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Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Improperia for Good Friday

Most everything we say about parish conventions is a guess based on whatever inputs we have but my guess is that 9 in 10 parishes this Good Friday will not sing or say the Improperia/Reproaches (“My people, what have I done to you”). There are a number of puzzles in my own mind concerning why this is so. They are just an integral to the Roman Rite as any part of the liturgical season and yet today they are mostly entirely neglected so far as I can tell.

Oddly, this is not because they are absent in the Missal. In fact, they are very much present in the current Missal, not just as a text but as notated music, and not in the appendix where you find other music but right there as part of the Good Friday liturgy. Their neglect might be due to the fact that they appear in the Missal but, so far as I know, they are mostly absent from the Missalettes that the choir uses. This means that they are available to the priest but this priest is not the one doing the singing. They are not available for the choir, which is doing the singing. Hence, they are not said or sung.

Why are they in the Missal? This is another oddity. Mostly the Missal contains the parts for the celebrant and not the choir. This is why, we are told, that the offertory propers are not the Missal. But if we applied that rule consistently, the Reproaches wouldn’t be in there either. Apparently, however, in the pre-Tridentine usage, matters were different. The priest and servers would in fact sing this portion of the liturgy in procession. The old Trent Missal did not make a distinction between the priest and choir parts, and perhaps the Reproaches were somehow grandfathered in to the current Missal. Maybe someone can shed light on this puzzle.

Regardless, it hardly matters because most parishes just pretend they do not exist at all, and this is very sad. The text gives new meaning to the word drama, for it so clearly lays the blame on the evil of the crucifixion on our owns sins and our own faithlessness. The narrative is historical but the theology behind the narrative is deeply personal and present. It strikes you as no other texts.

Aristotle Esguerra as taken the current Missal texts in English and produced two beautiful editions:

1985 Sacramentary (lacks Greek and deviates from the traditional order of choral declamation)

and

1985 Sacramentary with Greek and traditional choir divisions restored

In my own parish, we’ve usually sung Victoria’s setting of the text.

This is a ten-year old practice. This year, for the first time, we are going to the source and singing the texts straight from the Graduale Romanum. We are very excited about this.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

“For those who do not believe in God”

This Good Friday the prayer for those who do not believe in God is this:

Let us pray
for those who do not believe in God,
that they may find him
by sincerely following all that is right.

Next year, it is as follows:

Let us pray also for those who do not acknowledge God,
that, following what is right in sincerity of heart,
they may find the way to God himself.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Current and Forthcoming: 3rd Sunday of Lent

COLLECT

Current
Father, you have taught us to overcome our sins
by prayer, fasting, and works of mercy.
When we are discouraged by our weakness,
give us confidence in your love.

Forthcoming
O God, author of every mercy and of all goodness,
who in fasting, prayer and almsgiving
have shown us a remedy for sin,
look graciously on this confession of our lowliness,
that we, who are bowed down by our conscience,
may always be lifted up by your mercy.

AFTER COMMUNION

Current
Lord, in sharing this sacrament
may we receive your forgiveness
and be brought together in unity and peace.

Forthcoming
As we receive the pledge
of things yet hidden in heaven
and are nourished while still on earth
with the Bread that comes from on high,
we humbly entreat you, O Lord,
that what is being brought about in us in mystery
may come to true completion.

COMMENT: The first collect has psychological focus; the second a spiritual one. The prayer after communion in the first version has a social focus; the second is deeply personal.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Faculty Profile: Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth

In the right sidebar of this site, there is a list of must-read articles, and among them is “Towards the Future – The Singing of the Mass” by Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth. This brilliant speech put in words what many of us had intuited for a very long time. The language is diplomatic, the message very precise, and the argument at once clever and pastoral. His message concerns the role of music at Mass, which isn’t about entertainment or showcasing but rather about giving flight to the language of prayer that is the liturgy itself.

Taken seriously, this message would amount to dramatic shift in the Sunday praxis of nearly every parish in the English-speaking world. And so this speech – which he wisely released into the commons – has become something of a model going forward as we cross into another reform with the Third Edition of the Roman Missal.

Here too, Msgr. Wadsworth has played a huge role as head of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy – and this role has been essential. He has been a great friend to people on all sides of the current liturgical divide, showing himself to be a master of the liturgical arts but also a great intellectual and diplomat as well. As an observer from the outside, it strikes me that his role has been to make possible what many people (I’m included here) thought was probably impossible. For this reason alone, he enters into the annals of Church history.

He is a priest of the Archdiocese of Westminster in the United Kingdom as well as an accomplished musician. His first degree was in music (majoring in voice and piano). After graduate studies in choral conducting and piano accompaniment at Trinity College London and the Royal Academy of Music, he trained as a répétiteur with English National Opera. In 1985, he was awarded the coveted Ricordi Prize for Choral Conducting. As a singer, he has performed extensively and has recorded as a soloist with the Schola Gregoriana of Cambridge under the direction of the late Dr Mary Berry, the person who, more than anyone else in the whole of the UK, served as a bridge for Gregorian chant to cross between the preconcilar and postconcilar periods.

Msgr. Wadsworth holds graduate degrees in Italian from the University of London and Theology from the Pontifical University of Maynooth. Ordained in 1990, he has had a wide range of pastoral experience in parishes, schools, universities and hospitals. A former professor of Ecclesiastical Latin and New Testament Greek at the Westminster Diocesan Seminary, he has also taught Italian at college and university level. From 1998-2009, he was full-time chaplain to Harrow School where he also collaborated on a number of performance and recording projects in choral music and music theater. His published research is in relation to Dante, Marian studies, and the history of liturgical translations in English since the Second Vatican Council.

In recent years, he has traveled extensively, directing a number of seminars for priests concentrating on the ars celebrandi in both forms of the Roman Rite. He was appointed Executive Director of ICEL in Fall 2009 and currently resides in Washington DC where the Commission’s Secretariat is based. He is in demand as a speaker and has lectured and conducted workshops on the implementation of the new translation of the Roman Missal both throughout the United States and in England, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Canada, France and Italy.

I should also mention that it has been during Msgr. Wadsworth tenure that ICEL has taken a new progressive direction in using technology to distribute music of the Roman Missal. All the music from the Missal is now posted online and has been for the full year leading to implementation – something that was nearly unthinkable five years ago. This is a dramatic and bold move on the part of ICEL, one that has earned ICEL praise from musicians all over the world. This giant step has prepared the way for chant to regained its first place at the liturgy, making the dreams of several generations of musicians seem realizable. For this, and for whatever role he played in taking this step, he has earned the gratitude of everyone who loves sacred music, and solemnity and beauty in liturgy.

At the Sacred Music Colloquium, he will speak on the new Missal and work with attendees on methods and approaches for implemented the musical side of the changes implied by the Missal. 

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Help with the St. Louis Gradual

Now that the Mass translation is complete and on track, work on the legendary St. Louis Gradual by Fr. Samuel Weber can continue apace. The goal is a complete English Gradual for the ordinary form, and it is certainly within reach.

But there are many options to consider. The largest possible edition is all days of the year with antiphons and Psalms. This would likely be several volumes. I had suggested that what we really need is the equivalent of the Gregorian Missal that covers Sundays and feast days only, since this is what is used most often in parishes. Fr. agrees with that.

But that does not end all questions. The big one is whether to produce a pew edition without Psalms and just antiphons, and they make a separate edition for the cantor. I had suggested to him that this would be of limited use in parish environment. It is doubtful that such a book would need to be in the pews at all, and what we need is a schola edition that includes antiphons and all pointed Psalms. The people can have the antiphons printed in the program for the week for those who want the people to sing – though even this is not necessary.

There are many subtle points here. Are we ready to insist that, after all, the introit, offertory, and communion are schola parts and not people parts? Or is the socialization of hymn singing at the entrance so strong that people will expect to sing the antiphon or at least be given the opportunitty? If so, it is perhaps enough to print it in the program. Then there is the issue of whether in fact parishes are ready to adopt a single book for Mass propers or continue the current practice of picking and choosing between sources.

This is all part of the details of a transition from a hymn-based liturgy to one that actually employs music to sing the liturgy itself. This are difficult questions and no final answers. The issue here really comes down to which is most useful for parishes at this point in history.

If you would like to weigh in, consider these two possibilities:

Antiphons with limited Psalms for a pew edition (perhaps 400 pages)

Antiphons with full Psalmody for the schola (perhaps 700 pages)