Current and Forthcoming: Ash Wednesday

COLLECT

Current
Lord protect us in our struggle against evil.
As we begin the discipline of Lent,
make this day holy by our self-denial.

Forthcoming
Grant, O Lord, that we may begin with holy fasting
this campaign of Christian service,
so that, as we take up battle against spiritual evils,
we may be armed with weapons of self-restraint.

BLESSING AND DISTRIBUTION OF ASHES

Current
Dear friends in Christ,
let us ask our Father
to bless these ashes
which we will use
as the mark of our repentance.

Forthcoming
Dear brethren (brothers and sisters), let us humbly ask God our Father
that he be pleased to bless with the abundance of his grace
these ashes, which we will put on our heads in penitence.
O God, who are moved by acts of humility
and respond with forgiveness to works of penance,
lend your merciful ear to our prayers
and in your kindness pour out the grace of your blessing
on your servants who are marked with these ashes,
that, as they follow the Lenten observances,
they may be worthy to come with minds made pure
to celebrant the Paschal Mystery of your Son.

AFTER COMMUNION

Current
Lord, through this communion
may our lenten penance give you glory
and bring us your protection

Forthcoming
May the Sacrament we have received sustain us, O Lord,
that our Lenten fast may be pleasing to you
and be for us a healing remedy.

Comment: This speaks for itself.

Bringing Back the Tract for Lent

During Lent in the Roman Rite, choirs stop singing Alleluia before the Gospel. These days, the most common replacement is called the “Gospel Acclamation” but that is not the tradition of the Roman Rite. As the Catholic Encyclopedia explains, in Lent, the Alleluia is replaced by the Tract. “The name Tract, Psalmus tractus, was given to it, because it was sung straight through without any answer [antiphon] by the choir.”

The Tract makes an appearance in the current General Instruction on the Roman Missal: 62(b): “During Lent, in place of the Alleluia, the verse before the Gospel is sung, as indicated in the Lectionary. It is also permissible to sing another psalm or tract, as found in the Graduale.”

Further, since the Roman Gradual is the normative music of the Roman Rite, one could say that it is clearly preferable to use the tract rather than something else, whatever it may be. (You could take the argument further and perhaps make the case that the Missal acclamation text is primarily structured for reading not for singing, as with the Missal propers in general, and so for singing, one must turn to the Gradual.)

If there is an ordinary form parish somewhere that uses the tract – the full tract from the Graduale, which are very long and very difficult – I’m unaware of it. Or rather: I can think of perhaps two or three cases in the country where this might be done, but the tradition in unknown anywhere else. There are very obvious reasons why. If parishes find it to be a herculean effort to sing Angus Dei, putting together a schola to sing a seven-minute tract in Latin during Lent is highly improbable.

But this post is not about problems; it is about creative solutions. And truly, what I am about to show you is one of the most creative I’ve ever encountered. (Aside: have you noticed that there have been more innovations in integrating the old and new forms of the rite within the last three years than in the previous 40 years combined?)

The solution is to revive the tract by offering it in English set according to a beautiful Psalm tone, so that it can be sung by alternating solo and choir or two choirs or just two singers. Psalm tones are gorgeous and haunting and perfect for Lent. People are not used to hearing them and they are so….Catholic! Yes, the Gregorian original would be better in Latin but that option is clearly not being taken right now and it has been available for many decades. What we need is a way to revive the Tract in the current environment.

Aristotle Esguerra has provided that solution. I gave you

prepared by Aristotle Esguerra, one of the most creative, productive, and brilliant Catholic musicians working today. This are very easy to sing but produce a fantastic result. The text comes through in a clear narrative, which is exactly what Psalm tones are designed to do, and they do so prayerfully and solemnly.

Each of these can be sung by anyone with very little practice. And doing through extends the time before the Gospel, produce a sense of stillness and reflection. It is all the more reasonable to do these within Lent because there is no Gloria, which then allows more time for a different form of music.

This approach also helps single out Lent as a special liturgical time different from the rest. The people will know this and hear this (whereas a short Gospel Acclamation makes Lent seem pretty much like the rest of the year.

This is a way of restoring Roman rite tradition in stages. This is a gigantic first step. If nothing else, if a pastor is squeamish about using this before the Gospel, singers can use this tract during the offertory. At least in this case, the choir is actually contributing to the liturgical structure rather than just being there to “provide music” of some sort to pass the time.

Congratulations to Aristotle for his work here. And a special thanks goes out to him for make this a free download for the whole English-speaking Church. There are some editions of the tracts available in Psalm tones but I believe this is the first to come out in modern English and the first new edition in many decades.

A note on performance, and I suppose that this can’t be said enough. There are two clefs in Gregorian notation, C and F. The half step of the scale occurs just before the clef marking. This way you can go to the piano and pitch it out. Each tones only has four notes so this should not be a problem for anyone. As for rhythm here, the pace should follow the speech pattern you would use in reading, with word accents as the English language would suggest. If you do those things, this will be beautiful, effective, and thoroughly liturgical.

Marian Antiphon for Lent

Fulvio Rampi, who will be featured on a new series on art and music in the Catholic world, conducts the Marian antiphon for Lent, Ave Regina Caelorum

Ave, Regina caelorum,
ave, Domina angelorum,
salve, radix, salve, porta,
ex qua mundo lux est orta.

Gaude, Virgo gloriosa,
super omnes speciosa;
vale, o valde decora,
et pro nobis Christum exora.

Hail, Queen of heaven;
Hail, Mistress of the Angels;
Hail, root of Jesus;
Hail, the gate through which the
Light rose over the earth.

Rejoice, Virgin most renowned
and of unsurpassed beauty,
and pray for us to Christ.

St. Louis Gradual for Lent through Easter

Fr. Samuel Weber has very generously offered the Chant Cafe a full file of the St. Louis Gradual for Lent through Easter, and it covers all weekday Missal antiphons as well as Sundays and Holy Week. There is a wealth of material here.

A few points on this project. Because Fr. Weber wants to set the Missal antiphons, he must now revise the entire file to make it fit with the new ICEL text, meaning that it could be another two to three years before the in-print version comes out. I’ve talked at length with him about doing a version only for Sundays and Solemnities and this seems to be where he is headed. As for the offertory antiphons, I suspect that he is using the Gradual here (I know of no other source) but I haven’t checked it out.

At the same time, users should know that this edition as it appears will still be useful after the new translation becomes effective. Most of the music stays the same. The Missal antiphons here can continue to be used since there is no legislation that mandates that the sung propers follow a particular translation (there is no mandatory translation of the Roman Gradual propers now or forthcoming, for example), and the permission to replace propers with any appropriate song must also be inclusive of another translations of the Missal propers. In addition, there are vast amounts of this book that apply with any translation, such as sprinkling rite chants, procession chants, and much else.

So this is a wonderful resource, and I hope that Fr. Weber will consent to letting us post his Pschaltide Gradual as well.

The Trouble with ZENIT

Like many people who receive ZENIT‘S emails, I appreciate their new coverage and must also deal with fundraising campaigns that seem to come along every few months.

I have no problem with that. Goodness knows that such organizations need money. But let me say here what I have said many times to ZENIT itself but never received a reply: there is something strange about an organization that solicits contributions in the name of its service to the Church and world, and, at the same time, enforces extreme copyright control over the words that it distributes, demanding that it and it only somehow owns exclusively every word it prints. It is not uncommon for this organization to write good Catholic bloggers and demand that they stop reprinting their articles. They can be extremely severe and threatening. It always shocks people because in reprinting and linking, people figure (rightly) that they are helping the mission of ZENIT. ZENIT regards this as theft of its property.

Now, it might be one thing if this were the NYT (which doesn’t do this, by the way), a profit-making company that has its eye on the bottom line and doesn’t solicit charity from others. But that is not ZENIT. ZENIT calls on our charitable instincts to help them in their plight even as it acts like some kind of corporate conglomerate, happy to use the law against people who think that they are helping. To me, this is akin to a soup kitchen that turns people away based on their dress, or a church that demands that its parishioners never evangelize. It is also extremely bad business to put artificial limits on the distribution of your message.

For this reason, I cannot and will not given ZENIT a contribution. If the day comes when ZENIT decides to leverage my contribution by making its material completely open and publishes into the commons, and stops using the state against people who just want to spread the good word, they can count on my constant support.