The Responsorial for Sunday, Psalm 126, rejoices in the restorative justice of God: The captives return from slavery, hardly able to believe their good fortune. Fountains rise in the desert. The land and its people are healed and made fruitful once again. This is a psalm of rejoicing after long suffering, so be sure to seek out a psalm setting that reflects that joy and renewed vigor.
Choosing a dirge-like tempo or tune for this psalm would be like singing “O Sacred Head, Surrounded” at Christmastime. Just don’t.
A wonderful anthem for this Sunday, echoing the Responsorial Psalm’s theme, would be Antoine Oomen’s exhilarating “The Desert Shall Bloom Then,” with a fresh, lively text by the great Dutch poet Huub Oosterhuis. It’s a unison anthem, not difficult for singers to learn, as long as they are comfortable enough with it to let it soar. The keyboard part is not easy, but oh, it’s well worth the effort, as it highlights the images of rippling waters tumbling from the mountains and gushing through the once-dry deserts.
In the third verse of the anthem, there’s this invigorating line:
Rise, you dead, now rise up:
the new light of morning!
That's the whole point of restorative justice: to restore wholeness. Not to pretend that nothing has happened, nor to dwell on the past—but to go forward, healed, into a new life and a new hope.
