The feast of St. Joseph the Worker is a first-class feast. The Second Sunday after Easter is a second-class feast. Knowing that, you knew to set your Missal for St. Joseph. If you are not one to look at the liturgical calendar, you were caught off balance. (Note that they have calendars for cheap in the bookstore – given that it is May already).
As we were running the propers before Mass, one of the men observed, “This is weird music. It doesn’t sound right.” Well, yes. That is because the feast was instituted in 1955 and the music is “modern”. And not only. This particular singer is new to the game, and still, he picked up on the oddity of the chant, which oddity is actually also criticized by more scholarly types. But never mind. We’re not music critics; we’re just singers in a schola band.
Standard fare for Paschaltide: Mass I, Credo I, Vidi Aquam.
The processional was The Other Version of Jesus Christ is Risen Today. It is the bane of procession-goers all over the English-speaking world because when people see the title, they are expecting the OTHER version.
At the Offertory, Stella Coeli Extirpavit. We are SO over singing that. But we will persist until it is clear that the plague that plagues us is behind us.
At the communion, the mixed choir did Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus. Why isn’t Palestrina canonized?
For the recessional, St. Joseph trumped the typical Easter material with Hail, Holy Joseph, Hail. (For you grammar types, yes, the hymnal does correctly have the comma for direct address.) And again, we sang Sweet Sacrament Divine to get the melody into the ears and heads of the faithful because NEXT WEEK, we are going to call on them to sing it for real.
As an aside, the Greek in scripture refers to St. Joseph and Our Lord as τεκτων – Tekton. That is more correctly understood as a Master Builder, not a fellow making small wooden objects for the ladies of Nazareth. And it is much more fitting of Our Lord as Pantocrator (Greek Παντοκράτωρ) – literally, pretty much able to do everything. I can imagine when someone in Galilee wanted to have a house built, people would say, “Ite ad Joseph. He will fix you up.”