Some Lentan chant

[TBolt1000T]

This is one of my favorite Gregorian Chants of all time, and it is most appropriate for Lent. youtube.com/watch?v=2feVTA8NNMM
Just thought I’d share it with you

 

[jonpd]

Ash Wednesday I went to an EF High Mass at St. Benedict Center Richmond NH and the Nuns sang this while we were receiving our ashes, very beautiful and penitential.

 

[prstoessel]

Beautiful. Thanks for posting.

 

[MarkThompson]

Ash Wednesday I went to an EF High Mass at St. Benedict Center Richmond NH and the Nuns sang this while we were receiving our ashes, very beautiful and penitential.

That sounds like an abuse, actually. There are particular antiphons and a responsory assigned to be sung during the imposition of ashes; Attende Domine is not one of them. The words “Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi” form part of the responsory, but they are set to their own Gregorian melody and should not be followed by the verses of the hymn (“Ad te Rex summe,” etc.). However nice Attende Domine may sound, that doesn’t mean people should just feel free to stick it wherever they like into the official rites of the church.

 

[TBolt1000T]

That sounds like an abuse, actually. There are particular antiphons and a responsory assigned to be sung during the imposition of ashes; Attende Domine is not one of them. The words “Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi” form part of the responsory, but they are set to their own Gregorian melody and should not be followed by the verses of the hymn (“Ad te Rex summe,” etc.). However nice Attende Domine may sound, that doesn’t mean people should just feel free to stick it wherever they like into the official rites of the church.

If the other antiphons and responses are sung first, what’s the problem with adding this in as a motet?

Our EF choir will likely sing this this coming sunday after the Offertory antiphon. Is this also an abuse?

 

[MarkThompson]

If the other antiphons and responses are sung first, what’s the problem with adding this in as a motet?

Our EF choir will likely sing this this coming sunday after the Offertory antiphon. Is this also an abuse?

No, there is a rubric that allows Latin songs to be sung after the Offertory, although best practice would be to repeat the Offertory antiphon alternatim with the additional psalm verses given in the appropriate books, and only to sing another motet if this is insufficient to cover the action. One should not take shears to the official Offertory chant of the Rite just so as to indulge in a non-liturgical motet. Frankly, I have a hard time imagining how the action of the Offertory could take so long that the Offertory chant, with all its verses and a Gloria Patri, would be insufficient to cover it, unless the priest halted the Mass, since the singing may not continue beyond the Secret.

By contrast – unless I’m missing it somewhere, which I don’t think I am – there is no rubric allowing additional songs to be sung during the imposition of ashes. Why does everything nowadays have to have a nonstop soundtrack, anyway? Is silence and a chance to pray and meditate about penitence and mortality so unbearable that extra-liturgical songs have to be introduced to root it out? I don’t get it.

 

[OraLabora]

Holy cow! An abuse at an Extraordinary Form Mass. Is nothing sacred anymore?

 

[laszlo]

That sounds like an abuse, actually. There are particular antiphons and a responsory assigned to be sung during the imposition of ashes; Attende Domine is not one of them. The words “Attende Domine, et miserere, quia peccavimus tibi” form part of the responsory, but they are set to their own Gregorian melody and should not be followed by the verses of the hymn (“Ad te Rex summe,” etc.). However nice Attende Domine may sound, that doesn’t mean people should just feel free to stick it wherever they like into the official rites of the church.

The missal orders to sing two antiphons (the second optional) and a responsory while the clergy receives the ashes, nothing is ordered for the distribution of the ashes to the laity. The Attende Domine (Church approved sing from the Cantuale if my memory serves well) is appropriate.

In Hungary in the good old traditional times when God was in the center not the rites usually vernacular song were sung during the distribution of the ashes.