Psalm 41 According To Me

I once again served as song leader at mass today.  Between the first and second readings is the responsorial psalm.  The leader leads the congregation in the main verse and then chants the rest of the psalm… hopefully, correctly.  This morning was not the case and one word mispoken made me wince.

The 3rd verse is supposed to be read as follows:

The LORD will sustain him on his sickbed
and restore him from his bed of illness.

Honestly, it would have been perfect except for one word.  Instead of “sustain,” I said “The Lord will KEEP him on his sickbed.”  One would hope that God would not intentionally keep someone on his sickbed.  When I made my face after the psalm was complete, the organist asked what was wrong and I told him what had happened.  Apparently, he did not notice.

I also sang “Amazing Grace.”  This is one of my favorite pieces.  However, I did not realize how many verses there are: 6.  I did a bit of sight reading since we rarely get past verse 4.  I have always been fascinated by the first verse.  Alot of hymnals include the words :”saved a wretch like me.”  I always learned that the sound “saved and set me free.”  There seems to be a lot of that word changing going on in our hymnals that change seasonally… generally, in songs that seem un-politically correct.  Our chief organist has a fit every time the choir practices a song and the words are not the same as in the past.  But we have to sing the most up-to date words or the congregation will be lost.

Ok… off to rehearsal.