A word meaning “darkness” that is the title of the solemn chanting of Matins and Lauds for each day of the Sacred Triduum. It is the most sobering and penitential time of the Liturgical Year, a roughly two-hour liturgy of meditation, psalms, and chants to help force us to focus on the deepest sentiments of the Sacred Heart of Our Suffering Redeemer.
To continue our tradition of preparing for Easter Sunday, a faithful group gathers at 5 am in the Adoration Chapel at St. Augustin’s to pray this wonderful Sacred Office of the Church.
GREGORIAN CHANT IS SPECIAL. No doubt about it. But that’s as much as I’ll say on that front for now; others have waxed eloquent about its artistry and its unique qualities.
Today I want to focus on a more practical side of things than musically mystical musings. If Gregorian chant is so important, where do I start learning it? What pieces should I sing first?
Look no further! Here I will introduce you to a list of pieces, provide recordings of all of them, and supply you with a free PDF download containing all the chants at the end of the article. Excluding the Mass Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus, Asperges, Vidi Aquam, etc.), I’ve collected here the ten chants I think are most important to know.
My determination of the top ten is not arbitrary. Here are the criteria influencing my choices:
They are frequently used. These chants regularly appear not only in the liturgy, but are likely to be sung by the laity in the course of daily devotions, processions, summer camps, etc.
These chants are culturally prominent. You will find these more often referenced in literature than other tunes.
These chants are textually rich. Their lyrics poetically embody numerous Catholic doctrines, pious beliefs, and devotional practices.
The chants here represent a wide varietyof the Gregorian repertoire: antiphons, hymns, sequences, even a Mass proper.
Let’s dig in — and sing along!
1. Salve Regina (Antiphon)
The smiling queen of heaven; a medieval ivory carving at the Cloister Museum in New York City (Photo: Julian Kwasniewski)
The first four should come as no surprise. These are the so-called Marian Antiphons which are sung after Compline every night, every day of the year wherever the Divine Office is celebrated. This is their primary official liturgical place, but they also show up elsewhere; in fact they tend to be among the most commonly sung chants at any public gathering of Catholics.
Each comes with a solemn and simple tone; and although you are most likely to hear the Roman version, there are slight and interesting variations in the monastic and mendicant versions of the same antiphons.
The current form of the Salve derives primarily from the splendid abbey of Cluny, which pioneered independent monastic houses, subject to the pope rather than local bishops. From there, it spread quickly in the course of the 1200s and 1300s all over Europe.
Many Catholics who know no other Gregorian Chant at least know the simple tone of the Salve Regina: we all know the text as the “Hail holy Queen” used to conclude the rosary. You can follow along with the simple tone here, and listen to the monks of Norcia singing the solemn monastic tone below:
Hail, O Queen of Heaven. Hail, O Lady of Angels Hail! thou root, hail! thou gate From whom unto the world a light has arisen. Rejoice, O glorious Virgin, Lovely beyond all others, Farewell, most beautiful maiden, And pray for us to Christ.
So runs the Ave Regina Coelorum, sung from the feast of the Purification (February 2) through Holy Week. Although the primary reference of Christ “rising” is to the incarnation, it could also be understood of His resurrection from death—and this is the antiphon sung throughout all of Lent!
I like those two very different metaphors: Mary as root and as gate. She is compared to something from the natural world and something from the man-made “technological” world. Do you know about plants? She and her Son’s coming are like that: a springing-up from the hidden depths. Do you only know about cities and man-made things? There’s still a comparison to be made that will work.
The simple tone of this antiphon is childlike and catchy:
This is the Marian antiphon used during Eastertide: its origins are unknown, but it too appears on the scene mid-way through the Middle Ages, first extant in a manuscript dating from c. 1200.
According to the Golden Legend of the Italian Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine, the first three lines of the antiphon were heard being chanted by Angels during a penitential procession in Rome in the time of Pope Gregory the Great, who then added the last line. This lovely story, which reinforces the traditional association of chant with Gregory the Great, is unlikely to be true, as is typical of much of the content of the Golden Legend, but no matter; the text is wonderful no matter where it comes from:
Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia. The Son you merited to bear, alleluia, Has risen as he said, alleluia. Pray to God for us, alleluia.
Here’s the simple tone, with faint organ accompaniment:https://open.spotify.com/embed/track/1LWeRfnEcwN31DYVryC3OX
And now the canons of St. Michael’s Abbey in California chanting the solemn tone:
4. Alma Redemptoris Mater
The depiction of Mary as virgo lactans is an artistic representation of Mary being the Alma Redemptoris Mater by giving Christ (in the words of Hopkins) “birth, milk, and all the rest.” (Source)
There are two beautiful translations of this antiphon I’d like to share:
Mother of Christ! hear thou thy people’s cry, Star of the deep, and portal of the sky! Mother of him who thee from nothing made, Sinking we strive, and call to thee for aid: Oh, by that joy which Gabriel brought to thee, Thou Virgin first and last, let us thy mercy see.
So goes the translation of Edward Caswall, a fellow Anglican convert and Oratorian confrere of John Henry Newman’s. Newman renders the same Latin antiphon this way:
Kindly Mother of the Redeemer, who art ever of heaven The open gate, and the star of the sea, aid a fallen people, Which is trying to rise again; thou who didst give birth, While Nature marveled how, to thy Holy Creator, Virgin both before and after, from Gabriel’s mouth Accepting the All hail, be merciful towards sinners.
The word alma is a very rich word. It derives from the proto-Indo-European for “to grow, nourish,” resulting in having as its primary senses “nourishing, kind, propitious.” Lewis and Short have:
nourishing, affording nourishment, cherishing (poetic epithet of Ceres, Venus, and other patron deities of the earth, of light, day, wine, etc…Hence, genial, restoring, reviving, kind, propitious, indulgent, bountiful, etc.
And they give examples of it being used to describe everything from Venus and Mother Earth to agricultural fields and female breasts. This puts me in mind of the artistic tradition of depicting Mary as the virgo lactans or “nursing virgin”. The Alma Redemptoris Mater—nourishing, cherishing Mother of the Redeemer—gives “birth, milk, and all the rest,” as Hopkins put it.
5. Victimae Paschali Laudes (Sequence)
The Sequence is a musical and poetic form that was once very widespread throughout European liturgy. It is a poem in honor of a saint or a mystery that usually falls after the Alleluia of the Mass, to prepare for the Gospel. Medieval and early Renaissance Catholics were accustomed to dozens more Sequences than we have now in our traditional rites. The Tridentine reform, ever conservative as Rome used to be, limited the Sequences to the small series that were already used in the papal court liturgy, and as a result, many of the Sequences of local rites were lost when the Roman missal was freely adopted in those places.
The Easter Sequence Victimae Paschali laudes — like many great works of art—has been attributed to quite an array of characters, including the 11th-century Wipo of Burgundy (chaplain of the Holy Roman Emperor Conrad II), Notker Balbulus (a monk of Sant Gall in Switzerland), Robert II of France (a French monarch), and Adam of St. Victor (a Parisian Master of Ceremonies and composer). The Victimae is a short sequence—made shorter by the fact that one antisemitic verse was excluded in the Tridentine reform: “More to be believed is truthful Mary by herself than the deceitful crowd of the Jews.”
Here’s the literal translation from Wikipedia:
Let Christians offer sacrificial praises to the passover victim. The Lamb has redeemed the sheep: The Innocent Christ has reconciled sinners to the Father. Death and life contended in a spectacular battle: the dead leader of life reigns alive. Tell us, Mary, what did you see on the way? “I saw the tomb of the living Christ and the glory of his rising, The angelic witnesses, the shroud, and the clothes.” “Christ my hope is arisen; he will go before his own [you] into Galilee.” We know Christ is truly risen from the dead! On us, Conqueror King, have mercy! Amen. Alleluia.
Trinity from Les Grandes Heures d’Anne de Bretagne (source)
Fifty days after Easter falls the great solemnity of Pentecost — and it has its own sequence too, which is so beautiful that it has been called “The Golden Sequence.” We don’t know for sure who wrote the text; two likely 13th-century candidates are Pope Innocent III and Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Langton, incidentally, is most famous for being the one who (more or less successfully) divided up the books of the Bible into the system of chapters used by everyone today. It can be hard to believe that prior to the end of the 12th century, there were no chapters. (Verse numbers came even later: the 15th century for the Old Testament, and the 16th century for the New.)
With light organ in the background, this recording of the Golden Sequence preserves the alternation between cantors and full choir.
This is probably the best known chant of the whole bunch, plastered all over the internet with masochistic-looking monks hunched in black hoods. Despite being one of the most iconic features of the Requiem Mass, this chant is not the “Dark Occult Monastic Ambient Gregorian with Bible” that AI-generated YouTube videos would have you believe. The catchy melody has worked its way into dozens of great pieces of classical music, and later into movie soundtracks: Star Wars, The Lion King, The Lord of the Rings, Frozen, and Dune, to name a few better-known ones.
Cultural allusions and illusions aside, you will find in the Dies Irae a poem of intensely gentle medieval piety. Oscar Wilde objected to the focus on judgement, writing in On Hearing the Dies Iræ Sung in the Sistine Chapel that he found beauty in nature spoke more clearly of God than “thundering”:
Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
I disagree with Mr. Wilde. Although it opens with “day of doom impending,” it winds up calling Jesus the “fount of mercy”—and the word pietatis derives from the love of a father accepting his child as his own. Against our own sinful frailty, it also calls to mind the humanity of Christ: “Seeking me, You rested, tired.” This is a reference to the pericope of the Samaritan woman at the well, and seems to suggest that it is Christ’s humanity that gives us confidence in the face of judgment.
I would sit with the text for a while, especially with the Latin which is much more fluid and beautiful than any English translations.
8. Ave maris stella (Hymn)
The Notre-Dame de la Belle Verrière (Our Lady of the Beautiful Glass) window in Chartres Cathedral, famed for its unreproducible blue (Photo: Julian Kwasniewski)
This is the great Marian hymn. Probably originating earlier than the other Marian antiphons here, we see a beautiful exploration of Mary’s ancient title “Star of the Sea.” This hymn also includes a clever pun:
Sumens illud “Ave” Gabrielis ore, funda nos in pace, mutans Evæ nomen.
Playing off the fact that Ave in Latin is the same word as “Eve” spelled backwards (Eva), the poem links the “yes” of the new Eve to the “no” of the old Eve. The very first word that the angel spoke to Mary already signified the one whose bad choice her good choice would reverse:
Receiving that “Ave” From the mouth of Gabriel, Establish us in peace, Transforming the name of “Eva.”
My favorite stanza is the penultimate one:
Bestow a pure life, Prepare a safe way: That seeing Jesus, We may ever rejoice.
The last two lines in Latin are ut videntes Jesum / semper collætemur. Perhaps I’m extrapolating too much, but the use of collætemur is significant to me. It could have just been lætemur, which is effectively a synonym: both mean rejoice. But collætemur sounds to me like it derives from co+laetare, with co being “together,” collætemur then implying a social dimension — not just any kind of rejoicing, but “rejoicing together.”
To my mind this hints at the fact that one of heaven’s great incidental joys must certainly be the unity that souls will experience with each other. We don’t rejoice in isolation: we collætemur with all our friends.
Earliest known manuscript of Sub tuum praesidium in Greek, dated between 3rd to 9th centuries.
The Sub Tuum Praesidium is likely the oldest chant on the list. The Latin of this prayer might be the “latercomer” translation: ancient versions exist in Greek, Coptic, Syriac, and Armenian. Scholars heavily debate the dating of the papyrus scrap pictured above, some arguing for the late 3rd century, others advocating a century as late as the 9th, but it has been discovered in a chant book from Jerusalem indicating liturgical use in at least the 5th century.
This chant is short and easy to learn: it is sometimes prayed after the rosary, but is appropriate year-round, for any necessity.
This might surprise you as making it onto a “short-list” of chant, but the Requiem Introit is indeed one of the most consoling pieces in the Gregorian Repertoire. It represents in some way the entire Requiem itself: the soft, gentle, soothing rite which accompanies the deceased’s body to the grave, or which prays for any of the departed souls for whom we offer prayers. The Roman Requiem is quite unlike the Byzantine funeral rite, which graphically and lengthily repeats lines about kissing the body for the last time, emphasizes how recently he was among men, with his relatives, and how quickly the corpse will decay. Rather, the Requiem adopts a more butler-like aspect, a somber presence you hardly notice is even there. The prayers barely intrude any specifics, only mentioning the departed’s name when absolutely necessary (the Byzantine, in contrast, constantly repeats it).
When it comes to the music, I love the floating opening, the sedate and restrained rise of the melody and the flat thrown in there on eis in the first line. Here’s Christopher Jasper of the Gregorian Chant Academy singing it:
FINAL STEP: Download the PDF
It would be silly to encourage you all to sing these ten chants without making them easily accessible. All of them can be found in the free download below—crisp, and easy to read, with the notation sourced from GregoBase. Not only do I include the simple and solemn tones for the Marian Antiphons, I’ve even included the solemn monastic versions of them as well. Happy chanting!
A story goes, in the wake of the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council, the monks of a Benedictine religious community in southern France fell mysteriously ill, with no remedy to be found. In desperation, the esteemed researcher Dr. Alfred Tomatis was called to the scene. The son of an opera singer, Tomatis grew up with music, and spent much of his childhood watching his father sing opera on the stage. Tomatis went into medicine, where he discovered the Mozart Effect, became a specialist in problems with hearing and language, and father of the field known as audio-psycho-phonology.
Tomatis ascertained that not long before the onset of the monks’ malaise, the monastery had altered their daily practice of singing the Divine Office together. They had switched from singing the formerly prescribed Gregorian chants, in favor of praying in their native tongue, and had reduced the total amount of time devoted to daily prayer in community. Tomatis knew from his research that if you change the way the ear works, you affect all the body’s major functions. These changes, in turn, can produce profound transformations in how we function: this is known as the “Tomatis Effect”. Tomatis prescribed that the monks’ former practice of chanting the Hours be restored, and the listless monks were quickly restored to health.
Tomatis wrote later in his book, Pourquois Mozart?: “Woe to us if we wish to present Church singing as a therapeutic material. Yet, few works, besides Mozart’s, have such a radical impact on the human being…A soul attuned to the chant starts to vibrate to the first and essential rhythms. Gregorian chant allows us to perceive this vibration of the soul when it reaches the register of serenity. Then, man is involved in a timeless communication and regains his natural breathing, that is, unstressed and without gasping. Through the Gregorian modulations, he discovers a privileged space where his being momentarily can rest, aloof from the daily trials.
“To tell the truth, Gregorian chant gives a glimpse of paradise to those who wish it. Man is reintegrated into the creation and sings the glory of the Creator. The Gregorian muse is certainly a jewel which centuries have slowly elaborated. In matters of religious singing, it is assuredly the summit of what man can do in search of God. Obviously, there are here and there some variations due to the temperament of the composer or the requirement of the liturgy at a certain period. But regardless of those variations, the Gregorian pieces are universal in their musical and vibratory content. “
Today, Gregorian chant is an essential component of therapy according to the Tomatis Method. The Method is used to heal auditory processing problems, dyslexia, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, autism, and sensory processing and motor-skill difficulties. It is also claimed to have helped adults fight depression, learn foreign languages faster, develop better communication skills, and improve both creativity and on-the-job performance.
What do *you* notice when you sing Gregorian chant?
This post was originally published here, on Our Lady of Clear Creek Abbey’s website.
The blessing of candles is a tradition known to many Catholics. But why is it a significant and beautiful tradition?
The mystery of to-day’s ceremony of the blessing of candles has frequently been explained by liturgists, dating from the 7th century.
According to St. Ivo of Chartres, the wax which is formed from the juice of flowers by the bee, (which has always been considered as the emblem of virginity,) signifies the virginal flesh of the Divine Infant, who diminished not, either by his conception or his birth, the spotless purity of his Blessed Mother. The same holy Bishop would have us see, in the flame of our Candle, a symbol of Jesus, who came to enlighten our darkness. St. Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury, speaking on the same mystery, bids us consider three things in the blest Candle: the Wax, the Wick, and the Flame. The Wax, he says, which is the production of the virginal bee, is the Flesh of our Lord; the Wick, which is within, is his Soul; the Flame, which burns on the top, is his Divinity.
Formerly, the Faithful looked upon it as an honor to be permitted to bring their wax tapers to the Church, on this Feast of the Purification, that they might be blessed together with those, which were to he borne in the procession by the Priests and sacred Ministers; and the same custom is still observed in some congregations. It would be well if Pastors were to encourage this practice, retaining it where it exists, or establishing it where it is not known. There has been such a systematic effort made to destroy, or, at least, to impoverish the exterior rites and practices of religion, that we find, throughout the world, thousands of Christians who have been insensibly made strangers to those admirable sentiments of faith, which the Church alone, in her Liturgy, can give to the body of the Faithful. Thus, we shall be telling many what they have never heard before, when we inform them, that the Church blesses the Candles to-day, not only to be carried in the Procession, which forms part of the ceremony, but, also, for the use of the Faithful, inasmuch as they draw, upon such as use them with respect, whether on sea or on land, (as the Church says in the Prayer,) special blessings from heaven. These blest Candles ought, also, to be lit near the bed of the dying Christian, as a symbol of the immortality merited for us by Christ, and of the protection of our Blessed Lady.
We like to share the occasional testimonial, and this came to us during calendar season, when someone was purchasing a calendar for his home use.
Check out this letter:
Please take a moment to pray an Ave (Hail Mary) for this revert, but then also a second Ave for all those who attended Christmas last week that they may return to the Church and weekly Mass attendance.
A Catholic may ask any priest to offer Mass for a certain intention, whether or not the priest is personally known to him, whether or not the person is able to attend that specific Mass. When requesting this, money plays no inherent role. No one can ever “buy a Mass.” But it is customary to offer what’s called a “stipend,” a small amount recommended by a priest’s Bishop. A Catholic can offer as much as he likes, however, but no money is required to ask that a Mass be said for a specific intention.
Because the merits of the Mass are infinite, any number of intentions may be made in a given Mass, but a priest can only receive one stipend per day, no matter how many Masses he offers that day (though note that priests usually offer a single Mass a day, with some exceptions, such as on Christmas, on All Souls Day, where there is a shortage of priests, etc.). This is to remove even any appearance of simony.
If you would like to request a Mass intention, please contact Cindy at St. Augustin. You can call her (515-255-1175), stop by the office, or email her (cindy@staugustin.org) with your requested dates.
Thanks to TAN Press, the graphic design of Sam Fernholz, and the artistic eye of Kara Knupp, we have a 2025 Liturgical Calendar just in time for Advent/Christmas shopping!
This personalized 10.5″ x 10.5″ calendar, containing special feasts and fascinating Catholic traditions, is marked with days of Fasting, special Saints Days, and the Sundays of the Liturgical Year for both the New and Traditional calendars.
Moreover, the theme of this year’s calendar is Sacramentals, with excerpts taken from the Rituale Romanum.
Each day has indications for the liturgical calendar in both Usus Antiquior (old calendar feast days) and the Usus Recentior (new calendar feast days), as well as abstinence or fast symbols. N.B. Under each day of the week, there is a theme which is traditionally observed.
At the beginning of the calendar, there’s an entire page on spiritual fasting and the symbols that each day indicate.
Like year’s past, we even added when local TLMs were going to be on special occasions:
Be sure to share with your friends and family, but order quickly as Christmas is in a few weeks and we have a limited supply!
Also, a special thanks to four sponsors this year for helping underwrite the cost of the calendar, which means more of the proceeds can support the mission of Una Voce DSM to educate central Iowa on the beauty of Traditional Catholicism.
For more information, email Bryan @ info@unavocedsm.org or call/text 812.686.6102.
The Nativity by Fra Filippo Lippi (painter) Florentine, c. 1406 – 1469
A simple way one can live liturgically is to learn chants for the season. Below are five beautiful chants, along with printable PDFs, to learn this Advent!
The devotional chant of this title most commonly encountered today is a Renaissance-era weaving of an ancient antiphon with scriptural verses. Often sung at the start of a “Rorate Mass,” as a communion hymn, or for other para-liturgical purposes, the chant is a poignant reflection on man’s need for salvation. It should be noted that the music for a sung Rorate Mass is different.
The ancient antiphon appears in various parts of the Divine Office and is taken from Isaiah 45:8: “Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness.” All throughout Advent, this verse is used as a Messianic plea: only One is righteous, and he is the dew that drops from heaven upon the fleece of Gideon — always seen as a symbol of the virgin birth.
W. Rooke-Ley translates the antiphon thus, in a 1910 Book of Hymns, textually connecting it to the O Antiphons (which we’ll look at in a minute):
Mystic dew from heaven Unto earth is given: Break, O earth, a Saviour yield — Fairest flower of the field.
Here’s a clear recording of it, providing music you can follow along with. A translation of the verses may be found here or here; an alternative recording may be found here.
As a bonus, I’ll also share Wiliam Byrd’s polyphonic setting of the text.
2. Conditor alme siderum (Hymn)
This is the hymn appointed for Vespers during Advent, and has been popularized in a translation of the Anglican J.M. Neale as “Creator of the stars of night.” Neal was a contemporary of St. John Henry Newman’s. The level of versifying in English was then at an all-time high, as the first two verses attest:
Creator of the stars of night, thy people’s everlasting light, Jesu, Redeemer, save us all, and hear Thy servants when they call.
Thou, grieving that the ancient curse should doom to death a universe, hast found the medicine, full of grace, to save and heal a ruined race.
The “O Antiphons” are a unique phenomenon in the musical calendar of the Church. A matching set of Vespers antiphons from December 17th to 23rd, they share the same melody, and each opens with a messianic title of Christ prefaced by “O” — “O Wisdom,” “O key of David,” etc. Here they are, in order of appearance.
17 December: O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
18 December: O Adonai (O Savior)
19 December: O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
20 December: O Clavis David (O Key of David)
21 December: O Oriens (O Dawn of the East)
22 December: O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
23 December: O Emmanuel (O Emmanuel)
You will note that the first letter of the various titles is placed in bold. This is to draw attention to the reverse acrostic the letters form in Latin: ERO CRAS. This means “I will be [there] tomorrow.” Evidently the words of the Incarnate, the sentence is not complete until the 23rd, when they come true: Christmas is considered to have arrived at First Vespers on the 24th.
Many medieval authors delighted in acrostics such as this one, and ancient authors did as well. There is some speculation as to how old this series of antiphons is. Some claim they were already extant in such a form that Boethius’s phrase in the Consolation of Philosophy — “He is the highest good,” she [Lady Philosophy] said, “that rules all things mightily and delightfully arranges them” — is a citation of the antiphons rather than the passage from scripture (Wis. 8:1) on which they are based!
Each of the antiphons follows the same structure:
O [Primary Title], [elaboration of the title], Come, and [elaboration of the verb].
For example:
OEmmanuel, our king and our lawgiver, the hope of the nations and their Saviour: Come and save us, O Lord our God.
Or:
OWisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.
The antiphons also share the same melody, a distinctive mode 2 tune with a disputed note — should the highest note be a ti or a te (that is, a natural or a flattened note)?
Here it is with the sharp, from the director of the Floriani ensemble:
Personally, I think that the above recording takes it way too slow. Here it is with the more common flat — and at a much better tempo:
As far as noteworthy multi-voice settings of the O Antiphons, I have to highlight Arvo Pärt’s beautiful setting of the set. Some are murky, some militant, but always his word painting is brilliant. You can find all of them here. Pärt sets them in a German translation. My favorite is the sixth, with marching vocals that give “O King of the nations” a resounding power. The plea is beautiful, harkening back to Genesis: “Come and save the human race, which you fashioned from clay.”
This is certainly the best-known chant on this list: still widely sung in Latin, there are few church-goers indeed who would not have heard it at least in English, in the form of “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” (another translation of J.M. Neale, which can be found complete here). A recording of the chant can be found here.
The melody, so full of longing and pleading, has given rise to dozens of polyphonic settings. One of them, with some very neat harmonies, is performed by the Gesualdo Six:
Something of a paraphrase of the ancient O Antiphons, the text of this hymn as it exists today surfaced in the 17th century. Strangely enough, the tune we all associate with this hymn was first paired to it only in 1851, when it was published in the Hymnal Noted by another Englishman,Thomas Helmore. He only vaguely referenced the tune’s source, and it would be over a hundred years — not until 1966 — that a 15th century manuscript containing the tune was discovered. Who neum?
Instances of “Aspiciens a longe” (L to R): neums, the precursors of modern chant notation, in the St Gall MS, c. 1000; English illumination with an initial showing the Annunciation to Mary holding a unicorn (symbol of Christ) and various prophets, c. 1460; German illumination showing the Last Judgement, c. 1525.
5. Aspiciens a longe (Responsory)
For the final piece today, I’d like to up the musical game of our readers a bit. If you’ve been acing the previous chants, you might want to challenge yourself with this one. Definitely in the category of “very difficult,” this lengthy and beautiful responsory is a gem of allegorical text combined with haunting chant.
A responsory such as this belongs to the night office of Mattins (also spelled Matins). In the Roman Rite, Aspiciens a longe is sung as the first responsory on the first Sunday of Advent. Consider the cosmic introduction this provides:
Aspiciens a longe
I look from afar:
and lo, I see the pow’r of God coming,
and a cloud cov’ring the whole earth.
Go ye out to meet him and say:
Tell us, art thou he that should come
to rule over thy people Israel?
High and low, rich and poor, one with another.
Go ye out to meet him and say:
Tell us, art thou he that should come
to rule o’er thy people Israel?
O come.
Hear, O thou Shepherd of Israel,
thou that leadest Joseph like a sheep.
Tell us, art thou he that should come?
Stir up thy strength, O Lord, and come.
Come to reign o’er thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and lo, I see the pow’r of God coming,
and to the Holy Ghost.
and a cloud covering the whole earth.
Go ye out to meet him and say:
Tell us, art thou he that should come
to reign o’er they people Israel?
Several variants of the music exist. Here’s one, sung by some French Benedictine nuns.
I find the incipit so haunting. Here’s a version that matches the notation in the PDF — I also like how this schola really keeps the chant moving, as well as pitching it pretty high.
FINAL STEP: Download the PDF
All of these chants can be found in the free download below — crisp and easy to read, with the notation sourced from GregoBase. Happy chanting!
I was raised Catholic by very faithful parents and was born very near the time that the Novus Ordo was instituted by Pope Paul. I attended Mass in that form until I was 51 years old, but have always been drawn to a more traditional form of worship. For example, I was always drawn to singing Venite Adoremus at Christmas Mass. Traditional hymns, incense, and bells all made me ponder God more deeply and in some way I could have a connection to the way my ancestors worshipped. As I grew older and found myself more interested in the Church and its history, I found articles online discussing the TLM. Since I had only known the Novus Ordo my entire life, I wondered what worship was like for my ancestors (my mother’s family immigrated from Luxembourg in the 1800s).
In 2018, I decided to try and see if there was a TLM in Des Moines. Much to my surprise, I found out that TLM was offered at St. Anthony’s by Msgr. Chiodo. I decided to attend once “just to see what it was like”.
Perhaps it was not instantaneous, but very soon after, I started making connections to everything that I had read. I was struck by the beauty of the Mass including the music, incense, and silence.
The TLM made me understand why Catholic churches were built the way they were. It made me want to know more about the Faith. The reverence displayed toward the Most Blessed Sacrament deepens my understanding and humbles me.
Through Una Voce Des Moines, I was able to attend sessions on traditional church architecture, as well as hear Fr. Ripperger discuss his work as an exorcist. And very importantly, I sensed an immediate connection to the way my mom’s family had worshipped in Luxembourg, and that connects me to regularly worshipping among faith-filled people who take the Catholic Church seriously.
In this sense, the TLM is like an oasis of sanity in this world. There is a sense of peace and calmness that is found nowhere else. An additional effect is that I’ve deepened my knowledge of Latin, and now I’m able to respond at Mass and even sing some of the hymns.
While I am only one individual, I can certainly imagine that if the TLM has had this impact on me, there are certainly many others who have been blessed in a similar fashion.
Why the 2ndConfiteor anyway? After all, haven’t we already said a Double Confiteor at the beginning of Mass during the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar (one for the priest and one for the servers/people in attendance at Mass)?
Picture Moses removing his sandals when he comes before the Lord who speaks to him from the burning bush because he is on holy ground! We are removing the ‘sandals’ of earthly attachment so that we can enter into the Holy of Holies.’ Having prepared ourselves by this initial Confiteor, is the 2ndConfiteor before the communion of the faithful just more useless repetition that adds to the overall length of the Mass? Or is there a theological significance to its placement later in the liturgy as well?
Some history:
In former times (pre- Pope St. Pius X), the normative method for the distribution of Holy Communion to the faithful was for reception to occur outside of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass itself. Therefore, prior to the time of St. Pius X, the distribution of communion to the faithful outside of the Mass (usually immediately following it), began with the Confiteor, as directed by the rubrics. This was normal for all the days of the year except two, namely Maundy Thursday and Corpus Christi. On those two feasts, communion of the faithful would take place just as we see it today, within the Mass itself. Pope St. Pius X directed that the distribution of communion to the faithful should become the norm duringthe Mass throughout the year. Thus was ‘born’ the practice of the 2ndConfiteor within the Mass since the communion rite of the faithful was inserted into the Mass after the priest’s communion.
The 2ndConfiteor was ‘revised away’ (in other words, removed) within the Mass in what we have come to know as the ‘1962 Missal,’ but kept in the communion rite of the faithful outside of Mass. Much can be said in regard to this revision, but that is another discussion. Suffice it say that there is an allowance for the 2ndConfiteor to continue to be used. Instead of getting side-tracked, let us keep our focus on the Mass itself. The Holy Mass is complete as the unbloody re-presentation of Our Lord’s Sacrifice on Calvary with the communion of the offering priest who stands in for Christ the High Priest (in persona Christi). The once-for-all Sacrifice of Calvary is re-presented to the Father with the completion of the priest’s communion (think of a priest’s private low Mass to better grasp this concept—he alone is present at this private Mass).
The Sacrifice of the Lamb Once Slain is ‘made present’ via the double consecration (the bread into Christ’s Body, the wine into His Blood) to all those in attendance at the Mass. Nearly 2,000 years ago, the Blood of Christ poured forth from His Sacred Wounds to make possible the Redemption of all of humanity.
And, at each Mass, we mystically stand at the foot of the Cross to be washed in the Blood of the Lamb. What is the disposition of heart that is necessary for a person to be redeemed by this Blood, if not that of contrition? We must be sorry for our sins to obtain mercy and forgiveness. God does not force us to love Him, nor does He force us to be redeemed.
With this brief exposition of the consecration at Mass, let us return to the communion of the faithful, who are now spiritually present at the foot of Calvary. Does the 2ndConfiteor not now make perfect sense? The Deacon and Subdeacon (if in a Solemn Mass) or the servers in a Sung or Low Mass, now, prostrate in spirit beneath Our Lord’s Cross, recite the Confiteor. The faithful present join with them in the prayer of the heart and bend all their attention to these words of contrition.
The priest then says the Indulgentiam prayer and gives the minor absolution to all present as he says the Misereatur. This minor absolution absolves venial sins in those receiving it and prepares the souls of those individuals in the state of grace who plan to approach the Most Holy Sacrament for the opportunity of an even greater increase in sanctifying grace. The faithful approach the banquet table of the Lord. Truly, at this moment, we have a foretaste of Heaven as we approach the communion rail, with souls washed with absolution after their declaration of contrition. And now, as we look up at the Host held before us, we can contemplate the beatitude: “Blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see the Face of God” (Mt 5:8).
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