It can be hard to write a mass movement using text I sing regularly on Sunday mornings. The first number of times I sat down with the text to begin composing, I automatically started singing the settings I sing most often. To get past this, I had to work hard to clear my ears of a number of different Glorias! To help my compositional process, I decided to focus on the two main aspects of the Gloria text – worship of the Divine and our reaction to the Divine. So, references to the Divine (God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit) are set with perfect intervals – mostly perfect fifths with some perfect fourths. When the text refers to our interaction with the Divine, I used mostly seconds and thirds. I also ask the singers to whisper and speak at times to denote more of our imperfection and our need for mercy.