The Te Deum Live

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Maximilian75

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I honestly can’t say I have ever heard the Te Deum ever sung, at any of the OF or EF Masses I have attended here. Has anyone on CAF ever heard it ‘live’? What was the circumstance?
 
I’ve heard it done at Mass only twice. Both times it was the First Mass of Thanksgiving of a newly ordained priest, done in the Extraordinary Form. It is a custom to begin the Mass with the newly ordained kneeling before the sanctuary, before beginning the Asperges and the prayers at the foot of the altar, and intoning the Veni Creator Spiritus. This is for him to ask the Holy Spirit for aid as he celebrates Mass for the first time. And at the end, the Te Deum is sung as the procession forms up, in thanksgiving for the ordination and first Mass.

Other than that, the only time I’ve heard it done publicly as part of the liturgy was at the Vatican on New Year’s Eve at Vespers. If you look in the ordo, there’s actually a note that the Te Deum may be sung on New Year’s Eve at the conclusion of Vespers anywhere. Usually, though, the place it pops up in the liturgical life of the Church is during the Liturgy of the Hours, so the Office of Readings in the modern form. I am unfamiliar with the structure of the older form of the Office and so cannot comment on when it appears there.

-Fr ACEGC
 
Do you celebrate the EF, Father?

Additionally, isn’t the Te Deum indulgenced if said on New Years eve/day?
 
I celebrate the EF in private on occasion, usually on my day off. I actually did today, since I wasn’t scheduled for a parish Mass. My current parish does not offer it publicly, since there are other parishes nearby which cover the need for it in our area. My previous parish had it once a week, and I rotated with the other priest there who also knew it. I actually will be doing coverage for the nearby parish which offers it, coming up in just a couple of weeks.

And yes, there is a plenary indulgence under the usual conditions if one recites the Te Deum on New Years Eve. There is a similar indulgence for reciting the Veni Creator Spiritus on New Years Day.

-Fr ACEGC
 
It’s fairly common at the Divine Office, at Vigils of Sundays (except Lent) as well as feasts and solemnities. I was at our annual oblate weekend last weekend and the Te Deum was sung at Vigils as it usually is at our abbey.
 
Come to think of it I don’t believe so. I may have heard that it was sung at a Requiem in the Ordinary Form a few years ago though was not in attendance.
 
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It is in the Graduale Romanum as a hymn of thanksgiving, but there no other indication as to its placement or use, but there are verses and à collect after it.

As mentioned above it is much more closely associated with the Divine Office/Liturgy of the Hours.

In the older D.O. and in current monastic use, it is used at Matins/Vigils of Sundays (except Lent), feasts, and solemnities. What has changed is that the last few verses were made optional.
 
I can almost guarantee that everyone here has heard the Te Deum sung, or at least the first few verses, and not realized it. The popular hymn “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” is actually a translation of a German Te Deum from the late eighteenth century. It is just that almost no one sings the entire song because, to that setting, it is very long. We sang it at our Order’s last Delegation Chapter convocation and it was the first time I had heard it the whole song… It took us about ten to fifteen minutes to sing it.
 
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