Music for the Liturgy of the Family Meal

This Advent we began a new family practice.  Before each meal, we lit the appropriate candles in the Advent Wreath and sang the first verse of O Come O Come Emmanuel as a family before saying grace.  Now that Advent is over, we miss this practice.  The children in particular loved to sing before each meal so much that they wanted it for lunch and breakfast too!

Tonight we thought we would try to sing a Christmas carol to continue our practice and chose Joy to the World, since it works well not just for Christmas Day itself, but for the whole season.  That got us thinking:  perhaps this is a practice we could continue throughout the year.  After supper we had a little brainstorm to come up with some music for the rest of the liturgical year.  Here are some of our ideas and we were wondering if you might be able to help us fill out the year a bit.

Boxing Day (Feast of St. Stephen) – Good King Wenceslaus

Mary, Mother of God – Canticle of the Turning

Epiphany – We Three Kings

Annunciation – The Angel Gabriel

Visitation – Some song that I can’t think of the name of that includes the lyric “Blessed is she who believed that there would be fulfillment of the word of the Lord.” (Anyone?)

Assumption – Hail Holy Queen

Easter – Jesus Christ is Ris’n Today

Corpus Christi – Tantum Ergo

Feast of St. Francis – Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

Pentecost – Lord Send Out Your Spirit

Anything come to mind for Trinity Sunday or Christ the King?  Do you have other suggestions for the feasts already covered hear?  What other feasts might work well?

We are thinking we’ll sing the doxology whenever we don’t have another season or feast:

(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Brett Salkeld is a doctoral student in theology at Regis College in Toronto. He is a father of three (so far) and husband of one.