Gloria during the Sprinkling Rite?

[HaganYuos]

Hi! I’m a practicing Catholic, pretty active in my parish and I have a question about something that’s been happening in our parish for several years now.

Is it appropriate to sing the Gloria during the Sprinkling Rite?

I am not well-versed in the GIRM and couldn’t find any guidance anywhere else. We have one pastor and two parochial vicars assigned to our parish who apparently feel there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else in my lifelong practice of the faith.

It bothers me because I love the mass and I personally feel these two parts of the mass have their proper place and I have a feeling it’s being done as a time-saving measure more than anything else. Can someone help me understand where this comes from?

Thanks in advance and God bless us all

 

[felsguy]

For what it’s worth, our pastor has been doing it every Easter season for the past twelve years

 

[Catholic4ever98]

I think, from what I can remember, we usually sing the Gloria during the Sprinkling Rite as well so I assuming it is fine.

Edit: I was looking it up and now I am confused on the topic as well- it appears that it might not be? Hopefully someone with more experience will answer soon.

God bless!

 

[Gorgias]

In the current version of the Roman Missal I’m looking at, Appendix B is the “Rite for the Blessing and Sprinkling of Water.”

It says, “if this rite is celebrated during Mass, it takes the place of the usual Penitential Act at the beginning of Mass.”

Following the sprinkling, the priest says the following prayer, “May almighty God cleanse us of our sins, and through the celebration of this Eucharist make us worthy to share at the table of his Kingdom.”

Finally, this appendix concludes with the following text: “Then, when it is prescribed, the hymn Gloria in excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) is sung or said.”

So, it would seem that the Gloria isn’t to be sung while the sprinkling is being performed. I don’t have an old Sacramentary in front of me, so I can’t comment on whether it had been a valid option prior to this current Roman Missal.

 

[Catholic4Christ]

I once went to a church in a beach town the Sunday before Memorial Day. It was on Pentecost Sunday, I believe. I assume to speed things along because of traffic and whatnot, they did a silly thing: the Gloria was sung as the processional hymn, and while processing in the priest sprinkled the congregation with holy water. Then he did the sign of the cross, the opening collect, we moved straight into the readings. That doesn’t answer your question (though I think the answer is probably “no” both for what you describe and especially for what I describe), but it’s just anecdotal as to what steps we sometimes take to squeeze everything in to a certain amount of time. That was the one and only Sunday Mass I’ve ever been to that was 40-45 minutes long - I’ve been to longer weekday Masses!

If we need to shorten a Sunday Mass for some legitimate reason, I feel like there’s better ways than combining un-combinable things. You could make it a sort of an OF “Low Mass” - just pray the proper antiphons, leave out most of the congregational hymns, recite rather than chant/sing the ordinary (like the Gloria, Sanctus), recite the Psalm, have a succinct homily, etc. Then you come out with a “short” Sunday Mass that doesn’t feel rushed. Sure, it doesn’t seem so distracting to combine a couple things, but they are meant to be individual Mass prayers after all. What if there were multiple lectors/readers reading the different readings all at once? Or if the priest had already finished the consecration by the time the choir/congregation had finished singing the Sanctus?

Those are obviously ad extremum examples, but I’ve seen other things like a priest combining the two “Blessed are you, Lord God…” prayers of the offertory into one. It doesn’t invalidate the Sacrifice but it certainly distracts and feels more careless.

Didn’t intend to rant, your post just reminded me of some stuff I’ve thought about.

 

[pianistclare]

Hi! I’m a practicing Catholic, pretty active in my parish and I have a question about something that’s been happening in our parish for several years now.

Is it appropriate to sing the Gloria during the Sprinkling Rite?

I am not well-versed in the GIRM and couldn’t find any guidance anywhere else. We have one pastor and two parochial vicars assigned to our parish who apparently feel there’s nothing wrong with it, but I’ve never seen it anywhere else in my lifelong practice of the faith.

It bothers me because I love the mass and I personally feel these two parts of the mass have their proper place and I have a feeling it’s being done as a time-saving measure more than anything else. Can someone help me understand where this comes from?

Thanks in advance and God bless us all

So if you find out that it’s not really proper, what are you going to do about it???
Honestly, why don’t you discuss this with your priest if it bugs you…
Did you ask him if he does it to save time?

 

[Catholic4Christ]

Coincidentally, this exact thing was done at the church where I attended the Pentecost vigil this year. Rather than preaching about Pentecost, the sermon was spent recognizing the various people involved in all the parish’s ministries and having them stand up. It took a bit of time, so my impression was that the squeezed-together sprinkling/Gloria was to make room for this.