Are there vernacular hymns in the EF?

[fish90]

I am curious. Are there such hymns?

 

[Canto]

My understanding is that at a high or sung Mass what is the sung is the Mass including the propers. One of the local parishes in my area have a low Mass every sunday and they have a hymn before and after the Mass, however the Consilium (the group of bishops and experts set up by Pope Paul VI to implement the Constitution on the Liturgy) was asked about vernacular hymns at a low Mass and they responded…

That rule [permitting vernacular hymns] has been superseded. What must be sung is the Mass, its Ordinary and Proper, not “something”, no matter how consistent, that is imposed on the Mass. Because the liturgical service is one, it has only one countenance, one motif, one voice, the voice of the Church. To continue to replace the texts of the Mass being celebrated with motets that are reverent and devout, yet out of keeping with the Mass of the day amounts to continuing an unacceptable ambiguity: it is to cheat the people. Liturgical song involves not mere melody, but words, text, thought and the sentiments that the poetry and music contain. Thus texts must be those of the Mass, not others, and singing means singing the Mass not just singing during Mass.

(The response was published in Italian in the Consilium’s official journal Notitiae 5 [1969] p. 406. An English translation appeared in the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy’s BCL Newsletter, August-September 1993.)

 

[japhy]

I am curious. Are there such hymns?

Hymns can be sung during an EF Mass, but they are not part of the Mass, and they should not replace the antiphons of the Mass which are meant to be said or sung. There can be vernacular hymns sung.

In the OF, the same antiphons exist, but they can be replaced (sadly) by hymns.

 

[corsair]

Well said, Japhy. When we first began our Dominican low Mass, the choir wanted to sing hymns, so we asked the priest. He told us that it was permissable. So they selected to sing a hymn for offeratory, post communion and a “Salve Regina” at the end of Mass. (after the Leonine prayers).

Finally they just quit because they wanted to be more involved in prayer. They found singing to be a distraction.

 

[diggerdomer]

I am curious. Are there such hymns?

IF your vernacular is Latin, yes.

 

[MarkThompson]

IF your vernacular is Latin, yes.

To be clear (and maybe I’m forgetting some once-a-year occasion here) there are no rubrics for hymns at all in the EF. (The parts of the Mass are, by definition, not hymns.) It’s fairly customary to sing a recessional hymn at EF Masses, pretty common if you have a choir to have a motet at Communion, and from what I understand, especially up through the 50s, it was quite common at low Masses to sing entrance hymns and other miscellaneous songs during the Mass. Polish parishes would sing their beloved Polish songs, and likewise elsewhere. But there’s no provision for Latin hymns or motets as superseding anything else. If you’re going to have something at Communion, it can just as well be a Palestrina motet as a Byrd anthem (or One Bread, One Body), and if you’re going to inject hymns into the TLM, they can be in Latin, Klingon, or any language in between.

 

[ljubim]

In two different EF parishes I’ve been to, I’ve seen this. One was the Sunday after Christmas, and as the priest processed in we sang some Christmas song in English. Also in the one I go to regularly, we’ll sing Latin hymns half the time and English ones the other half. The one that comes to mind is “O Filii et Filiae,” but in English.