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Showing posts with label Gregorian chant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gregorian chant. Show all posts

Sunday 16 January 2022

Sunday 10 March 2019

He that dwelleth in the aid of the most high - Note: There are no "Eagles' Wings."

He that dwelleth in the aid of the Most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of heaven. V.: He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector and my refuge: my God, in Him will I trust. V.: For He hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters, and from the sharp word. V.: He will overshadow thee with His shoulders, and under His wings thou shalt trust. V.: His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night. V.: Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark, of invasion or of the noonday devil. V.: A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee. V.: For He hath given His Angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. V.: In their hands they shall bear thee up, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. V.: Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk, and thou shalt trample underfoot the lion and the dragon. V.: Because he hoped in Me I will deliver him: I will protect him, because he hath known my Name. V.: He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation. V.: I will deliver him, and I will glorify him: I will fill him with length of days, and I will show him my salvation.

Lent - First Sunday: Tract from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

Wednesday 12 April 2017

The appointed time is come

Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle
Sing the last, the dread affray;
O'er the cross, the victor's trophy,
Sound the high triumphal lay:
Tell how Christ, the world's Redeemer,
As a victim won the day.

God, his Maker, sorely grieving
That the first-made Adam fell,
When he ate the fruit of sorrow,
Whose reward was death and hell,
Noted then this wood, the ruin
Of the ancient wood to quell.

For the work of our salvation
Needs would have his order so,
And the multiform deceiver's
Art by art would overthrow,
And from thence would bring the med'cine
Whence the insult of the foe.

Wherefore, when the sacred fullness
Of the appointed time was come,
This world's Maker left his Father,
Sent the heav'nly mansion from,
And proceeded, God Incarnate,
Of the Virgin's holy womb.

Weeps the infant in the manger
That in Bethlehem's stable stands;
And his limbs the Virgin Mother
Doth compose in swaddling bands,
Meetly thus in linen folding
Of her God the feet and hands.

Thirty years among us dwelling,
His appointed time fulfilled,
Born for this, he meets his passion,
For that this he freely willed:
On the cross the Lamb is lifted,
Where his life-blood shall be spilled.

He endured the nails, the spitting,
Vinegar, and spear, and reed;
From that holy body broken
Blood and water forth proceed:
Earth, and stars, and sky, and ocean,
By that flood from stain are free.

Faithful cross! above all other,
One and only noble tree!
None in foliage, none in blossom,
None in fruit thy peers may be;
Sweetest wood and sweetest iron!
Sweetest weight is hung on thee.

Bend thy boughs, O tree of glory!
Thy relaxing sinews bend;
For awhile the ancient rigour,
That thy birth bestowed, suspend;
And the King of heavenly beauty
On thy bosom gently tend!

Thou alone wast counted worthy
This world's ransom to uphold;
For a shipwrecked race preparing
Harbour, like the ark of old;
With the sacred blood anointed
From the smitten Lamb that rolled.

To the Trinity be glory
Everlasting, as is meet;
Equal to the Father, equal
To the Son, and Paraclete:
Trinal Unity, whose praises
All created things repeat.
Amen.


Should you wish to sing this, the music is as below, though the text is from the processional for Holy Thursday. This text is used in Matins and Lauds this week.


 

Tuesday 4 April 2017

Passiontide Hymn - Vexilla Regis

Would it be possible that you heard this yesterday at Mass or will over the next week to Good Friday?


1. Abroad the Regal Banners fly,
Now shines the Cross's mystery;
Upon it Life did death endure,
And yet by death did life procure.

2. Who, wounded with a direful spear,
Did, purposely to wash us clear
From stain of sin, pour out a flood
Of precious Water mixed with Blood.

3. That which the Prophet-King of old
Hath in mysterious verse foretold,
Is now accomplished, whilst we see
God ruling nations from a Tree.

4. O lovely and reflugent Tree,
Adorned with purpled majesty;
Culled from a worthy stock, to bear
Those Limbs which sanctified were.

5. Blest Tree, whose happy branches bore
The wealth that did the world restore;
The beam that did that Body weigh
Which raised up hell's expected prey.

6. Hail, Cross, of hopes the most sublime!
Now in this mournful Passion time,
Improve religious souls in grace,
The sins of criminals efface.

7. Blest Trinity, salvation's spring,
May every soul Thy praises sing;
To those Thou grantest conquest by
The holy Cross, rewards apply. Amen.

Sunday 5 March 2017

For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word



The First Sunday of Lent features the longest Tract in the Gregorian repertoire from the Liber Usualis. The Second Sunday of the Passion, or Palm Sunday's Deus, Deus meus is of similar length and is of the same Mode II. It is as if they are book-ends from the beginning of Lent to the Holy Week. While both can be sung in psalm-tone, if it can be managed, they should be sung as above.

Here below, it is sung in the manner in which it would have sounded before the end of the first millennium and the change in style of western chant. The chant at this time was not written down, there were no neums, no staff to put them on. The Cantor would have followed those little red markings, as above, to give him his cues but you can imagine that it was much more fluid and free-wheeling, almost letting the real Spirit, lead him. Note the sound, it is Latin text sung "as the Easterns do," but it is not Byzantine, it is Syriac. The one above, which I and others will chant today, is in the version below. You can hear it smoothed out and structured in the Old Roman Chant.


Now, imagine this. The sound you hear below is the closest thing we know to what Our Most Blessed Lord would have heard in the Temple in Jerusalem and sung Himself.




To those of you trapped in the Nervous Disorder, the great liturgical error of the Church from which She will most surely repent, this is what you should have also heard today.


In 1974, under the orders of the Pope, the Monks of Solesmes published the revised Graduale Romanum for the new calendar. Over 30 years ago, I was told by the late Emeritus Archbishop of Ottawa, that "those who long for Gregorian chant suffer from nostalgia neurosis." Well, that is not what the Second Vatican Council's document on the sacred liturgy had to say, but I digress.


Many of the Mass chants remained intact, others were reordered with different Introits or Communion antiphons for the three-year lectionary, as they often theme with the Gospel. Yet, on this day, and for all of Lent, they are the same. The option of the "Gospel Acclamation" is only an option, it is the Tract that is meet and proper. 

And if you heard "On Eagles Wing's in the nervous disorder today, then you need to find a new parish.


Psalm 90 (91)


1 Laus cantici David Qui habitat in adiutorio Altissimi in protectione Dei caeli commorabitur          
The praise of a canticle for David. He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob.
2 Dicet Domino susceptor meus es tu et refugium meum Deus meus sperabo in eum    
He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust.
3 Quoniam ipse liberabit me de laqueo venantium et a verbo aspero     
For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word.
4 Scapulis suis obumbrabit te et sub pinnis eius sperabis               
He will overshadow thee with his shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust.
5 Scuto circumdabit te veritas eius non timebis a timore nocturno            
His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.
6 A sagitta volante in die a negotio perambulante in tenebris ab incursu et daemonio meridiano               
Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil.
7 Cadent a latere tuo mille et decem milia a dextris tuis ad te autem non ad propinquabit              
A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee.
8 Verumtamen oculis tuis considerabis et retributionem peccatorum videbis      
But thou shalt consider with thy eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked.
9 Quoniam tu Domine spes mea Altissimum posuisti refugium tuum       
Because thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the most High thy refuge.
10 Non accedent ad te mala et flagellum non ad propinquabit tabernaculo tuo  
There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.
11 Quoniam angelis suis mandabit de te ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis       
For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways.
12 In manibus portabunt te ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum
In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.
13 Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis et conculcabis leonem et draconem 
Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon.
14 Quoniam in me speravit et liberabo eum protegam eum quia cognovit nomen meum              
Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name.
15 Clamabit ad me et exaudiam eum cum ipso sum in tribulatione eripiam eum et clarificabo eum            
He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him.
16 Longitudine dierum replebo eum et ostendam illi salutare meum       
I will fill him with length of days; and I will shew him my salvation. 

Sunday 13 November 2016

Out of the depths of rigidity

If you are a rigid Catholic and have attended the non-modernist and grown-up Roman Mass over the last few weeks, you'll have noticed a constant theme. The Mass texts are taken now from those of Epiphanytide interrupted for Lent. The theme to which I am referring is the Psalm 129 (130), De profundis.  



It is all a little confusing and has to do with the movable date of Easter. Rather than abandon Mass texts of the Mass, sometimes for many years between the 7th and 13th Sundays in Ordered Time as in the non-rigid modernist rite known as the Novus Ordo, the traditional calendar keeps those from the 3rd to 6th Sunday after Epiphany and moves them to this time to fill the gap. Yet, Gregorian Propers for the 3rd to 6th are the same as are those from the 22nd Sunday to the Last. More confused? 

The Psalm is to be found in the Alleluia verse, the Offertory chant and the verses of the Communion Antiphon. You may be surprised but these are actually the Proper chants to the modernist non-rigid novus ordo for this Sunday.

If you are not rigid and attended the modernist non-rigid liturgy did you hear these today? 

While they are preferred in the Latin melisma, here are simple versions in English. You can scroll down today to the 33rd Ordered Sunday and see for yourself.


Did your Cantor chant these? Did your choir sing them? You mean, they are being "rigid" and not giving you, John and Mary Catholic, the liturgy the Church intends? As if Carey Landry can best the Prophet and King, David of Israel.

Image result for de profundis chant
As Pope Bergoglio declared in his scandalous and repugnant statements on "rigidity" combined with his psychological assessment of those, particularly young people, who attend the traditional Mass, the "Reform of the Reform," is dead. Formally, it is in abeyance until he is. It will be reformed by a Catholic Pope in the future, because it must be. 

But, make no mistake. Sacrosanctam Concilium and the GIRM in the modernist, non-rigid, Missal already call for "ad orientem" worship, Gregorian chant, Latin, incense and more. No priest must be forced to use Extraordinary Ministers and people can always receive Holy Communion on the tongue and kneeling. Even with that, we know, it is still deficient. My point here is not to believe those who insist it must be "reformed" formally, or that any mandated reform closer to the traditional, is "dead." it is only dead for now.

Below is a profound setting of De Profundis by Arvo Part. I had the pleasure to sing that second bass line you hear at the beginning in a few performances of the Victoria Scholars during my time with them.

Out of the depths I have cried to Thee O Lord! Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication. If Thou, O Lord! wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it? For with Thee there is mercy: and by reason of Thy law I have waited on Thee, O Lord!My soul hath relied on His word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night:let Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy; and with Him plentiful Redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.


Thursday 21 January 2016

Catholics of Sudbury - Get thee to the Latin Mass!

Let us rejoice with some good news for the Catholics of Sudbury, a vibrant city in northern Ontario which has given, or I should say, sold to the world much of what it sits on. A few months ago, I had heard through some contacts there and in the liturgical movement in Canada that after many years, a traditional Latin Mass was to be held regularly. 

A reader has kindly sent me there new web page. The community is known as the Mater Dei Latin Mass Community and Mass it twice per week; a Read Mass on Wednesday at 5:00 P.M. and a Sung Mass with incense on Sundays at 5:00 P.M. The Masses are offered at St. Casimir's Church at 210 Paris Street.  

The community has a Facebook page and their web page which can be found at http://www.materdeiparish.ca/.

God bless the people who have made this possible.

+JMJ+
My friends, greetings! My name is Fr. Vince Fiore.
Please take a moment to read this. Thank you.
Installed by the Catholic Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie, I am the new pastor of the MATER DEI LATIN MASS COMMUNITY in Sudbury, Ontario.
Mater Dei (Mother of God) is a brand new community that will offer a weekly option of attending the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass in the Traditional Latin Rite on Sundays at 5:00 P.M., beginning:
When: Sunday, 17 January 2016
Where: St. Casimir Church, 210 Paris Street, Sudbury, Ontario (parking lot in back, accessible from Van Horne, then Solidarity Lane).
Attending Mass in the Traditional Rite FULFILLS THE CATHOLIC SUNDAY OBLIGATION TO ATTEND MASS.
We are very excited and are diligently working to be able to offer to Almighty God the fullness of the splendour of this extraordinary Liturgy which, thanks to Dr. David Buley, professor of Music Education at Laurentian University, includes an exquisite integration of Gregorian Chant.
A Low Mass will be offered weekly as well, at St. Casimir on Wednesdays at 5:00 P.M.. This is also often referred to as a 'quiet Mass', that is, without the chanting and incensing one would normally experience at a Sunday High Mass and other 'High Feast Days'.
Sacrament of Penance (Confession) will be made available before Mass on Sunday and Wednesday at 4:00 P.M..
We are totally dependent on the generosity of others. Please remember the Mater Dei Latin Mass Community in your prayers. As usual, a collection will be taken up at the Sunday Masses, please give as generously as possible. Thank you.
As well, please consider Mater Dei as a charitable option, monthly or as regular as possible. It is amazing, as you know, how quickly and wildly costs will mount. Tax receipts will be issued. Donations can be made out and sent to:
Mater Dei Latin Mass
c/o 21 Ste. Anne Road
Sudbury, Ontario
P3C 5P6
This is a Diocesan-wide initiative. Please feel free to come and experience the Divine Liturgy as the Saints you know and love would have known it.
Do not have concerns such as "I won't know what to do", or, "I don't understand Latin". To follow along, resources will be provided. Myself, the servers and the musicians are learning, too. So, be at peace and know that we will be growing in this endeavour together. Very exciting!
We are currently working on our website.
Thank you to Almighty God and Our Lady for this extraordinary opportunity!
Thank you and Dominus Vobiscum! (The Lord be with you!)
Please help spread the word!
Through Him, With Him, and In Him,
Pater Vincenzo Fiore
(Father Vince Fiore)
Mater Dei, ora pro nobis! Mother of God, pray for us!

Thursday 24 December 2015

Laetabundus -- the forgotten Christmas Sequence

In the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, there are four Sequences which in the Third Missal, precede the Alleluia, prior to that, they followed it as in the Extraordinary Form, they were "in sequence." However, in a Mass in the Ordinary Form, in a "Gregorian" manner with Gradual and Alleluia, it follows with the Sequence. With the Responsorial Psalm, it precedes the Gospel Acclamation as it is not truly in the manner of the Gregorian Alleluias. More ridiculous Novus Ordoisms. Two of these are mandatory, Victimae Paschalis of Easter and Veni, Sancte Spiritus of Pentecost, two are, sadly, optional; these are Lauda, Sion Salvatorem of the Solemnity of Corpus Christi and Stabat Mater on Our Lady of Sorrows, but not to the common tune that is sung as a hymn. In the Extraordinary Form they are not optional and there is one additional, Dies Irae in the Requiem Mass and funeral liturgy and it survives in the new Liturgy of the Hours for All Souls Day, which in the new Ordinariate Missal, returns to the Requiem Mass.

What is little known though is that prior to the Council of Trent, there was a Christmas Sequence known as Laetabundus. The Concilium created by Pope Pius V after Trent did not include it in our current traditional Roman Missal as it was not "Roman." They were extremely cautious about Sequences because there were so many in use in different Rites and on many Sundays and Feasts.

While this Sequence cannot be sung in the Mass, it can be done within it as a "hymn" or prior. 

Courtesy of Music Sacra is the text newly set in the Gregorian. I've included below the English translation and the video of the Laetabundus extremely well sung and with perfection by Cantori Gregoriani of Italy. Enjoy this beautiful piece of a liturgical past. 

Faithful people,
Sweeten all your song with gladness.
Alleluia.

Matchless maiden
Bringeth forth the Prince of princes:
O! the marvel.

Virgin compasseth a man,
Yea, the angel of the plan:
Star the Dayspring.

Day that sunset shall not close,
Star that light on all bestows,
Ever cloudless.

As the star, light crystalline,
Mary hath a Son divine
In her likeness.

Star that shining grows not dim,
Nor his Mother, bearing him,
Less a maiden.

The great tree of Lebanon
Hyssop's lowliness puts on
In our valley;

And the Word of God Most High
Self-imprisoned doth lie
In our body.

So Isaias sang of old,
So the Synagogue doth hold,
But the sunrise finds her cold
Hard and blinded.

Of her own she will not mark,
Let her to the gentiles hark;
For the Sybil's verses dark
Tell of these things.

Make haste, O luckless one,
Give ear to the saints bygone:
Why perish utterly,
O race undone?

He whom thy seers foretell
Born is in Israel:
Mary's little Son, O mark him well.
Alleluia.



Friday 4 December 2015

Giovanni Vianini's Schola fired!

Outrageous!

The work that this man has done viewed worldwide for the restoration of sacred chant has been legendary.

What a disgusting turn of events.

http://eponymousflower.blogspot.ca/2015/12/folk-music-instead-of-choral-schola.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheEponymousFlower+(The+Eponymous+Flower)

Friday, December 4, 2015


Folk Music Instead of Choral --- Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis Shown the Door

Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis
(Milan) The famous Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis of Milan, which is dedicated to the care of Gregorian and Ambrosian chant, has been removed from the Basilica of San Vittore al Corpo from Milan to make room for folk singing.
The Choral Schola founded in 1980 by the famous musician Giovanni Vianini and since then,  choral schola director, consists of a men and a women's schola, which currently includes 20 singers each. Together they form a mixed choir. Vianini is internationally recognized as a choral expert.

Sunday 12 April 2015

Quasimodo

As Father Z writes, this Sunday has many nicknames. It is liturgically called the Second Sunday of Easter in the Missal of 1970, the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite and in the traditional liturgy, the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite it is the First Sunday After Easter. It is also known of course as Divine Mercy Sunday after the request by Our Lord through St. Faustina and proclaimed as such by St. John Paul II in 2000. It has also been called in the traditional rite Low Sunday in contrast to previous weekend. I've never liked this term or the term "Low Mass" (Missa Lecta or Read Mass is more appropriate) No Sunday and no Mass, can be "low." Also in the traditional rite, it has been known as White Sunday or Missa in Albis for the catechumens who would have come to Mass today and then put away there white robes or albs, which they'd worn since their baptism on Holy Saturday. 

And yet, there is another name and it comes from the Introit or Entrance Antiphon of the Mass in both Forms -- Quasi modo Sunday. "In the same manner as newborn babes long for the rational milk without guile..." from the First Letter of St. Peter 2:2.

How unfortunate that in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, the opening hymn or song was not Quasi modo but some other non-liturgical text. Here is hoping that it was at least edifying such as Christ the Lord is Risen Today or At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing. Regardless, the loss of the liturgical texts in the practical use of the Missal of 1970 remain a stumbling block to the Mass properly being said or sung, notwithstanding the GIRM's permission to substitute based on the disastrous 1967 document, Musicam Sacram. Gradual solemnity had merit, the rubrics of the traditional Missal are very restrictive, but this document went much too far with the allowance to substitute the Proper of the Mass, Introit, Offertorium and Communion with hymns. This has been a liturgical disaster that we will never recover from until it is revoked. This antiphon is in the Altar Missal and it is in the various permanent or disposable pew missals. It is in the official chant book for the 1970 Missal the 1974 Graduale Romanum and in various English offerings such as the Simple English Propers. There is an Offertory Antiphon as well for the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. It was only a few months ago when in a conversation about the Simple English Propers after a Mass with a Bishop, I was asked what "that" was as he pointed to the Offertory Antiphon. Perhaps that is best left for another post.

There is one more little tidbit about today which you can read below. It comes from the quill of Victor Hugo for it was on this day, the First Sunday After Easter or Quasimodo Sunday that he found the deformed creature and thus the poor boy received his name.


Sixteen years previous to the epoch when this story takes place, one fine morning, on Quasimodo Sunday, a living creature had been deposited, after Mass, in the church of Notre- Dame, on the wooden bed securely fixed in the vestibule on the left, opposite that great image of Saint Christopher, which the figure of Messire Antoine des Essarts, chevalier, carved in stone, had been gazing at on his knees since 1413, when they took it into their heads to overthrow the saint and the faithful follower. Upon this bed of wood it was customary to expose foundlings for public charity. Whoever cared to take them did so. In front of the wooden bed was a copper basin for alms.

The sort of living being which lay upon that plank on the morning of Quasimodo, in the year of the Lord, 1467, appeared to excite to a high degree, the curiosity of the numerous group which had congregated about the wooden bed. The group was formed for the most part of the fair sex. Hardly any one was there except old women.

In the first row, and among those who were most bent over the bed, four were noticeable, who, from their gray cagoule, a sort of cassock, were recognizable as attached to some devout sisterhood. I do not see why history has not transmitted to posterity the names of these four discreet and venerable damsels. They were Agnes la Herme, Jehanne de la Tarme, Henriette la Gaultière, Gauchère la Violette, all four widows, all four dames of the Chapel Etienne Haudry, who had quitted their house with the permission of their mistress, and in conformity with the statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, in order to come and hear the sermon.

However, if these good Haudriettes were, for the moment, complying with the statutes of Pierre d'Ailly, they certainly violated with joy those of Michel de Brache, and the Cardinal of Pisa, which so inhumanly enjoined silence upon them.

"What is this, sister?" said Agnes to Gauchère, gazing at the little creature exposed, which was screaming and writhing on the wooden bed, terrified by so many glances.

"What is to become of us," said Jehanne, "if that is the way children are made now?"

"I'm not learned in the matter of children," resumed Agnes, "but it must be a sin to look at this one."