Songs & Updates for Saturday, September 5, 2026

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 Season of Creation: Living Water
23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Here's to a great Mass last week! Here I Am was probably our strongest of the night! It was fun pulling out I Will Choose Christ again (the GC version is definitely the way to go, I think!) and God Sends Us Forth is starting to gel. Here's the audio.

Also, thank you all (Sunday folks too!) for the birthday wishes -- it was much appreciated!

Welcome to the Season of Creation! It's hard to believe we're in September already and Summer is nearly over. And we made it through Summer without any real coverage problems :-).

Our September music and cantor schedule is ready! Since it's the Season of Creation, we'll be singing a new 'theme' piece, Healing River, three times in September & October. For the remaining Saturdays, I've programmed other creation-themed music. We also have one new kingdom-themed tune for Communion, Within the Reign of God (sung twice). We'll look at that on Saturday. 

This is also my first attempt at using the new music selections template. It's not drastically different, other than being formatted in a table (which should avoid formatting problems across devices). No doubt it'll need some tweaks, though!

Looping back to the donated guitar, we've decided to keep our existing spare and give the new one to the school. It turns out that Paul invested quite a bit in repairs & upgrades to our existing spare, so we felt it was best to hold onto it. Thanks for all of the input on this!

Father Jozef is on vacation through next Thursday, Sept. 11th. In his absence, our visiting priest will be Rev. Selvaraj. Deacon Jack will be there to help keep things on track. As usual, we should touch base with them on any logistics. I'll also be locking the building after Mass. 

Finally, in the next few weeks, you may see me dabbling with a tablet for digital sheet music. We have quite the digital library already, so I figured it might be time to try this! Don't worry, I'll still have hard copies of everything too, just to be safe :-).

If I don't see you, have a great Labor Day weekend!

(All Mass Parts, except the Gospel Acclamation, are from Mass of Creation, including the Gloria, Holy, Eucharistic Acclamation 'B' (When We Eat This Bread), Doxology & Lamb of God)

Out: Barry (tentative), Frank

Entrance:
GC3 #576 – Canticle of the Sun (vs 1-3) (Haugen)

**Since this one's pretty long, we'll sing three verses only. If we could include the alto & tenor parts, that would be great! Please watch the eighth & sixteenth-note rhythms -- these need to be sung together and correctly to give it the right feel! And don't forget about the very long sustain on the final ending (7 bars!) too.**

(Glory to God)

Responsorial Ps (Cris):
SS #074 – Ps 95 – If Today (Thomson)

**Including the two harmonies would be great! I'll also do my best to sing the rhythms on the verses correctly!**

Acclamation (Ben):
SS #021 (Mass of a Joyful Heart) (vs 1) (Angrisano)

Preparation:
GC3 #658 (SS #160) – Seek Ye First (Lafferty)

**Because this is fairly short, let's play the entire verse as an intro. We'll sing all four verses and use the optional 'Alleluia' section as verse 5. If we need more, we'll repeat verses and/or add an instrumental.**

(Mass Parts)

Communion:
SS #109 – Find Us Ready (Booth)

**We'll start this with an instrumental, before adding in voices. If interested, there are separate voice parts in the folder. We should have time for all three verses, but let's skip the optional Coda (that'll be a project for another day :-).**

Closing:
GC3 #643 – Healing River (Hellerman)

**We started looking at this last week. Please review if unfamiliar!
  • This tune is written in the compound time signature of 12/8, meaning there are 12 eighth notes per bar, divided into four groups of three triplets. But it'll still be conducted in 4/4.
  • Verses 1 & 2 more-or-less have the same melody; verse 4 is a repeat of verse 1. Verse 3 is totally different, though. From last week, we seem to have a handle on vs 1, 2 & 4, but may need to look at 3 some more.
  • As written, a cantor is supposed to sing each verse, with the choir & congregation echoing each phrase. I'd like to try that, but we may hold off until the next go around. That way, there's time for everyone to get comfortable with the flow.
I hope that all makes sense! Let me know if you have any questions.**

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