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I often chat with Phil Fiadino, the Cornell Catholic Community’s resident Peace & Social Justice minister. But that’s not all Phil does - Phil is also a knowledgeable liturgist. When he caught Ambrosius and me while walking across campus on Friday afternoon, we stopped for a little chat, and he made - what I think to be - an excellent point pertaining to the liturgy.
Phil’s a guy none too happy with the trite hymnody of the Oregon Catholic Press and the like. But what Phil noted is that, in general, the recent tradition (say, the past 500 years) of the Roman Church does not call for any hymnody to accompany the Mass. There is an Introit and, at the end, an “Ite, missa est”, but no direct liturgical call for hymn singing. There aren’t hymns, he said, with today’s papal liturgies; just some organ music at the end, and the pope walks out.
But we converts - especially before we’ve been steeped in the Romish religion - often pine for the hymns of our heretical days. I know that the converts from Episcopalianism make much off the hymns they’ve lost, but it was the Lutherans of whom it was said that “they sang themselves into heresy.” Which is only to say that hymns can be very beautiful and, when everyone is singing together, intoxicating - not a bad thing when the hymns have the right doctrinal content.
So is it the case that the Romans have no hymns or proper place for them, while the protestants are singing delightedly (though unto perdition)? But of course not! As Phil wisely pointed out, our hymns, though not found with the Mass, are yet found through the entire day, namely in the Divine Office. And what glorious hymns we have there! Phil’s point was simple enough, I guess, but it hadn’t occurred to me before. The Catholic has at his disposal beautiful and ancient hymnody, but he must open the Breviary in order to find it. At each hour of the day, we find a hymn, some fixed, as at the little hours, and others variable, as at Matins, Lauds, and Vespers. Just consider this one beautiful verse from this Sunday’s Lauds:
Cuius sepulchrum plurimo
Custode signabat lapis,
Victor triumphat, et suo
Mortem sepulcro funerat.
It’s too glorious for words. “. . . the Conqueror triumphs, and in His own grave buries Death.” But it’s not just the pretty image, which fairly often can survive translation, but the tightness of Latin verse; even the arrangement of the words, in some cases, is suggestive - such as “mortem” here buried between “suo” and “sepulcro”. This is great stuff and we have far more reason to be proud of it than protestants of any of their hymns.
But there is a difficulty: it seems that one needs a monastery nearby and a decent knowledge of Latin. The beauty of our Latin hymnody won’t come out without a knowledge of the language. And it helps to have other people there, who know how to sing it, as in the long gone days when monasteries were not so few and far in between. This is an undeniable challenge.
This post is just to say that we should not forget what we have in our breviaries. Perhaps it will be some help when Baronius Press publishes the Latin/English old Breviary, perhaps sometime in 2006. This will at least give traditionalists a chance to get closer to the rich hymnody of the Church, even if they don’t know Latin; at least it’s a start. And for those who are ready for the Latin, it will also be a great resource; right now, it is very difficult or expensive to get ahold of the old Breviary.
For those of you who would like to see it, here is the rest of that hymn for the Lauds of this Sunday:
Aurora caelum purpurat,
Aether resultat laudibus,
Mundus triumphans iubilat,
Horrens avernus infremit.
Rex ille dum fortissimus
De mortis inferno specu
Patrum senatum liberum
Educit ad vitæ iubar.
Cuius sepulcrum plurimo
Custode signabat lapis,
Victor triumphat, et suo
Mortem sepulcro funerat.
Sat funeri, sat lacrimis,
Sat est datum doloribus :
Surrexit exstinctor necis,
Clamat coruscans Angelus.
Ut sis perenne mentibus
Paschale Iesu, gaudium,
A morte dira criminum
Vitae renatos libera.
Deo Patri sit gloria,
Et Filio, qui a mortuis
Surrexit, ac Paraclito,
In sempiterna saecula. Amen.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Mr. Fiadino was absolutely correct in making his observation. The Roman Catholic tradition is to use hymnody at the Divine Office, never — or very nearly never — at the Mass. The chants of the Mass privilege antiphons and psalmody: Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion. The Gloria of the Mass is, strictly speaking, a hymn, sung antiphonally like its close cousin the Te Deum. So too is the Sanctus a hymn. The Kyrie and the Agnus Dei are litanies. The occasional sequence of the Mass ( like this week’s glorious Victimae Paschali Laudes) is hymn-like in style; it springs out of the melism of the Alleluia that precedes it. The Alleluia of the Mass with an ecstatic jubilus soaring “above the zone of words” is part and parcel of the Gregorian heritage of the West. As for the dialogical elements and “acclamations” — Amen, Et cum spiritu tuo, Deo gratias, etc.— they are, by their very nature destined to be sung. Yes, Catholics do not sing hymns at Mass (or should not)— but revel in them at the Hours! By the way, the GIRM (following Musicam Sacram) makes clear that the first level of singing at Mass pertains to those simple dialogical chants that belong by right to the priest and deacon. The second level pertains to the unchanging chants that can be sung from memory. The third level pertains to the Propers and the more ornate variable pieces. The most extraordinary essay on psalmody was written by Maurice Zundel in his old classic “The Splendour of the Liturgy.” Read it.
Father Daniel, thank you very much for commenting. Priests would, of course, be the first in a position to appreciate the point, since they have the Office to say, whether solo or in choir.
Are you in a position of saying your Office privately, Father, or are there other Cistercians nearby you? I experienced something of the monastic liturgy during a visit to Clear Creek this past summer. The round of hours is, in a way, relentless, but it orders the whole day, its every hour, to God.
A fine point about the Sequences. The “Victimae Paschali Laudes” flashed through my head while writing last night. Beautiful they are, these sequences.
I suppose, though, that it was a prudent thing that the Council of Trent cut them back significantly, as, if I recollect, they had come to fill the Missal, most every Mass having some piece of poetry with it. The medievals did love their poetry/hymnody!
I’m beginning a translation project–translating the 1983 Liber Hymnarius.
Here’s the first translation (not particularly topical at the moment!):
Nunc tempus acceptabile
Fulget datum divinitus,
Ut sanet orbem languidum
Medela parsimoniae.
Christi decoro lumine
Dies salutis emicat,
Dum corda culpis saucia
Reformat abstinentia.
Hanc mente nos et corpore,
Deus, tenere perfice,
Ut appetamus prospero
Perenne pascha transitu.
Te rerum universitas,
Clemens, adoret, Trinitas,
Et nos novi per veniam
Novum canamus canticum.
Amen.
Today is the accepted time.
Christ’s healing light, the gift divine
Shines forth to save the penitent
To wake the world by means of Lent.
The light of Christ will show the way
That leads to God’s salvation day.
The rigor of this fasting mends
The hearts that hateful sinning rends.
Keep all our minds and bodies true
In sacrifice, O God, to You,
That we may join, when Lents have ceased,
The everlasting Paschal Feast.
Let all creation join to raise
Most gracious Trinity, Your praise.
And when your love has made us new,
May we sing new songs, Lord, to You.
Amen.
Translation © 2006 by Kathleen Pluth
http://www.canticanova.com/cnp_info/pluth.htm
I just remembered something which I might have added to the post when I put it up last night….
I know that I’ve mentioned it before to my friends in the Society: one summer in Oxford, after the Oratory there had begun offering the Tridentine on Sundays and other days of obligation, I was present for the Mass Cibavit eos (Corpus Christi). This is one of the feasts for which the Tridentine Fathers preserved a sequence, namely Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem.
Of course, St. Thomas Aquinas himself had been instructed to write the Mass for this feast of which he is the preeminent Doctor. Besides the other hymnody in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, he gave us the Sequence in the Mass for Corpus Christi.
Now the celebrant at the Oratory that day, Fr. Jerome Bertram, a classical scholar and the other of a couple books published by Ignatius Press (under the nom de plume, Francis Randolph), during his homily told us that this Sequence contained everything that we need to know about the Blessed Sacrament. Not a mild statement!
But further, he told us that he refused to read us a translation of the Sequence - he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. It’s too rich, too beautiful, too perfect just as it is.
Anyway, his words that day left an impression on my mind - I certainly began from that day to esteem the Lauda, Sion, Salvatorem.
Note: in no way was I intending by that last remark a slight to any translation projects - only that, as all would acknowledge, the way to appreciate the poetry is in its own language. Kathleen, I only saw your comment after I put up my last comment just now.
And yet… In much of Europe and Latin America, vernacular hymnody during parts of the Mass was tolerated and fostered for centuries, forming a true local tradition. Please, read Musicae Sacrae Disciplina (esp. par.37, 47, and 62-66) and the instruction De Musica Sacra.
In Musicae Sacrae, Pius XII commended such vernacular hymns at Mass: “…at Masses that are not sung solemnly these hymns can be a powerful aid in keeping the faithful from attending the Holy Sacrifice like dumb and idle spectators. They can help to make the faithful accompany the sacred services both mentally and vocally and to join their own piety to the prayers of the priest. This happens when these hymns are properly adapted to the individual parts of the Mass, as We rejoice to know is being done in many parts of the Catholic world.”
…
All glory, laud and honor,
To Thee, Redeemer, King,
To Whom the lips of children
Made sweet hosannas ring!
I grew up in the 1950s in Detroit and my father was the parish organist and choirmaster.I remember at Sunday High Mass a hymn would be sung at the end such as Holy God,O God of Loveliness,or seasonal ones such as O Come All Ye Faithful,Alleluia.Alleluia Let the Holy Anthem Rise. I dont remember if the peopla sang (for I sat in the choirloft) but I think they did.
New Catholic and others . . . Yes, but hymns were tolerated only at Low Mass and, even then, did not replace the Proper of the Mass. The priest continued to recite the Proper of the Mass at the altar. The current use of hymns has led to the wholesale abandonment of the Proper of the Mass, an integral part of the “Lex orandi.” To replace the Proper of the Mass with popular hymns is, effectively, to dismantle the Roman Rite.
The question was addressed in Notitiae in 1969. Here is the text:
Notitiae
5 (1969) 406:
Query: Many have inquired whether the rule still applies that appears in the Instruction of 3 Sept 1958, no. 33:
“In low Masses religious songs of the people
may be sung by the congregation, without prejudice, however, to the principle that they be entirely consistent with the particular parts of the Mass.”
Reply: That rule has been superseded. What must be sung is the Mass, the Ordinary and the Proper, not “something” no matter how consistent, that is imposed on the Mass. Because the actio is one, it has only one countenance, one accent, one voice, the voice of the Church. To continue to sing hymns extraneous to the Mass (however pious and devout they may be) amounts to continuing an inadmissable ambiguity. It is to give the people bran instead of fine wheat, a watered down wine instead of full bodied wine. In liturgical singing more is at stake than the melody, i.e. the words, text, thoughts and sentiments contained in poetry and melody. Henceforth the texts must be those of the Mass and nothing else. We mean then to sing the Mass and not to sing during the Mass.
Father, but I believe we are speaking about the 1962 Missal here. By 1969 (what date?…what Missal?… the 1965 Missal? The 1967 modifications?… the New Ordo of 1969?… The New Missal of 1970?…), the matter had been completely modified.
However, at the moment the 1962 Missal was accepted as the “Standard” for the old rite, by the Traditional Movement at large, and by the Holy See through Quattuor Abhinc Annos and Ecclesia Dei, it is clear that the liturgical laws which apply to it, originally, are not the ones which post-date it: they are De Musica Sacra, as related to Sacred Music, and Rubricarum Instructum, as related to rubrics. Any other understand is hybridism of Missals, rejected by the Traditional Movement and highly discouraged by the Holy See.
It is obvious that hymns did not replace the propers, but the propers were said by the priest… while the congregation, at appropriate times, sang the vernacular hymns, which, in other parts of his encyclical, Pius XII calls an “IMMEMORIAL custom”; and Traditional Liturgy has ALWAYS respected local customs of immemorial time. This local variety, this vernacular identity of popular hymns and the population, the private devotions, and other aspects of spiritual private devotion of the laity during Mass (praised in Mediator Dei) were the signs of “diversity” of the Traditional Mass — which is why the liberal liturgists always hated them, because they collided with their plans for a fabricated “liturgical participation”.
More later, as I am quite busy now.
“any other understandING…” typo corrected…
I don’t think that Fr. Daniel offered a reply prejudiced against the old rite of the Mass. I, at least, don’t see how his citation from Notitiae is the kind of thing which a traditionalist would disapprove.
My point had been to say that the Roman Rite, in itself, does not call for hymnody (beyond the occasional sequence). However, there are hymns aplenty elsewhere, namely in the Office.
I’m all for respecting venerable local custom and the lead of Pius XII. But what we seem to have in America, in places, is an aping of the protestant service of hymns and Word. This is worse where the hymns chosen are poetical and musically poor; but it might be a point to note even when the hymns are good and Catholic.
From the quotation you offer from Pius XII, his concerns would seem to be the engagement of the people at low Masses which can be less than exciting for the lukewarm or unintiated. Singing some good hymns can elevate the spirit and get people ready to focus on the Mass. Beautiful. But at the solemn High Mass, where there is plenty of beautiful music, where the propers may be sung by the congregation, is the additional of vernacular hymnody to be encouraged? I don’t know
No, the appraisal of hymns was related to the Missa Recitata, but even for those who were not “lukewarm or unitiated”. I have witnessed this especially in those places where there was historical continuity of the Traditional Mass. For High Mass, in almost all countries, vernacular hymns were used mostly as processionals and recessionals, never during the Mass itself, and De Musica Sacra is clear about that.
I have a deeper problem with the 1969 quote, but it is too complicated to explain it here in short time. In liturgical legislation terms, it simply does not apply to the Old Rite, for the reasons previously exposed.