Cantor Avenue

Ordinary Time 1 2012

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
If you're an old hand at this work, you probably recognize the Gospel readings from John 6, which run several Sundays in a row in the Year B cycle of the Lectionary. Excerpts from the "Bread of Life" discourse, these readings expose the roots of eucharistic theology in the collected sayings of Jesus. If you're a new cantor, it might surprise you to see Psalm 34 appear three Sundays running. Text and music repeated with this frequency give us the opportunity to deepen our prayer and refresh our practices.

In parishes where choir participation continues through the summer, this three-week repetition invites us to dance it up a bit, incorporating choir parts that might otherwise be overlooked when preparing psalms of the day. Consider also any harmonies available for verse 1 ("I will bless the Lord…"). (While the verses of the psalm belong to the cantor, the choir can add its voice occasionally to great effect.)

The cantor who prepares and proclaims the psalm the first Sunday might repeat her work the second and even the third—a real benefit for the dedicated soul who steps up to cover the vacations of others. This same-psalm, same-cantor approach might also work well for a new psalmist. Given the opportunity to lead the psalm in real time, receive gentle feedback/coaching, and get another chance the next week and the next, a novice can overcome the jitters and begin to develop steady confidence.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Vigil
As ancient as the origin of the psalms (among the oldest prayers we use on a regular basis) is their role as poetic dialogue in the lives of our people. For each Sunday and festival of the Church year—indeed, every day—a carefully chosen psalm follows the first reading in the Liturgy of the Word.

The first reading, always anchored in the history of salvation, tells of events remembered, the people who experienced them, and something of their meaning for those people, in that place and time. But poetry, oh poetry, cannot be caged in time and darts from scene to scene, from age to age, being heard by people as the fruit of the very time and place in which it sounds. Whenever the psalms are sung, they belong to the people who sing them.

The great and mighty deeds of the Lord proclaimed in the first reading strike the hearts of all who have ears to hear them. In a unique way, singing the psalm draws worshippers into dialogue with what they have just heard and allows them to share with each other how they feel about it—today, in this place, in the midst of this community.

This pattern—listening, singing, listening, singing—forms the heart of what we call liturgy or ritual worship. This forth and back (leader and people, choir and people, cantor and people) brings to life anew the dialogical, proclamation/acclamation form of prayer first recorded in the lives of our ancestors in Exodus 15:21.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary: Day
Most churches seldom fill to capacity with worshippers, and with summer coming perilously close to conclusion (much of its promise still unfulfilled), a feast outside of Sunday during the dog days of the season may draw only a handful of participants. Compound this sparse seasonal landscape with a set of diverse texts yearning for clarification and a psalm whose poetry is unusual even for a psalm, and you, dear cantor, face a hard day's work.

On the plus side, look at the feast we celebrate today. Accept the joy and comfort offered us in the person of our beloved Mother as rich reward for the extra effort it takes to be present and journey into the sacred texts. "For today the Virgin Mother of God was assumed into heaven as the beginning and image of your Church's coming to perfection" (from today's preface).

In the first reading, we see a picture of what we all yearn to become, what the Book of Revelation foresees for the Church: saved by God, no longer subject to the forces of evil. In the psalm, the picture of the king and the king's bride (think Mary) reinforces our loving relationship to God and points to our joyous future together with him.

Owen Alstott's setting of this psalm refrain introduces just the right touch of maternal romance as the rising sixth in the first bar expresses the comfort and joy implicit in the text and makes the phrase irresistible to the assembly's song.

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Read Psalm 34 aloud to get at the heart of its intent: "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." This simple instruction and those found in the verses (bless the Lord at all times, glorify the Lord, extol his name, look to him) await your consent and commitment.

As psalmist, you invite the members of the assembly to live as God has taught you to live: thanking, blessing, fearing, and glorying in the Lord. These ways of being provide nourishment for the journey of life. Think of the Scripture readings and psalm as a menu of nourishing food and drink, and yourself as the waiter.

For Israel, wisdom exists as a set of ideas, as knowledge (common sense), and as a dynamic character who personifies these. In today's first reading, Wisdom invites all to "turn in here," offering nourishment to those who would "advance in the way of understanding" (Proverbs 9:4, 6). As cantor, imagine yourself presenting the menu to all who need her guidance: "Taste and see."

Psalm 34 tells the story (in the first person) of one who knows the sweet taste of praise now and ever because the Lord answered and rescued when this poor one called out. Find a resonant moment in your own history and bring your memory of rescue into dialogue with this text. Read and meditate on the text in light of your particular connection to it. Retell your own story with the language of the psalm. Now bring it to life in the midst of the assembly.

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
In today's first reading we see a people lately arrived in the Promised Land after two generations of wandering. Old habits die hard, and old religious practices even harder. Living cheek by jowl with the Amorites (and their gods), the Israelites seem poised to forget their desert honeymoon with the Lord and revert to idol worship. A handful may still possess household gods like the ones Rachel stashed in her cushion before leaving her father's house (Genesis 31:34). (The original runaways did, after all, plunder the Egyptians [Exodus 12:35–36].)

Joshua leads them by example: "As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord." Then we hear a brief recitation of God's mighty deeds on behalf of Israel—the "why" behind the people's decision to remain faithful to the Lord. In a nutshell: This One did something, and my grandmother (grandfather, great aunt, first cousin twice removed…) witnessed it. As in the oldest example of all, "Sing to the Lord, for he is gloriously triumphant; horse and chariot he has cast into the sea" (Exodus 15:21), this recounting of God's actions forms one part of the dialogical pattern of biblical praise. We will serve/praise the Lord because…

Psalm 34 demonstrates this two-fold pattern: I will bless because the Lord keeps watch, listens for the cry of the just, confronts evildoers, rescues from distress, stays close to the brokenhearted, saves the crushed in spirit. This praise of God, rooted in concrete memory, represents Israel's praise at its most authentic.

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