Conference: Glasgow Priests Preparing for Holy Week
Some 30 of the priests in the Archdiocese of Glasgow met last week to make some preparations for Holy Week. Fr David Wallace introduced the sessions and gave an update on RCIA, while Frs Peter Gallacher, Tom Kilbride, Bob Hill and Gerry Fitzpatrick gave short inputs on each part of Holy Week.
From a musical perspective it was very encouraging to note the efforts priests are making to animate the liturgy and a number of the clergy are already tackling the sung Preface Dialogue and the Prefaces of the Eucharistic Prayer. The chant provided for the Preface in the new Missal is very easy, and its function is simply to deliver the text coherently. The Easter Procession with the Paschal Candle has a new chant and I imagine that it will claim a place along with the presently established one and gradually may replace it. The new text of the Easter proclamation is interesting while the chant offered is much as before.
The 1st Preface of Easter:
It was interesting to be reminded of the renewal of Holy Week initiated in the 1950s and of the late arrival of the Washing of the Feet in parish liturgies. We smiled when we remembered that we don’t need 12 people for the ritual of the Washing of the Feet nor did they ever have to be exclusively male!
