This Sunday will be our last time together in our nave for many months. We’re commencing something like a pilgrimage together — the distance isn’t great but the ambience will be far, far away from what we usually experience. When the plans for the changes being made to our building were first announced, Fr. Sean appointed a prayer that would accompany us in this season. The prayer is a Collect on page 49 in the 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.
Direct us, O Lord, in all our doings, with thy most gracious favour,
and further us with thy continual help;
that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee,
we may glorify thy holy Name,
and finally, by thy mercy, obtain everlasting life;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
This ancient prayer may date back to the sixth century and the time of Pope Gregory the Great. In older editions of the Prayerbook, the first word of the prayer was “Prevent,” not “Direct.” In the sixteenth century, the word “prevent” meant to go before. In the King James Bible, for example, Psalm 88:13 reads: “But unto thee have I cried, O LORD; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.”
In honor of this being the last Sunday for a while in our nave, today’s Anthem is a setting of this Collect. When William Byrd composed his beautiful motet employing this prayer, he used the original verb “Prevent.” But it’s helpful for our modern ears and brains that we remember that the prayer is asking for God’s enabling and leading, not his obstructing.
In 2023, this piece was sung at the coronation of King Charles III, a rather more consequential event than is our own Sunday Mass:
The Alleluia for today is the opening verse from Psalm 47: “O clap your hands together, all ye people: O sing unto God with the voice of melody.” The same injunction is sung at the beginning of the Introit. In light of the prominence of that verse in today’s liturgy, I’ve assembled a “playlist” of settings of this text, music from several centuries that captures — in different ways – the exuberance evoked by this text.
Also of relevance to this Sunday is an introduction to one of the cantatas that J. S. Bach composed to be sung on the Seventh Sunday after Trinity. I find the melody that occurs throughout the work to be haunting, which is one reason so many other composers have also used it in their works. Read more — and listen — here.
Here is a list of the hymns we’ll sing together this Sunday:
PROCESSIONAL HYMN:
O worship the King (#288)
SERMON HYMN:
Lead us, heav’nly Father (#567)
COMMUNION HYMNS:
My God, Thy table now is spread (#203)
Let thy Blood in mercy poured (#190)
CLOSING HYMN:
O Word of God Incarnate (#402)