There’s this Sunday, and then another “normal” week, and then it’s Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Maundy Thursday to Easter Sunday will see four services in four days — not excessive, by any means, but bear in mind I am used to just four or five services per month, with the occasional funeral thrown in.
Suddenly there doesn’t seem to be nearly enough time, both in terms of learning to play the music myself and in rehearsal time for the choir. Suddenly, using a new Mass setting for Eastertide doesn’t seem like such a great idea. The parish has been using Shephard’s “Addington” setting since <strike>Moses parted the Red Sea</strike> long before I got there, which is really too long to use the same piece of music. I’m wondering whether I really can learn the voluntaries in time or whether there’s something else, something easier, I can pull out instead. I’m abandoning thoughts of harmonic changes for last verses and thinking that I may need to keep the Easter bonnet simple this year. And I’m trying to keep hold of a Lenten quietness, the still solemnity of doing less and being more, rather than allowing Lent to become just another busy period at work.
So of course, in the midst of all this, it’s also time to choose hymns for May!