sarabande - I love Once in Royal David’s City too, but I’ve never come across that third verse! We do sing four verses though, but what you have as verse 4 we sing as v.3. Our verse 4 reads like this:

Not in that poor lowly stable,
With the oxen standing by,
We shall see Him; but in Heaven.
Set at God’s right hand on high;
Where like stars His children crowned,
All in white shall wait around.
Click to expand...
That’s funny. Yes, I am familiar with that verse as well, although I’ve only heard it sung and have never seen it on paper. I had copied and pasted the verses from site, but the third verse I pasted is actually the 4th verse in our parish hymnal - Worship III. We have 5 verses in our hymnal. The verse that is missing from what I pasted is the 3rd verse in our hymnal:

And through all his wondrous childhood
He would honour and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden
In whose gentle arms he lay.
Christian children all should be
Kind, obedient, good as He.
 
Sarabande said:
What about:
  • What Child is This? (I could picture this played beautifully on a guitar)
  • Angels We Have Heard on High
  • Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
  • Once in Royal David’s City (It’s one of my favorite hymns we do every Christmas. I always have to fight from losing it by the third verse. ) I know the video shows a boy’s choir, congregation and organ playing, but I’ve heard it done with guitar at a parish where they didn’t have an organ or piano and it worked out. I’m pretty sure it is in the Worship III hymnal, although I’m not sure if it is in the OCP. Something tells me it was at least a few years ago because I remember teaching it to the children’s choir and they had OCP hymnals.
youtube.com/watch?v=1RC34N1TfCQ&feature=related

Text:
Once in royal Davids city,
Stood a lowly cattle shed,
Where a mother laid her Baby,
In a manger for His bed:
Mary was that mother mild,
Jesus Christ, her little Child.

He came down to earth from heaven,
Who is God and Lord of all,
And His shelter was a stable,
And His cradle was a stall:
With the poor, and mean, and lowly,
Lived on earth our Saviour holy.

For He is our childhood’s pattern;
Day by day, like us, He grew;
He was little, weak, and helpless,
Tears and smiles, like us He knew;
And He cares when we are sad,
And he shares when we are glad.

And our eyes at last shall see Him,
Through His own redeeming love;
For that Child so dear and gentle,
Is our Lord in heaven above:
And He leads His children on,
To the place where He is gone.
Click to expand...
When I was an Anglo Catholic the priest would carry the Baby Jesus to the Manger processing around the church and we sang Once in Royal Davids City. That was also my favorite hymn for Christmas. I really miss hearing it. It was beautiful. After the Baby Jesus was laid in the manger the priest would incense it.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
 
BernadetteM said:
When I was an Anglo Catholic the priest would carry the Baby Jesus to the Manger processing around the church and we sang Once in Royal Davids City. That was also my favorite hymn for Christmas. I really miss hearing it. It was beautiful. After the Baby Jesus was laid in the manger the priest would incense it.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
Click to expand...
That does sound beautiful.

Yes, it’s a shame that you don’t hear it as often at Catholic parishes. It’s done at my parish and that was only place where I heard it, except when I introduced the hymn to the parish I worked at as the children’s music director.
 
I can’t remember what goes where, but we’re singing several songs that blend two different familiar songs. One is called On a Wondrous Night, and it includes Silent Night. Another one is called A New Day or maybe A New Day is Dawning, and although the one song isn’t something I knew before, it was immediately familiar and the second song is Away in a Manger. Finally we have a song called Prophets Knew and it starts out with O Come O Come Emmanuel and then goes into this bright driving melody talking about how Elijah and Micah prophesied Christ’s birth.
 
Sarabande said:
That does sound beautiful.

Yes, it’s a shame that you don’t hear it as often at Catholic parishes. It’s done at my parish and that was only place where I heard it, except when I introduced the hymn to the parish I worked at as the children’s music director.
Click to expand...
I am very fortunate that my parish sings the traditional hymns, most of them are the same ones from my Anglo Catholic days. Since I am out of town on Christmas I don’t know if my parish uses Once in David’s Royal City on Christmas or not.

I imagine that most people aren’t aware of that hymn.

God Bless

Bernadette
 
BernadetteM said:
When I was an Anglo Catholic the priest would carry the Baby Jesus to the Manger processing around the church and we sang Once in Royal Davids City. That was also my favorite hymn for Christmas. I really miss hearing it. It was beautiful. After the Baby Jesus was laid in the manger the priest would incense it.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
Click to expand...
That is beautiful. Our pastor does that at Midnight Mass when we are singing “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Usually we will sing the first 2 verses and stop when they get to the nativity scene. They do the blessing of the nativity, and then we sing the 3rd verse of “O Come, All Ye Faithful” and then sing the Latin version of verse one “Adeste Fideles”
 
bpbasilphx said:
According to legend, Silent Night was written originally to be accompanied by a guitar.

May I suggest the last two stanzas of O Little Town of Bethlehem for a communion hymn?

How silently, how silently the wond’rous gift is giv’n.
So God imparts to human hearts the blessing of His heav’n.
No ear may hear His coming, but in this world of sin
Where meek souls will receive Him, still the dear Christ enters in.

O holy Child of Bethlehem, descend to us, we pray.
Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today.
We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell.
O come to us, abide with us, our Lord Emmanuel.

Quite Eucharistic, no?
Click to expand...
I agree, and plan to play that at our Mass as well for the communion hymn. Its very beautiful on a guitar fingerstyle.

Also, I agree with the “Silent Night” recommendation… its beautiful on a guitar in fingerstyle as well.

Have any of you ever played the “Lamb of God” to the tune of “Silent Night”? It’s incredibly moving…

Lamb of God, you take away, the sins of the world, have mercy on us
(Silent Night)…(Holy Night)…(all is calm)…(all is bright)

…Lamb of God, you take away…the sins of the world,…have mercy on us
(round yon virgin, mother and child)…(holy infant)…(so tender and mild)

Lamb of God grant us peace, Lamb of God grant us peace
(Christ the Savior is born)…(Christ the Savior is born)

Another hymn I love on the guitar is the “Mary’s Boy Child”… and its very beautiful to hear all those voices in the congregation “hark now hear, the angels sing, a new king is born today…”
 
Another guitar version that helps me out a lot with Christmas and Advent is the “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” hymn. Another 14th century hymn that plays exceptionally well in fingerstyle on a guitar… and tied for first place in my Advent song choices right up there with “Oh Come o come Emanual”

That last line in the 4th verse… the “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia Lord most high…”

I use that for the Gospel, Chris has Died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again fits it well, and the great Amen too.
 
I love the Christmas song: **Once in Royal David’s City.**It was written by Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander.

She was a prolific song writer. Among her many Hymns was:

All Creatures Great and Small.

She married an Anglican minister.

I hope that is okay with everybody on this forum! 😉
 
MGLechner said:
I love the Christmas song: **Once in Royal David’s City.**It was written by Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander.

She was a prolific song writer. Among her many Hymns was:

All Creatures Great and Small.

She married an Anglican minister.

I hope that is okay with everybody on this forum! 😉
Click to expand...
Once in Royal David’s City is my very favorite Christmas hymn, See my other post. Anglicans have some of most beautiful liturgical music. I really miss some of the hymns, but my parish plays most of the ones we had in my former Anglo Catholic parish.

I was watching Our Lady of the Atonements video for the Immaculate Conception for the school and they sang the Lourdes song. Plus other Marian hymns. It brought back memories of when I went to Lourdes and the hugh procession and everyone singing that hymn in their own languages. It was wonderful.

God Bless

Bernadette
 
Thank you, Bernadette for your reply.

I spent 10 years in an Anglican Church because of the liturgy and the music. While I am a cradle Catholic, I have grown weary of what use to be called “Guitar Masses.” I guess they are now called, “Folk Masses.” The beauty of Anglican worship is unsurpassed in my estimation. Evensong and Lessons and Carols are two of the splendid examples of the Anglican experience of worship. Even writing this makes me long to return to the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer. One of my favorite prayers out of Cranmer’s book is

the Collect for Purity:

Almighty God,
unto whom all hearts are open, all desires
known, and from whom no secrets are hid:
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the
inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify
thy Holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
 
MGLechner said:
Thank you, Bernadette for your reply.

I spent 10 years in an Anglican Church because of the liturgy and the music. While I am a cradle Catholic,** I have grown weary of what use to be called “Guitar Masses.” I guess they are now called, “Folk Masses.” **The beauty of Anglican worship is unsurpassed in my estimation. Evensong and Lessons and Carols are two of the splendid examples of the Anglican experience of worship. Even writing this makes me long to return to the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer. One of my favorite prayers out of Cranmer’s book is

the Collect for Purity:

Almighty God,
unto whom all hearts are open, all desires
known, and from whom no secrets are hid:
Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the
inspiration of thy Holy Spirit,
that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify
thy Holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Click to expand...
I sort of agree with you, there are a few “folk” groups playing around here in Anchorage that I have to dig deep within to keep from having them negatively impact my ability to engage and worship.

I’m not all that familiar with the status of things “down there in America”, but “up here” (in Alaska) I’ve come to believe that its not so much a case of the “folk groups” that makes the music seem to drag on, its more to do with the skill of the musicians themselves. All of whom are doing their absolute best to provide music for our Masses.

Part of the reason I know this is true is that they literally beg me to play where I do, and I’m a novice at best. When I’m unable to play, they end up leading things themselves Acapella which sounds beautiful to me as well, yet they still seem to really like it when I play… even when I butcher a song badly (which does happen occasionally, when I try too hard to deliver what the Priest wants with no forwarning to pracitce for and such) they still keep after me to come back.

Likewise, some of the music leaders in our diocese who are clearly highly trained and experienced often enough choose terribly unappealing songs (to my ear anyway) and treat the choir members in a very bossy and sometimes even mean-hearted fashion. So just cause you can play an organ don’t necessarily make you Gods instrument at all moments of your life…

I personally love the sound and intimacy of fingerstyle guitar playing for these small Masses. Its far more akin to the harp of old than the organ is, and when David played God seemed to like it just fine.

Anyway, I sure wish the talented ones would step up to the plate across the whole world because I know in my case, beautifully done spiritual songs raise the level of my ability to engage and worship immeasurably. And, I sure wish I were more talented to better add to that effort.

Can I say Merry Christmas, or does it have to be “Angelic Advent”? 🙂 Chris

By the way… “Ave Maria” is another song incredibly suited for fingerstyle guitar
 
chriso said:
Another guitar version that helps me out a lot with Christmas and Advent is the “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silent” hymn…
That last line in the 4th verse… the “Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia Lord most high…”
Click to expand...
I love it, too. Here’s a nice version.

The Byzantine Liturgy has beautiful hymns for the Nativity. No instruments, other than the human voice. Worth listening to at least:
Proceed, O Angelic Powers, Christ is Born, Heaven and Earth are United Today.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top