Here is my video tutorial (40 minutes) on how to sing the Collect at Holy Communion.
In this video, I give a basic introduction to chanting the Collect at Holy Communion according to the Simple Tone.
The celebrant at Holy Communion says or sings the Collect appointed at the close of the gathering rite.
There is a great tradition of singing this prayer. Singing it helps underline its importance.
There are a few tones for singing the Collect, but this is perhaps the best one to learn. It only has four notes and can be pitched by the celebrant at a comfortable level.
In this video, I look at a sample Collect — the Collect for Advent Sunday from A Prayer Book for Australia — and examine its structure before learning how to sing it. Learning the structure of each Collect helps us understand its meaning and also helps us convey that meaning to the congregation.
I then practise chanting the text to one note (recto tono or ‘monotone’), and recommend this as good practise for learning how to chant well. Then I begin adding each inflexion or cadence one by one until the whole chant is assembled. I give some suggestions for the not-so-musical to help find the notes. I finish by showing how I might mark up the text without music so that I can sing directly from the prayer book.
A PDF of the full music seen in this video is available here:
Liturgists are often accused of focusing on the pointless minutiae of Christian worship; to the accusers, this articles is a gift! I want to discuss the rarely discussed issue of wearing a watch while ministering liturgically.
Bishop Conley wearing a watch.
The photograph to the right shows Bishop James Conley of the Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. Everything about him in this picture is dignified and elegant in the context of Mass. All except his wristwatch. At first, it looks like a chunky Casio G-Shock on a rubber strap, but it might be something a bit more sophisticated on a ‘gun metal’ bracelet. It is rather obvious, and that is partly because he has chosen to wear it on his right wrist. Priests always bless with their right hand and perform most liturgical gestures with the right, so a watch on the right is always going to have more presence. The picture of Bishop Conley would probably not have jumped out at me if he had worn his watch on the left.
The wristwatch became popular in the early twentieth century. Earlier wristwatches tended to be for women, an alternative to wearing a watch on a chain or ribbon around the neck and worn on a bracelet. It is odd to think of the wristwatch as feminine: pocket watches were the then masculine style. War changed things; it always does. Officers coordinating manoeuvres of troops advancing under rolling artillery barrages were issued wristwatches as they needed to be able to check the time constantly while keeping their hands free. Wristwatches quickly became popular after the First World War but were still considered rather gauche in certain circumstances. In the early 20th century, it would have been unusual for a priest to wear a wristwatch at the time of divine service. I am not sure that there have any been instructions against priests wearing wristwatches while ministering liturgically, but quite a few retired priests have the habit of removing their wristwatch in the sacristy before celebrating.
Most wristwatches have a crown at 3 o’clock. They are traditionally worn on the left wrist so that one could easily wind and adjust them with the right hand (a watch worn on the right is still awkward to work with the left hand, even for a left-handed person, as the hand will cover the face). With the advent of quartz and digital watches, this became less of an issue, and many now wear their watch on their right wrist as a matter of personal choice. However as was noted above, a priest wearing a watch on the right wrist will be constantly flashing it at every liturgical gesture.
Pius IX (1792–1878) was perhaps the first pope to wear a watch and was gifted with a Patek Philippe pocket watch. Pope John Paul II was known to wear a silver-gold Rolex Datejust, which is fairly mid-range as far as Rolexes go (and the same model as worn by the Dalai Lama). Pope Benedict XVI was given a rather fine Junghans Tempus Automatic. Pope Francis wears a little black plastic Swatch. They all wear or wore their watches on their left wrist, and all are fairly subtle, even John Paul II’s Rolex was fairly discreet. The lesson perhaps is that, if a priest wears a wristwatch, it should be a subtle model worn on the left. Even when worn on the left, certain two-handed liturgical gestures — greeting with arms outstretched, raising the Gospel, the orans position, and the elevation of the Eucharistic gifts — can make the watch visible.
Some older patterns of cassock come with a small pocket for a pocket watch. The Wippell version has this pocket high on the left breast, while others have it slightly above the waistline, on the left also, so that it is covered by the cincture. One point is that it is virtually impossible to check a pocket watch whilst vested in a surplice or alb, and perhaps there is a meaning deeper than Houdini-like moves in white linen here.
The time of prayer and praise should be timeless. In liturgy, there is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet, and therefore of eternity. I remember one dapper gent at a formal dinner (which are two-a-penny in Oxford) telling me that he thought it incorrect to wear a watch with a dinner jacket, thinking it symbolizes a rather rude indication that one might have other plans. Surely this argument is even more appropriate for divine worship.
In my last parish, the vicar and I would often check our watches at the end of the main Sunday Mass to see how long the service had taken. There is a lot to pack into a big Parish Mass, and it is important to be respectful of the time of congregants. The parish at which I preached last Sunday has a little pocket-watch-shaped indentation on the top edge of the pulpit, sadly sans watch, and, likewise, the good timing of a sermon is important. In the past, a church clock might be the only timekeeper in the parish, so we have a long interest in telling the time (out loud). There is a discipline here of the punctuality needed to honour others and God that leads us to worship, and the timelessness within worship.
My Orient Bambino.
To the right is a picture of my Orient Bambino Automatic. It is really cute and quite reasonably priced. Its classic look makes it suitable for wear with the cassock. Its case is a little on the large size, but it remains subtle. I retain the watch for choir offices but have taken to removing it before celebrating Mass for the reasons cited above. I pray
O God, thou art Lord of all time and eternity : in the slenderness of this time that we give unto thy praise, fill thou thy servants with a foretaste of thy eternal promises, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
This article is the second of a series on Meals with Jesus which formed part of this year’s Lent course. This second is on the pericope of the Feeding of the 5000, John 6·1–15 [25–59].
We could have popped out to the shops to get some sarnies before we came, or boiled some eggs or scrumped some apples, but we didn’t. We could have looked out the hiking boots, change of clothes, tent, sleeping bag and rucksack before we came, but we didn’t. In fact we felt pretty stupid stuck all the way up there in the Golan Heights with nothing but our sandals and the shirts on our backs. Perhaps we thought that there would be catering laid on, but that seems a little daft now: Zebedee’s lads might be good at catching fish, but they’re no Rick Stein!
We came not because we had planned an expedition, but because we had to. There are foreign soldiers on our streets, watching what we do or say, thinking that every one of us could be a Jewish insurgent. In the midst of our national humiliation a new leader came — someone who could inspire and heal and make us feel human again. So we didn’t think, we went, and we followed him and his group up and out to find some space to breathe in great lungfuls of the freedom we desired with all our being.
May grace come and this world pass away. Hosanna to the God of David. If anyone is holy, let them come; if anyone is not, let them repent; maran atha; amen.
It is an Aramaic phrase (although Luther tried to twist it into a totally different Hebrew phrase — מָחֳרַם מָוְתָהmāḥăram mothâ, ‘devoted to death’). It was once thought to be a curse word, associated to its preceding anathema in the I Corinthians verse, but is clear that the ancient authors who promoted this interpretation had a rather hazy understanding of the phrase. However, that verse is part of Paul’s concluding prayer for the Corinthians, and forms a rather disjointed collection of prayed aphorisms:
All the brethren send greetings.
Greet one another with a holy kiss.
I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand.
If anyone does not love the Lord, let them be anathema.
Two weeks ago, at the feast of St Luke, I officiated at a solemn evensong with benediction of the blessed Sacrament. It was the first benediction I had officiated at. I remember attending benediction for the first time as an undergrad at Durham and being moved by the experience, but without the theological literacy to unpack the experience. A few years later I attended another benediction in Cardiff. It was one of those ‘precious’ high churches, with bevies of ordinands trying to out do each other in the laciness of their cottas, and the smartness of their genuflections. That event put me off benediction for over a decade.
Personal experience must be at the heart of religious faith. One bad experience made me theologize that the efficacy of the eucharistic Sacrament is in the eating and drinking, leaving benediction high and dry from sacramental grace. I think this is the mainstream Protestant view of benediction. However, my recent experience, on the other side of the humeral veil, put me back in touch with my first, positive experience of benediction. Continue reading “Benediction”→
