Six years since World Youth Day in Kraków

Six years ago today I was sitting at my laptop in my student flat, watching the opening Mass of World Youth Day in Kraków, and wishing more with every minute that I were there.  I was struck particularly by the music, which was supplied by a full choir and orchestra and consisted of fine, uplifting hymns and a beautiful Mass setting — full of a kind of joyful stateliness for the occasion, and all with rich, even cinematic orchestration.  

My endeavours to try and find out more, or indeed anything, about it all — what the hymns were called and how to spell them, let alone who had composed them! — sparked an effort to learn Polish pronunciation (which turned out not to be as hard as it looks) and a tentative but continuing attempt to learn the language itself.  And it drew me into the discovery and deepening love of Polish church music and the life that surrounds it — everything from their travelling liturgical music workshops, which draw hundreds of people to make music together, to the enormous outdoor hymn-concerts held every year in the city of Rzeszów.  The discovery of the Dominican Liturgical Centre in Kraków has been a revelation, and last October it was a joy and a privilege to take part in a workshop given by the composer Paweł Bębenek at St. Dominic’s Priory in London, and then to sing music composed by him and his fellow composers in an unforgettable candle-lit vigil.

Today is also, of course, the sixth anniversary of the martyrdom of père Jacques Hamel of Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, near Rouen.  The mingling of the two events as they reached me from afar — of the joy of World Youth Day and the sharp sorrow of that news — is something else which has fixed that day in my memory.

The Agnus Dei of Henryk Jan Botor’s Missa Ioannis Paoli Secundi, written specially for World Youth Day and sung at its opening Mass at Błonia Park, Kraków, on the 26th July 2016.  This setting has proved popular with our parish Youth Choir in South London.

Happy Easter!

Where all was dark there is suddenly fire; where there was death there is life once more.  Happy Easter to one and all!

In Święta Lipka in north-eastern Poland, on the 4th May 2019, an irresistible arrangement of a familiar tune is sung by participants in one of the many Liturgical Music Workshops that are run by Hubert Kowalski (conducting) and others across the country and elsewhere in Europe.  They sing, ‘Pan zmartwychwstał i jest z nami’ — ‘The Lord is risen, and is with us’ — or, as we know it in Britain, ‘Jesus Christ is risen today’.

‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ returns to Rzeszów

One of the many casualties of this year’s pandemic was the annual ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ open-air hymn-concert.  It is usually held in the city of Rzeszów every Corpus Christi — and had been without fail since 2003; not even the rain-storm and flash floods of 2010 could defeat it  — but this year there was an obvious reason why forty thousand people could not gather in the city’s Sybiraków Park to sing into the night.  The organisers (or JSJD ‘family’) were resourceful enough to prepare and record an online version to stream on the feast itself, but now plans have been made for a ‘real’, open-air concert to be held — and streamed online — on the 20th September at 8 p.m. Central European Summer Time); 7 p.m. BST for readers in Britain and Ireland.  There won’t be so many there as usual — attendance is regulated by ticket — but I don’t think we are in a position to complain, and it will doubtless be uplifting all the same.  Dziękuję organizatorom!

Update: the concert can now be watched here: https://youtu.be/3AiUnLM0SSA?t=2700outu.be/3AiUnLM0SSA?t=2700

‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’: online edition

The feast of Corpus Christi, which was celebrated in Poland yesterday, is usually the occasion for the great ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ hymn-singing concerts (about which I have written here and here).  This year’s, however, has gone the way of all large public gatherings: yet another casualty of the Coronavirus pandemic.  

The organisers did not admit complete defeat, however!  They put together an edition of the concert to stream over the Internet so that, although the Sybiraków park in the city of Rzeszów lay empty, where it should have been full of tens of thousands of people, the music at least could carry on.  It’s not the same as the real thing, but definitely something to cheer us all up.  See below to watch it, or click here: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f9V3DJ_9gU>.  

40,000 gather for ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ 2019

The writers Joseph Pearce and K. V. Turley have observed that it is often quite ordinary, out-of-the-way places that God chooses for his purposes: Walsingham, Lourdes, even Nazareth and Bethlehem themselves.  I wonder whether something similar is true of Sybiraków Park in the suburbs of the Polish city of Rzeszów.  By all appearances this broad open space, with its municipal playing-fields overlooked by blocks of flats, is exemplary in its plainness, having its commonplace counterparts in every major town and city on earth.  But every year, in early summer, as dusk falls on the feast of Corpus Christi, this place is so transfigured that, in truth, it comes to resemble very little else on earth.  For one evening it becomes the setting of the ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ concerts of open-air hymn-singing, whose story I have tried to tell elsewhere in these pages.

This year, on the 20th June, after months of rehearsal, the big stage was set up for the seventeenth time, large enough to accommodate the choir, orchestra, soloists and other musicians.  There, according to Rzeszów News, they were joined by some forty thousand people, who raised their voices in prayerful song as dusk fell.  The claim to the title of ‘Europe’s largest concert of Christian music’ does not seem so unreasonable: the aerial photos speak for themselves.

These concerts have such an uplifting quality to them.  Partly that is because there is no compromise on musicianship: a great deal of time and trouble is taken for the preparations, both the performance and the arrangements, which are mainly the work of the musical director, the film composer and jazz musician Marcin Pospieszalski.  Maybe not all the music is to everyone’s taste, nor even to mine (I tend to prefer the orchestral arrangements, where the majesty and solemnity of the choir and orchestra are allowed to flourish): it is mainly the idea and the atmosphere that I am praising.  But the musical repertoire has been really carefully chosen so that most of the music will lift the spirits of most of the people there, and some of the numbers are irresistible.  The idea of giving favourite hymns uplifting and rich arrangements is, I think, thoroughly inspired — every little detail that Pospieszalski puts in adds to the overall spirit of beauty in truth, and to the dramatic, even ‘epic’, dimension of the faith.  The music comes from every age and corner of the Church: medieval plainsong, traditional hymns, translated versions of more recently-written songs from America, and some new music from Poland itself, all leavened and deepened by the forces of orchestra and choir.  You could take your girl friend or your grandmother to these concerts — in fact the idea is probably that you should take both.

This is because the concert’s foundation is spiritual, as well as musical.  Nobody is suggesting that this is a substitute for going to church and receiving the sacraments, but it is, I think, something semi-sacramental, popular piety for the twenty-first century, drawing people into real and authentic togetherness.  Something brings those forty thousand souls closer together than ordinary audiences or crowds.  The originator of the idea, Jan Budziaszek — who even in Poland could not find the resources to get his idea off the ground for twenty years — has an oft-repeated refrain which runs along these lines: ‘Do you want to hear good music?  Then make it yourself!  Because the heart of man is never truly happy unless he is giving to someone else’.  At a given point in the concert, the voice of St John Paul II is played over the speakers: this year the multitude (as JPII would have called them) heard words of encouragement to men and women to marry, to vow not to leave each other until death, and to keep that vow.  And the organisers add words of their own which would be unthinkable in sullener lands further west: ‘May our entire society be freed from this illusion of freedom, free love… Too much this illusion costs.  Too many children are made to lose trust in their parents, so that the indispensable ground on which they themselves have to build their future, and the future of society, gives way’.  The concert’s organisers are at pains to point out that it is not a performance or a show: it is a gathering, ‘nasza Rodzina JSJD’, ‘our JSJD Family’, in which thousands of people, unified in prayer and song, are made — according to the concert’s name — ‘of one heart and of one spirit’.

A sight like this may seem unbelievable to us in Western Europe, but it is a glorious reality in Poland, which I think has a jewel in this astonishing annual tradition of musicianship with its vital air of togetherness, which has no need to rely on an enemy or a scapegoat for its unity.  This is what, say, Ireland could easily have been — or even Britain, at a stretch.  Has the different path that we have chosen been worth it?  Well, in the choice between the dullness and ennui of self-centred secularism, and the joy of an occasion like this, the answer is clear enough to me.  This is the New Evangelisation in action.  Long may these concerts prosper.

‘Wykrzykujcie Bogu, wykrzykujcie Królowi’: an adaptation of the forty-seventh (forty-sixth) Psalm (‘Clap your hands, cry to God with shouts of joy’).  Music originally by Marcin Gajda, arranged by Marcin Pospieszalski.

Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha 2019: a week today

‘Jezu miłości Twej, ukryty w Hostii tej’ (‘Jesus, your love, hidden in this host…’) — Rzeszów, 2018.

Last year I wrote an article about the open air hymn concerts held every year at the feast of Corpus Christi in the city of Rzeszów in south-eastern Poland.  The ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ gatherings (the name means ‘One Heart, One Spirit’) draw tens of thousands of people from all over Poland and beyond.  There is a large choir, soloists and full orchestra, the fruit of a rich and energetic musical culture, and they sing richly-arranged versions of traditional hymns as well as newer music.  There seems to be a heightened, clear-sighted, prayerful atmosphere, along with a real sense of togetherness and harmony.  Last year’s concert had more music of a charismatic and evangelical flavour than has been usual, but there really does seem to be something for everyone.

I think it is a very good thing that these events take place.

This year’s concert will take place as usual on the feast of Corpus Christi: a week today, Thursday 20th June, at 1900 local time (1800 British Summer Time), and I imagine it will be streamed over the Internet, most likely via the website, jednegoserca.pl, or its official YouTube channel.

‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’: tonight

At the page below (www.youtube.com/user/jednegosercapl/live) this year’s ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ concert of open-air hymn-singing in Rzeszów, Poland, will be streamed live over the Internet this evening, Corpus Christi. The broadcast will start at 1730 CEST (1630 BST) and the concert will start at 1900 CEST (1800 BST).

For anyone in need of simple, wholesome, spirit-uplifting music.  It may not all be to your taste, but at least some of it will be!

More about these concerts here.

The Marian hymn Matko, która nas znasz (‘Mother who knows us, be with your children’), sung at the 2018 concert.

‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’: this Thursday

There is good news for any readers who liked the sound of the Polish ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ hymn-singing concerts described in this earlier post.  Every year at Corpus Christi these open-air musical gatherings — whose name translates as ‘One Heart, One Spirit’ — draw thousands of people to the Sybarików park in the city of Rzeszów to sing and pray into the evening.  This year’s will take place this coming Thursday, 31 May, the feast of Corpus Christi itself, at 7 p.m., Central European Summer Time.  It will be broadcast online via several channels, including the official page on YouTube at www.youtube.com/user/jednegosercapl/live.  There will be a full orchestra and a large choir, old hymns and new, and, if in keeping with previous years, an atmosphere of consolation, beauty, togetherness and truth.

More on these concerts here.

‘It is good to be here’: Hymns and belonging in a Polish park

Sławcie usta Ciało Pana — Pange Lingua (‘Of the glorious body telling’)

Good things are always going on in the world, even if out of sight or over the horizon, and these days, it seems, many of them are happening in Poland.  Here’s an example of something we should know about in Britain: enormous open-air hymn-singing concerts which every year draw great multitudes, people in their tens of thousands, to a park in the city of Rzeszów.  As the feast day of Corpus Christi draws to its close, huge numbers of ordinary folk — young and old, married and single, lay and consecrated religious, public officials and plain citizens — gather in the Sybiraków park to sing and pray.  There to lead them is a choir a hundred-and-thirty strong and an array of other musicians.  Candle-light spreads and strengthens as evening falls: the multitude joins hands and sing hymns into the night.

These are the ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ concerts (the name means ‘Of One Heart, Of One Spirit’; the ‘c' in ‘Serca’ is pronounced ‘ts’ as in ‘dance’, the ‘ch’ in ‘Ducha’ as in ‘loch’), and I can find no evidence against the claim that they are Poland’s, and Europe’s, largest regular concerts of religious music.  Last year 45,000 people were present, the greatest number since the events began in 2003.  Even those who came up with the idea — Jan Budziaszek, a drummer, Fr. Andrzej Cypryś and Fr. Mariusz Mik — might be forgiven for some surprise at what they have created.  And it is not only the high attendance that is remarkable: the concerts convey a definite and distinctive atmosphere, even over the Internet.  Something is happening which Fr. Cypryś describes as a kind of transfiguration: “There are lots of events in which a crowd enjoys itself and goes crazy, for better or worse.  But in this concert the crowd reacts differently; people are uplifted, spiritual.  A spirit rises up out of the heart and, ultimately, to the Lord God.”  Paraphrasing Simon Peter’s words at the Transfiguration of the Lord, he says, “Most likely what lies behind the phenomenon is this: ‘it is good to be here’.”

Serce wielkie nam daj — ‘Give us a great heart’

Of course, the musicianship has a great deal to do with its success.  There is no cutting of corners here.  Members of the choir must first pass an audition and, if successful, learn their parts and words by heart.  The orchestra is reinforced by players from the Rzeszów Philharmonic.  Hubert Kowalski, who conducts the orchestra and creates the orchestral arrangements of many of the hymns, is a composer and prominent figure in Polish liturgical music.  Marcin Pospieszalski, a bass guitarist, violinist and and composer of film music, also produces arrangements for the ensemble.  His wife Lidia Pospieszalska, along with Tamara Kasprzyk-Przybysz, leads the choir.  The solo singers and instrumentalists, too, tend to be prominent names in Polish music — Joachim Mencel, Poldek Twardowski, Viola Brzezińska — and some are international visitors, such as last year’s guests Levi Sakala (Zambia) and Fr. Stan Fortuna (U.S.A.).

For those of us who were struck by the quality of the music at the 2016 World Youth Day in Kraków (about which my tuppence-worth here and here), this all explains a great deal.   For at Kraków too there was this same compelling recipe of familiar or singable tunes heightened by rich and colourful orchestration.  The same musicianship, it turns out, is behind both phenomena — and by ‘musicianship’ I mean both the same individual musicians (Marcin Pospieszalski also contributed to the WYD hymn, for instance) and, more broadly, the same strong underlying musical culture.  Now I see why, when the world came to Kraków, the youth of Poland rose so splendidly to the occasion.

Even so, the evenings are not meant to be thought of simply as as an aesthetic experience, as this article (translated here) explains.  It is not for a performance that the multitudes have gathered.  In fact, the distinction between stage and audience is relaxed: the soloists, however famous, are not announced by name when they come on stage to sing; instead, the words of the hymns are projected onto screens so that everyone can join in.  There is a togetherness of music-making, itself in service of a togetherness of heart and spirit: “We believe profoundly that it is not only for an artistic event that we are gathered together,” says Hubert Kowalski; “but for deep prayer, in an expression of our belonging to God, and of our faith.”

Ciebie całą duszą pragnę — ‘For you I long with all my soul’, Psalm 63 (62)

And hymns are sung from every age and corner of the Church.  Taizé, nineteenth-century patriotic hymns, plainsong, seventeenth-century German melodies, American worship songs, the oldest known Polish hymn (the ‘Bogurodzica’) and even a rap, to whose lyrics presumably nihil obstat, performed by its author, a priest in full cassock — now I’ve seen it all!.  All sorts, then, which is another sign of a concerted effort to unity.  Perhaps not all the music will be to everyone’s taste, but everyone will like at least some of it.  I don’t think either traditionalists or innovators could complain of being left out, and I have to say I find most of it very appealing, especially with the choir’s open, unaffected, even raw way of singing.  But maybe it is the idea itself that matters more, the idea that people might willingly choose to spend some hours in each other’s company, and their Creator’s.  This is perhaps why, in 2010, when a terrific rain-storm caused flooding in the region and threatened the concert itself, those without long journeys to face decamped to a car park, hurriedly set up a new stage, and carried on singing under the deluge.

Chrystus Pan karmi nas — ‘Christ the Lord nourishes us’.

‘Serdecznie zapraszamy,’ they say —  ‘we cordially invite’ all people to join the gathering in the park.  Even from afar, watching online from here in England, it is impossible to resist being drawn into this spirit of togetherness, and to notice certain heartening things: the sheer variety of the people who are there, the roughly equal numbers of men and women, the presence of families and children, the breadth of ages, the large number of young priests and religious.  Then there are other surprising details, other refreshing sights, like natural ornaments of celebration and goodwill (as simple as flowers in the ladies’ hair, or exuberant balloons and banners among the audience), bishops’ bonhomie, John Paul II look-alikes, and people holding hands, or couples with their arms gently around each other, quite ordinarily and unshowily.  Everyone is quite obviously having a good time.  The young in particular are visibly uncynical, relaxed and actually youthful in spirit.  This is the youth that Benedict XVI knew is ‘not as superficial as some think’, and surely it is precisely because of the concert’s sincerity and authenticity — no artificial emotion, no pseudo-intellectualism, no smarminess, all those fakeries that young people can smell a mile off — that they come in such huge numbers.   Here all that is good about modern music and the modern world are taken and elevated to their highest purpose.  It is enough to make anyone ask why we are agonising and dithering over the New Evangelisation.  This is what it looks like and how it is done: some of this music could evangelise a potato.

‘A spirit that can rise up from the heart’… ‘an expression of our belonging to God’… The unison of lifted voices begets the unity of many lifted hearts and lifted spirits: one voice, one heart, one spirit.  It is what it says on the tin, then, and how sad it is that most of us in Britain can scarcely imagine it.  Yet what should be more natural than this, than gathering in a park to pray and sing?  Hymns were made to be sung anywhere, as much at home, at work, or to candlelight in the park as in church.  The concerts are astonishing to us not, then, because they are strange in themselves, but precisely because they are so completely natural that they should be commonplace, and yet are not.  Of course, the concerts are not meant as a substitute for going to church, or the sacraments, or the ordinary practice of the faith — the organisers suggest nothing of the kind — but as the natural expression of a certain moral and spiritual culture, as well as a musical one, a culture that knows the meaning of purposeful worship, it is a great sign of hope.

In other words, it is the reality of the occasion that is so startling: startling both because it is rather astounding that a gathering like this should happen in real life, and also because it is such a real, such a genuine thing to do, a thing so refreshingly free of illusion or falsehood.  There’s nothing forced or self-conscious about it.  Really, the broadcasts and videos of the occasion show for themselves what is going on.  The Holy Spirit is not very easily faked. 

Dziękuję wam, organizatorzy, muzycy i śpiewacy koncertu ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’, za takie wydarzenie, tak podnoszące na duchu!

Przykazanie miłości: ‘The Commandment of Love’

Most of the ‘Jednego Serca Jednego Ducha’ concerts can be watched on Youtube:

2009: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDtfont8WE4

2010: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYYkEchNGbc

2012: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MizpESL97o0

2013: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fR6DLJ-zcN4

2014: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kZ-Bnw-BpA

2015: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPGFNFa_0go

2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XprTM0meYZc

2016 (in Kraków for World Youth Day): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJKWyrUlwuM

2017: https://youtu.be/bsaA-EBdOXE?t=3h22s
2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LaVDNpPBok&t=8242
2019: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c0M7ZrqVR0&t=6735

Yes, the Church lives indeed: Jezu, ufam Tobie!

World Youth Day drew to a close yesterday: at least two and half million people were present as Pope Francis celebrated Mass at Krakow.  If that figure is anything to go by (and it is, and people need to know about it) then the Church lives indeed.  As Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster observes in the field, what other institution, or what other reason, or, ultimately what other Person, can reliably summon such numbers from a hundred and sixty-seven nationalities to a single place, year after year?

There seems to be an intoxicating, jubilant mood when the pilgrims gather for the great vigils and Masses.  It is an astonishing atmosphere that can hardly be diminished by being parcelled into pixels over YouTube: after all the Holy Spirit can hardly be compressed into 1s and 0s.  Gatherings like this might not be for everyone, but all sorts of other things go on as well in churches round about — catechesis, Adoration, concerts and so on — and the party atmosphere belies the spiritual demands that go with any pilgrimage.  And, when all these hundreds and thousands of young pilgrims from all over the world are invited to prayer, how swiftly and utterly silence falls and a million hearts are turned in unison to God.

I have also been reminded — rather abruptly, I must admit — of Poland’s unabashed allegiance to the Church.  I had known that this is a land of great and heroic faith, with many saints even in recent times, but I have been able to see, albeit imperfectly, how noble it is.  This is how a churchgoing country actually looks; these are the crowds that can be mustered; this is what it is like for statesmen and -women to receive Communion without anybody batting an eyelid.  I am aware that not all is well in Poland, but spiritually they are surely leagues ahead of us in Britain.  If we (and other European countries, come to that) were more like Poland, I would be much less uneasy about leaving the E.U. This is a nation which says ‘Jezu, ufam Tobie!’ — ‘Jesus, I trust in You’ — and this is the result.

Another aspect of these celebrations has been the music, which I think has been tremendous.  The organisers rightly settled for nothing less than a full chorus and orchestra.  And the music itself was congregational and inviting without at all being shallow or trivial.  After last Tuesday’s post I have done some rummaging around, lamenting my complete ignorance of the Polish language, and matched some names and composers to tunes.

One name to remember, I think, is Fr. Dawid Kusz, who has not only been one of the festival’s conductors but is also responsible for writing the hymns which I found most striking and powerful.  Here he is conducting his own ‘Cała ziemio, wołaj z radości’ (‘All the earth, cry out with joy’ — Psalm 97 (98)):

and here, with a different mood, but no less congregational, and matching the words just as well: ‘Skosztujcie i zobaczcie jak dobry jest Pan’ (‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’ — Psalm 33 (34)):

The setting of the Mass sung both at the opening Mass with Cardinal Dsiwisz (St JP II’s secretary and close friend) and at the closing Mass with Pope Francis was commissioned especially for this World Youth Day and was composed by Henryk Jan Botor.  He wrote it in honour of St John Paul II, and apparently completed it on April 2nd this year, the eleventh anniversary of his death.   Fr. Robert Tyrała, World Youth Day’s musical director, said in one of the Polish articles I subjected to Google Translate and its munching cogs suggested that it combined elements of Gregorian chant and elements of film music: a simple recipe indeed, the treasures of the past mixed with the valid fruits of modern times, but arguably the best.

Beautiful music is not the most important aspect of the Mass, but that says more about the Mass than it does about music.  One sign of health in the Church should be a proliferation of composers and hymn-writers, who should write sincere, authentic music like this and in turn evangelise the sullen and inauthentic art-galleries, concert-halls and television screens of the West.

I can’t resist mentioning Pope Francis’ declaration of war on sofas.  This is quite a powerful insight, I find.  It is true that, especially in the West, we can be lulled into material comfort and the pool of wonders of a computer screen, and hours can be lost while others thrive, such as those for whom ‘it is much easier […] to have drowsy and dull kids who confuse happiness with a sofa [… than] young people who are alert and searching, trying to respond to God’s dream and to all the restlessness present in the human heart.’  That is going to be quite a difficult piece of advice to carry out, especially for young people who have never known life without a computer or the Internet.  One thing it probably means is that you should stop reading this blog (and I should stop writing it!): for there are children of the light to be defended, and a culture of life to be sown, and a civilisation of love to be built.

The Church Lives

World Youth Day, the Church’s international gathering for young people, has begun in Krakow.  The great festival finds itself in the home city of St John Paul II, whose idea it was in the first place.

I have been watching the opening Mass and wishing I could be there!  All the same, how marvellous to be able to watch it and enjoy the atmosphere live over the Internet.

One thing I am determined to know is the name of the composer of the Mass setting.  (Any information about this will be gratefully received!) [Update here: the composer is Henryk Jan Botor] There is plenty of health in Poland, if they are writing new music like this.  This is the Sanctus:

And here are all the sung parts of the liturgy:

Kyrie Eleison

Gloria

Gospel Acclamation

Sanctus

Agnus Dei

Also worth a listen are the three hymns sung at Communion: the first, the second and the third.

[Update: as far as I have been able to tell, in spite of my appalling ignorance of the Polish language, the hymns at this opening Mass are as follows:

Offertory hymn: Wypłyń na głębię — Jacek Sykulski  — ‘Don’t be afraid — put out into the deep’, which I think are words of St John Paul II (It certainly sounds like him…)

Communion hymn no. 1: O panie, tyś moim pasterzem  — Sr. Imelda (CSSF), J. Kosko.  ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’, Psalm 23.

Communion hymn no. 2: Witaj, pokarmie — Paweł Bębenek.  Submitted to Google Translate, this comes out as ‘Hello, diet’! — so I assume it would be better rendered as ‘Hail, our sustenance’…

Communion hymn, no. 3: Skosztujcie i zobaczcie — Fr. Dawid Kusz OP.  ‘Taste and See’, Psalm 98.
Much of the music can also be found here, and the words in the WYD Prayer Book which is downloadable here.

See also this post, which has a little more about the Mass setting, which was composed by Henryk Jan Botor.]

Thus the Church flourishes in the face of those who would destroy her, such as the murderers of père Jacques Hamel, assistant priest of St-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen.  Having served God quietly in Normandy all his long life, he was martyred today as he celebrated Mass.  (Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him; St Stephen, patron of his church and martyr, pray for us; St Denis, patron saint of France and also martyr, pray for France). 

Persecutors seem never to realise how unoriginal their actions are.  The Church, however, which answers a day of bloodshed with a ‘cri vers Dieu’ (a cry to God), fine and majestic music, a three-hundred-thousand-strong gathering of ‘apôtres de la civilisation de l’amour’ (apostles of the civilisation of love) and the unanswerable Eucharist, wins every time.  And endures in Jesus Christ.