What a smart move. Every year Palm Sunday catches us by surprise and we are reminded how badly some people process and sing at the same time. People from Mexico seem to have this skill. The secret, apparently, is that everybody just keeps singing. Doesn't matter that the people at the head of the line are on verse 2 and the people at the back are on verse 1. Walk, sing, walk, sing. People from, say, Sherman Oaks, don't have (or have lost) this elemental skill. At St. Bernardine, folks are pretty good at processions as long as they are brief and the music ministers have given them half a chance to learn the music. MUSIC MINISTRY HAZARD WARNING: DO NOT MAKE PEOPLE READ LYRICS AND WALK IN LARGE GROUPS.
For the second week in a row, the congregation is singing the Palm Sunday entrance hymn as its Lenten recessional. Once again we have raided those clever Protestants (at Word music). They may not grasp the Incarnation, but they really know big arena songs, the hymns that move people across stadiums. We're doing Michael Smith's Prepare Ye the Way. In two weeks, we believe the congregation will have it memorized. Our drummer and will be asked to break his Lenten reclusion and rejoin us for the entrance and for at least one song during the Liturgy.