Funeral Mass

I attended a funeral mass on Thursday morning. One of our choir member's aunt passed away, and a few of us went to sing for the mass. A number of the hymns were new to us. One particular hymn really touched our hearts: Song Of Farewell. We sang it when the priest was sprinkling holy water on the coffin, just before the end of the mass. Lianne said she almost wanted to cry. I don't have an MP3 of the song. I only have the midi and so, can only attach the midi here. The lyrics are really beautiful.



Song Of Farewell:

Refrain:
May the choirs of angels come to greet you.
May they speed you to paradise.
May the Lord enfold you in his mercy.
May you find eternal life.

1.
The Lord is my light and my help; it is he who protects me from harm.
The Lord is the strength of my days; before whom should I tremble with fear?

2.
There is one thing I ask of the Lord; that he grant me my heart-felt desire.
To dwell in the courts of our God every day of my life in his presence.

3.
O Lord, hear my voice when I cry; have mercy on me and give answer.
Do not cast me away in your anger, for you are the God of my help.

4.
I am sure I shall see the Lord's goodness; I shall dwell in the land of the living.
Hope in God, stand firm and take heart, place all your trust in the Lord.

1st Conducting @ Wedding Mass

Thanks be to God. The wedding mass that I was so worried about turned out still OK in the end. It was my first time conducting at a wedding mass as well. At first, I wasn't supposed to conduct, but in the end it was decided that it would be better to have a conductor.

Why was I so worried? First, we couldn't get enough people to sing (which was why I wasn't supposed to conduct, because we needed more people to sing). In the end, with the addition of some others from other choirs, we had about 10, so it was still OK.

Second, the keyboardist (Jayce) was only "recruited" at the last minute. Our original keyboardist pulled out, and we had to frantically search for a keyboardist last night. Jo and Marcus managed got some friend's sister, who is not even from our parish, to play. Luckily, she's quite a good keyboardist.

Thirdly, we had no practice until this morning! There was supposed to be a practice at 8pm last night, but only Peggy, Dwi and I turned up. Since the keyboardist was only "recruited" last night, obviously we didn't have a keyboardist yesterday either. Practice was supposed to start at 7:30am today, but at that time, only Peggy, Dwi, Jacye and I were there. We only started proper at 8am. So it was really frantic.

I wouldn't say that we did well, but at least we didn't screw up or what. And I didn't screw up the conducting. If we screwed up, it would be very sad. After all, it's the couple's once-in-a-lifetime ceremony.

Thank God for seeing us through.