The liturgical color on this day is violet. That calls to mind several things:
- There will not be flowers on the altar
- We will not hear the organ
- We will sing Mass XVII (for the Sundays of Advent and Lent)
- We will not sing the Gloria
There are two versions of the Kyrie for Mass XVII. We arbitrarily chose the second. We paired the Kyriale with Credo I.
For the processional, we sang O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.
At the Offertory, once again, we sang Rorate Coeli Desuper. It’s just so pretty!
At the Communion, the mixed choir sang a polyphonic version of Veni, Veni, Emanuel. The piece starts with the tenor men singing the Gregorian chant first verse in one voice. The second verse then blossoms into a four-part harmony. The third verse is then sung as the first and the fourth verse is sung as the second.
We followed that with Creator Alme Siderum, vespers hymn for Advent.
To conclude, we sang On Jordan’s Bank, which speaks of John the Baptist, in view of the fact that he was the subject in the day’s Gospel.