Ex Aetate Mediali Lux: On the Use of Tropes for the Cantus ad Introitum by J. Michael Joncas
Ex Aetate Mediali Lux: On the Use of Tropes for the Cantus ad Introitum
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21 responses to “Ex Aetate Mediali Lux: On the Use of Tropes for the Cantus ad Introitum”
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Thank you, Fr. Joncas, for this illuminating essay on conservation and creativity.
I offer one more model (really an adaptation of your #9) that I was able to employ at the Cathedral of St. Paul (MN) back in the 1990s (perhaps still practiced there…I don’t know). On ordinary Sundays, we essentially did #9 (choir singing antiphon from GR) followed by congregational hymn. But on solemnities and major feasts (I’m thinking of Christmas, in particular), the congregational hymn came first accompanying a long procession. The antiphon ad introitum (with psalm verse and doxology) was then sung as the ministers entered the sanctuary and the altar was reverenced and incensed.
The wisdom of a sonic “decrescendo” might have appeared counter-intuitive, but the result seemed to be a harnessing and focusing of emotional energy in the assembly. Nothing empirical to report here…just a variation on a theme.
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Interesting essay. However, he writes: “I am unaware of homophonic or polyphonic settings of the English translation of the Entrance Antiphons with their proper psalm verse(s) and doxology, but there is nothing forbidding composers attempting such a program”
I still can’t quite believe that 40-plus years after the new Mass promulgation that there is nothing in print that satisfies this essential need. In the last 18 months or so, however, full set of such editions have appeared online – including the American Gradual, the St. Lous Gradual, the Choral Gradual (Rice), the Palmer-Burgess Gradual, the Anglican Use Gradual, the Kelly Gradual, the Abroghast Gradual, and the Simple English Propers Project, Willan Introits and Graduals, and I’m probably leaving some out.
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But most or all of these or monophonic (no harmony, rather than polyphonic or homophonic), aren’t they? I’m familiar with some of these and they’re English plainchant.
awr-
Two are harmonized and very wonderful: Willan and Rice.
BTW, Willan was written for the Lutheran church, so far as I can tell.
We use them every second week because they are amazing.
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Could you provide some of the URL links to the various GRADUALS
that you mention in your blog-response to Michael Joncas?
I remember some early work of Arbogast and tried, in the last year, to find some in print or on-line but never did.Thank you
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Thanks to Mr. Tucker for listing these online publications. I look forward to exploring them I (especially the Willan Introits and Graduals from my earlier engagement with his music).
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The Willan Introits were (still are?) published by Concordia, the Lutheran Missouri Synod Publishing House in St. Louis. That said, these appear to me to be the propers that Willan composed for use at his own Anglo-Catholic parish in Toronto, St. Mary Magdalene, where he was the organist/choirmaster for a good portion of the first half of the twentieth century.
I’ve attended Mass at St. Mary Magdalene and even to this day (actually that was in 1997) it is basically an EF Roman Mass with the exception of all of the texts being in english.
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For one who does not know much about the history or even the current progress on antiphons, your article is very helpful, Fr. Joncas.
A few questions, if you do not mind:
a) given the first ICEL and the directives from VII and Paul VI, it is clear that antiphons (how they are sung, etc.) became secondary to the larger liturgical renewal;
b) but, did the first ICEL or ICET do any work on the antiphons (you basically show that these come from two different sources)?
c) the other interesing insight is that the antiphons are basically on a one year lectionary cycle – yet, we use three year. Has there been or was there any plans (1998?) to address this lucana?Just one comment – our parish started your option #9 at Easter but with little or NO explanation. It has not been received well – only now do they print the antiphon in our worship aid on week-ends. So, sounds like some have had success but how did you address:
a) explaining and introducing antiphons (esp. when they have barely been used for years)?
b) the chanting (whether in english or latin) is not heard well only adding to the lack of reception. Chanting by the choir/cantor from the back or side of church before starting the procession seems to lack something….not sure what?(admission – the more we can insynch the readings, antiphons, and even some of the EPs, collects, the better liturgy would be (IMO))
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“Yet a more telling criticism of restoring a proper antiphona ad introitum for each Sunday’s Eucharistic worship from the Graduale Romanum lies in the fact that only a single year’s set is appointed. The OF now boasts a three-year lectionary cycle,…”
It is ironic the liturgical reform succeeded so well in increasing the biblical content of the lectionary cycle yet failed to restore the biblical content of the Introit, Offertory and Communion chants.
When I learned from this blog that all the chants were on http://isaacjogues.org/chants/ I began praying them each week. I included the whole psalm or canticle (or the longer list of verses indicated in the Graduale Triplex).
I have been amazed at the variety of psalms and other canticles that are included, especially during Ordinary Time. In analogy to the liturgy of the hours, during OT they seem to have more the monastic purpose of covering as many psalms and canticles as possible rather than a cathedral purpose of developing themes.
I was surprised that the antiphons were often made up of parts of verses spread through the scripture text, and not always in their order, or that the scriptural text was bent to fit them all together. Some appeared to be the Old Latin rather than the Vulgate text. So they were creative rather than slavish about the biblical text.
My suggestion would be to restore biblical texts or paraphrases to these locations whether as Latin or English chant or metrical hymns. We should feel free to chose new verses or collections of parts of verses to use as antiphons or responses; select among the verses to be used, select from the whole repertory not just the ones currently appointed for a particular day, etc, In other words, mine the tradition but not slavishly. This would allow great freedom in music and biblical texts while eliminating the problem of controversial non biblical texts. I guess some tropes might depart too far from a biblical paraphase for my taste.
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Thanks also to Dr. Vogt who in fact was the first to introduce me to Model #9 when he was director of music and liturgy at the Cathedral of St. Paul. I would think of what you report as a variant of Model #9 as you suggest. I didn’t mention it because I never experienced it, having my own responsibilities on the high feasts in other praying communities :-).
A quick response to Mr. deHaas: I doubt that ICET would have worked on these antiphons because these would not have been texts that would have been held in common by multiple Christian denominations (unlike, e.g., the Lord’s Prayer or the Glory be to the Father). I believe that ICEL is the source of the texts for the antiphons that are found in the present Sacramentary, but I do not have the resources here at home to state that definitively. Perhaps Dr. Ford or Mr. Inwood (or others — Dr. John Page would be the best source if he is a reader of this blog) could let us know. I would parallel the idea of creating a three year cycle of Sunday antiphons for the entrance correlated to the three year cycle of Sunday readings to the same initiative that led at least the USA bishops to propose 3 alternate collects (1 for each cycle) correlated to the readings. This alternative collect initiative was not accepted by the CDW, and I suspect that the parallel initiative would not be accepted by the CDW at this time either. (We may wish to discuss the pros and cons of either initiative in order to understand some of the controversy over the work of ICEL in the construction of liturgical texts NOT based on pre-existing Latin originals.)
As for pastoral issues in introducing Model #9, I would invite those using that model to comment. I confess that I would err on the side of giving MUCH explanation and attending to the acoustics of the worship space when introducing this model. -
Thanks Fr. Joncas for your article. I agree with your parsing of the rubrics. While I prefer to attend parishes where the Latin propers are sung in the EF and OF, I recognize that not all parishes have the same musical abilities and inclinations.
I’ve often thought it would be a good idea for the Vatican to relax the OF rubric that every Sunday Mass must be a sung Mass. The rubric is laudable: (I hope) most Catholics can agree that most parishioners should have the opportunity to hear a sung Mass at least one day a week. Still, I have found that many parishes strain to provide sung Masses all day Sunday. Wouldn’t it be better if the Vatican required only one sung OF Mass on a Sunday? Parishes could focus on providing quality sung propers (Latin or vernacular, simple or full Gradual) for a “principal Mass” rather than churn out generic four-hymn sandwiches often unrelated to the particular Mass.
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Jordan, I think the drive for sung Masses on Sundays and principal festival days is less a rubric and more a desire to set the bar high for communities that have the resources.
Having served in many parishes, I’ve found some measure of success in having choirs at every Mass. My current parish has at least a small schola, and there’s movement to continue this pattern on holy days.
Of course, this parish is very de-centralized in musical leadership.
My approach has found me at odds with some pastors who had instituted or tolerated the “principal Mass” model. Especially when my smaller ensembles were able to surpass a large choir in terms of musicianship.
Since the assembly is the primary music “minister,” I prefer to focus on their repertoire.
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The entrance hymn, procession and greeting of the OF have several unintended negative consequences.
Unlike the Offertory and Communion processions the Entrance procession is an activity of the ministers in which the people are spectators. (At offertory time we could process to the collection basket rather than it coming to us).
The opportunity for spending a time of prayerful preparation before Mass has disappeared in the majority of parishes. The clear signal of the Entrance procession is that everything begins when the ministers enter. Most parishes do not preserve silence or any other clear signals of prayerful preparation before Mass.
The whole incentive structure is for people to arrive just in time, which is why so many arrive late.
In practice the “greeting” often conveys that the church building and liturgy are the property of the pastoral staff rather than the people. “WE are glad that YOU are HERE today.” The parish as a business rather than a community is often on display.
The “greeting” is the greatest opportunity for the priest to imprint his personality and style upon the Mass, to convey that the Mass is about his personal approach to Christianity, whether liberal, conservative, prophetic, folksy or whatever.
The “greeting” is also the greatest opportunity to turn the Mass into an educational event rather than worship. We are often insulted by the priest telling us what we are supposed to think and feel during the Mass, what it is all about, as if we are illiterate, uneducated or heathens.
The Entrance Hymn (like the other hymns) is a great opportunity for members of pastoral staff to turn the Mass into an event about their spirituality or their educational agenda. Sometimes it is their interpretation of the readings or the season or whatever. Tropes that are not biblically based are open to the same abuses.
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The best model for beginning Weekend Masses is to celebrate them in combination with either Evening Prayer or Morning Prayer. In other words the fifteen minutes prior to Mass would be a gathering time when people drift in during the celebration of Evening Prayer or Morning Prayer
From the General Instruction on the LOH “94. When morning prayer, celebrated in choir or in common, comes immediately before Mass, the whole celebration may begin either with the introductory verse and hymn of morning prayer, especially on weekdays, or with the entrance song, procession, and celebrant’s greeting, especially on Sundays and holydays; one of the introductory rites is thus omitted.
The psalmody of morning prayer follows as usual, up to, but excluding, the reading. After the psalmody the penitential rite is omitted and, as circumstances suggest, the Kyrie; the Gloria then follows, if required by the rubrics, and the celebrant says the opening prayer of the Mass. The liturgy of the word follows as usual.”
After the communion with its communion song the Canticle of Zechariah, Blessed be the Lord, with its antiphon from morning prayer, is sung.” There is a parallel instruction for evening prayer.
I would always choose the option given preference on weekdays. Thus eliminating the entrance procession and celebrant’s greeting. (Good riddance IMO). Also the psalms of LOH should be done with extended pauses for personal prayer at the end of the psalm. These would enable the Kyrie or Gloria to occur right at the scheduled time for the beginning of Mass.
It has been the common practice in many Eastern liturgical traditions to precede or combine the Divine Liturgy with one of the hours. These traditions have also tended to keep alive the practice of Evening Prayer on Saturday and Morning Prayer on Sunday.
This is the best, easiest, most traditional and universal way to introduce the Liturgy of Hours into parish life. Bring back the LOH rather than tropes!!!
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“This insight will help us both to “preserve and cultivate the treasury of sacred music” and to “increase its store of treasures” as
Sacrosanctum concilium 114 and 121 so wisely remind us.”
Thank you for this wonderfully accessible and informative article. I must confess to very limited use of these Entrance, Offertory and Communion antiphons. But I have been making liberal use of the Psallite collection which you cite, and find it most “user-friendly” for my ensemble and assemblies. -
Fr Joncas alludes to something very important that is rarely mentioned today. This is the traditional allegorical interpretation of the Mass which presents a dramatic re-enactment of key events in salvation history. As the Holy Father mentioned in his Midnight Mass homily, the Mass actually begins with the Introit. The Introit, almost always taken from the OT, recalls and symbolises the prophets and patriarchs who predicted Christ’s coming; the Mass continues to recount the key events, ending (or so it used to) with the final blesssing which recalls and symbolises Christ blessing the Apostles as He ascended into heaven.
The point in all of this is that there is a theological (topological) purpose for the Introit, making it an essential part of the Mass. No hymn is a sufficient substitute for the sacred words of scripture assigned by the Church as a prayer to begin the Mass, and as Bp Slattery of Tulsa recently pointed out, with the coming of the new English translation, the Introit should be given back its pride of place in mainsteam parishes. One can sing as many hymns as one likes before Mass, but the words of the Introit must not be neglected during the Mass.
In this context I want to thank Fr Joncas for giving us the different possiblities to realise this. My preference would be for a schola to sing the antiphon from the GR during the entrance procession and for all the faithful to sing the psalm verses in the vernacular concluded by the minor doxology which every Catholic should know how to recite in Latin. Indeed, as Ratzinger has pointed out, the Church does have its own hymnal for all the faithful to use, it is called the Psalter.-
+JMJ+
This is the traditional allegorical interpretation of the Mass which presents a dramatic re-enactment of key events in salvation history.
For what it’s worth, I’m big on this. I see the parts of the Mass as re-presenting the Paschal Mystery (from Palm Sunday through Ascension Thursday).
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Let me thank Mr. Rakosky for mentioning the possibility of yoking the beginning of one of the hours of the Liturgy of the Hours with the Introductory Rites of the Roman Rite Eucharist in the OF. I should have remembered that and marked it as Model #10. I do know that there has also been a fairly strong argument against yoking the beginning of the one of the Hours with the Introductory Rites (or the conclusion of the Hours with the Concluding Rites of Eucharist) since the two liturgies were seen as having diverse, if not incompatible, stances toward the sanctification of time. The Liturgy of the Hours as “sanctification of time” was seen fiercely bound to particular times of day (one of the reasons why those bound to recitation of the Office no longer recite all of the hours for a given day from ca. 11:00 PM – midnight followed by a recitation of all of the hours for the next day from ca. midnight – 1 AM in order to “get the obligation taken care of” and leave the rest of one’s time free for pastoral ministry, a practice not uncommon among diocesan and active priests prior to Vatican II) while the celebration of the Eucharist was seen as “eschatological banquet,” not bound to particular times of day (with the exception of, e.g., the Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday or the Easter Vigil Eucharist). Personally I found the contrast overdrawn, since frequently Mass picks up a certain “temporal resonance” (as among those faithful who like to “start their day” with the morning Eucharist). In any event the Church allows the practice, and I should have included it among the models.
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Both Mr. Krasnicki and Mr. Pinyan highlight something that I would like to discuss in a different thread, namely differing theories of liturgical symbolism. To GREATLY over-simplify, many would hold that medieval “allegorical” interpretation of (elements of) the liturgy is anything but “traditional,” but a rather distinct shift in meaning-discovery/creation in comparison with patristic “typological” interpretation of (elements of) the liturgy. (Notice that that doesn’t make it wrong, just distinct; one can find “traditional” elements in early and late patristic eras, early and late medieval eras, etc. Part of our conversation is the attempt to clarify the criteria we use to determine what is “traditional,” the stances we take toward the “traditional,” etc.) I find Paul Rorem’s little pamphlet _The Medieval Development of Liturgical Symbolism_ Grove Liturgical Study No. 47 (Bramcote, Nottingham: Grove Books Limited, 1986) to be quite helpful in beginning to think this through. I would like to write another article (if there’s enough interest) applying the “four senses” of Western medieval scriptural exegesis to explanations of the liturgy. Or perhaps someone like Dr. Bauerschmidt might want to tackle this topic for us.
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Fr Joncas:
Such a discussion would be quite welcome.
As to this thread, however, most scholars in the English speaking world would insist that Introits only appeared around the mid 7th century, became more widespread by the 8th, and that by at least the early 9th Frankish scholars had already set in motion the allegorical interpretation of Introits as a class I mentioned above, which has lasted for a very long time, and which even the Holy Father seems to have presupposed in his exegesis of Psalm 2 (Introit for Midnight Mass). (Other scholars would still insist on the role of St Gregory the Great here, almost a century earlier, although perhaps not to the extent that his prophetic gifts extended to chant, which would otherwise make chant of divine origin, a common belief during the Middle Ages.)Mr Pinyan:
A “traditional” view of the Mass, at least since Amalarius of Metz, has been that the first part from the Introit to the Offertory represents the life and teaching of our Lord here on earth, while the second part begins with the events of Holy Week. So did Aquinas define the celebration Mass as a kind of representative image of the Passion. -
The commentors here might be interested in my Ph.D. dissertation, which speaks to many of these issues, including tropes.
Cantus ad introitum: The Entrance Song in Roman Catholic Worship (The Catholic University of America, 2010).
The chapters include: Method, History, Ecclesiastical Norms, Models of the Entrance Song, and Theology of the Entrance Song.
http://disexpress.umi.com/dxweb
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