Palm Sunday and the Power of Music

We had a great Palm Sunday service at St. Francis today. One of the things that made it special was the music and special reading of the passion from St. Matthew. On the special Sundays and services interspersed throughout the year, there are additional readings and devotions appropriate to the season. Today it was the blessing of palms, and the Palm Sunday procession. In small parishes these additional prayers and devotions are often simply recited because it easy - the path of least resistance. But while the sentiment and language of the prayers is very powerful and beautiful in its own way, the simple fact that they are recited - along with much of the regular service - takes away from their significance and impact. Instead of glorying in the liturgy that day the people end up complaining about the long service. In other words, the profound words of the special rite for that day end up getting lost in the rest of the service. I have found, however, that if a little bit of time is taken in advance to learn some chants and work with the choir, and to choreograph a decent liturgy and procession (if one is called for), these additional devotions have the intense spiritual effect they were meant to have, and that even the lowest of low churchmen will shake your hand after the service and comment on its sublimity.

So what we did at St. Francis was chant instead of simply and boringly "recite" the Hosanna Filio David along with the Psalm verse and other related prayers and devotions. It took a few choir practices, but our choir of four amateurs nailed it to great effect! But we didn't leave it at that. We wanted to incorporate as much chant in the service as possible. And since Anglican chant is very hard for such a small untrained choir as ours, we focused on Gregorian chant... that is what we would do to ornament the liturgy for this special day! What to chant came next. Besides the "Hosanna Filio David" (which our untrained, tiny choir learned to read and sing in traditional Gregorian chant notation in one night), we took some of the 1940 Hymnal selections for Passiontide and sung the Gregorian chant tunes of them (e.g. #63, first tune). For the Palm Sunday procession we sang #64 - 1st Tune. Granted, it would have been easier to sing the second tune (Winchester New, I think it was...), but then again we always sing that tune. Why not work a little harder with the choir and congregation and have them learn a new tune that is more solemn and stirring for this special day? So that is what we did. And it sounded great, and made the service more special and solemn. The 1940 Hymnal has so many great but unused resources for the average parish church. We did a classical "pretzel" procession in the church, and our organist at exactly the right moment transposed from #64 into "All Glory Laud and Honor". Then we did some more Gregorian chant in the service, and we read the Holy Gospel in parts. It was all very powerful, different (for this parish), and beautiful.

All of this was (obviously) a lot of extra work, but it was well worth it. People remarked afterwards at how beautiful the service was. One person in the congregation was fending off tears while reading the peoples' part in the Gospel reading from St. Matthew. Why do I mention this? Because I think in our parishes there is often the temptation to accept too much the status quo, and to be content with how things are "always"done. But what we end up with in our services dullness and even deadness. There is the tendency to think that parishioners are too dumb to try a new tune, or the organist is too lazy to commit to an extra rehearsal for a special service, so we stick with the easiest way out, and the way we have always done things, and then wonder why people leave after a year or so. On the contrary, there is much flexibility and 2000+ year tradition to draw upon in ornamenting these important services. We clergy need to get creative and think of ways to use the 2,000 year old tradition of the Church in their parishes to better effect.