To mark the new liturgical year that has just begun with Advent, the Cloyne Commission for Liturgical Formation, in cooperation with the National Centre for Liturgy, has produced a beautiful and comprehensive liturgical wall calendar. Our image does it scant justice. It is a large wall poster - its dimensions are 65 x 65 cms, or about two feet square. At a glance, one can clearly view all the liturgical feasts and saints days of the year 2008-9. It also displays significant times, such as important days in the RCIA process and the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
It would be particularly useful on church notice-boards, in schools, in parish/diocesan offices, or to give as a special gift to Irish overseas.
Advent and Lent are coloured in violet, Christmas-Epiphany and the fifty day Easter season from Easter Sunday to Pentecost are in gold, the Sacred Triduum of Holy Thursday evening to Easter Sunday in red, and the weeks of Ordinary Time are in green. It includes Irish saints as well as the saints of the calendar of the Universal Church. The design artist is Rita Scannell. It costs €20 (packaging and post free) and is available from cloyne@indigo.ie
In the last few years, Cloyne diocese, whose Bishop John Magee currently chairs the Irish Episcopal Commission on Liturgy and was formerly liturgical master of ceremonies to Pope John Paul II, has produced an abundance of very useful liturgical resources,
The Synod on the Word of God held in Rome this October highlighted ways of making a more effective proclamation of the Word of God in today's world and having it inspiration the lives of Christians. In anticipation of this, the Cloyne group had two year ago produced two beautiful companion booklets on the liturgical ministry of the Word: The first of these, entitled The Word of the Lord: How to Proclaim the Word of the Lord , contains the necessary and specific instructions on practical ways of communicating and celebrating God's message to his people through the readings, responses, acclamations and the homily of the Mass.
The second, The Ministry of the Word: A Compilation of Resources. is a resource book citing all the important instructions on the ministry of the Word. It also contains a useful glossary explaining all the words, such as, ambo, lectionary, psalmist, responsorial psalm, thurible, and many more, that are significant for a worthy celebration of God's Word at Mass.
A fourth Cloyne resource is a book of Gospel Acclamations.
The liturgical composer, Margaret Daly-Denton, used to teach students of liturgy that if you are to sing just one chant during the Liturgy of the Word, then it should be the Gospel Acclamation, since that is its musical and ritual highpoint: it anticipates and prepares the proclamation of the Gospel.
To honour this principle the Cloyne Committe for Liturgical Music has produced a book with two accompanying CDs entitled, A Year's Worth of Gospel Acclamations, with words and musical settings. And, surprise, surprise, it gives instructions if you don't sing it, then omit it entirely - which makes a lot of sense. The collection, together with the CDs, shows how effective the Gospel Acclamation can be in making the Gospel the inspiration of our lives.
Parish liturgy teams will be delighted with these resources. And the people will enjoy them if they can be effectively implemented.
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Sotto Voce
(Source: CIN)