Your Favorite Catholic Advent Hymns

  • Thread starter Thread starter centurionguard
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Surprised this one hasn’t come up:

Rorate Coeli desuper

It’s my fav. for Advent. The abbey I am associated with chants it every Sunday at adoration after Vespers all through Advent.
 
OraLabora said:
Surprised this one hasn’t come up:

Rorate Coeli desuper

It’s my fav. for Advent. The abbey I am associated with chants it every Sunday at adoration after Vespers all through Advent.
Click to expand...
I really enjoy all Gregorian. It’s my true favorite Catholic music.

Sadly in the last 45 plus years IMHO the majority of Catholics, clergy included have become very passive when it comes to Gregorian music during Mass. In Novus Ordo churches its a scattered regional preferred choice amongst parishes. Naturally in TLM its a norm.
 
centurionguard said:
I really enjoy all Gregorian. It’s my true favorite Catholic music.

Sadly in the last 45 plus years IMHO the majority of Catholics, clergy included have become very passive when it comes to Gregorian music during Mass. In Novus Ordo churches its a scattered regional preferred choice amongst parishes. Naturally in TLM its a norm.
Click to expand...
It’s also the norm in many Benedictine monasteries, for the OF. Especially but not exclusively in the Solesmes congregation, of which there are two in Canada.
 
“O Come, O Come Emmanuel” is definitely my favorite Advent hymn. I only know the first stanza and the refrain, but it has such a great melody.

Here’s a great rendition of it on an organ. 👍
 
I grew up in a French Canadian parish so, by far, my favorite Advent hymn is “Venez Divin Messie”. It’s just not the same in English. Second only to that one is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. My favorite version so far is by Quartette, with Sylvia Tyson as lead vocal, but all the versions here are beautiful.

You can hear a portion of Quartette’s version here
 
Veni Veni Emmanuel has everything you would want in a church hymn, regardless of the liturgical season.

Lay people without professional voices can sing it and make it sound like something, whether its a congregation of 10 or 1000. The range is reasonable, a decent amount of repetition, its just easy to sing and easy to play on an organ or piano or sung acapello.
 
Anathama_Sit said:
Greetings to those posting and or reading this thread,

When I think of this hymn, somethig inside me imagines Mary singing this to Jesus while He is still in Her Immaculate Womb. I can almost hear the longing as she prays for us and yearns for His coming as well. The melody is haunting and pulls at something deep inside that is yet longing for His second Advent. Lord come quickly.

O come, O come Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here,
Until the Son of God appear.

Rejoice, rejoice. Emmanuel. Shall Come to thee, O Israel.

O come Thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightly,
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.

O come, O come, Thou Lord of might,
Who to they tribes on Sinai’s height
In ancient times didst give the law,
In cloud and majesty and awe.

O Come, Thou Rod of Jesse’s stem,
From every foe deliever them
that trust they mighty pow’r to save,
And give them victry o’er the grave.

O Come, Thou Key of David, come,
And open wide our heavenly home;
Make safe the way that leads on high,
And close the path to misery.

O Come, Thou Dayspring from on high
And chher us by they drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s deark shadow put to flight.

O Come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all humankind;
Bid thou our sad divisions cease,
And be thyself our Prince of Peace.

Of course nothing can substitute for the hymn in Latin. 🙂

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
Click to expand...
One of my favorites. Although I haven’t heard it in Latin. I bet it’s beautiful.
 
SeekNFind said:
One of my favorites. Although I haven’t heard it in Latin. I bet it’s beautiful.
Click to expand...
Greetings SeekNFind,

It is very beautiful. Try looking it up on youtube as Veni, veni, Emmanuel. Hopefully you should find some good Latin renditions of it.

God Bless.
Anathama Sit
 
puzzleannie said:
Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming, so seldom heard nowdays.
Click to expand...
My Latin Church parish choir has sung this, without the faithful, in recent years. I’ve always loved it, too.
To me, O Come Emanuel should not be sung until Dec 16 or 17 when the O antiphons begin. to be nitpicky
Click to expand...
In the past few years when I’ve been at the Russian Orthodox parish I go to for some festal vigils they have sung *Veni, Veni, Emmanuel * in Latin after the close of the Vigil for the Feast of the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple. 🙂 They did so this past Sunday evening. The next morning on the Feastday the usual Communion hymn “Receive ye the Body of Christ, taste the fountain of immortality” was sung to the tune of the first stanza of Veni, Veni, Emmanuel.
also, People Look East, which I have not heard in church in 40 years
Click to expand...
As a child in a high Anglican Church in the '50s People Look East was an absolute favorite of mine and still is, tho like you I rarely hear it now. I prefer it sung in the simplest carol style rather than a formal choir setting. I put the final verse “Angels, announce with shouts of mirth, Christ who brings new life to earth. Set every peak and valley humming With the word, the Lord is coming. People, look east and sing today: Love, the Lord, is on the way.” on the program notes for our Taize prayer service last week.
I’ve just learned another Advent hymn Shepherds! Shake off your drowsy sleep is sung to the same tune.

Tropar of the Pre-Feast of Nativity
“Prepare, O Bethlehem, For Eden has been opened to all. Adorn yourself, O Ephratha, For the Tree of Life blossoms forth from the Virgin in the cave. Her womb is a spiritual paradise planted with the fruit divine; If we eat of it, we shall live forever and not die like Adam. Christ is coming to restore the image which He made in the beginning.”
 
Phemie said:
I grew up in a French Canadian parish so, by far, my favorite Advent hymn is “Venez Divin Messie”. It’s just not the same in English. Second only to that one is O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. My favorite version so far is by Quartette, with Sylvia Tyson as lead vocal, but all the versions here are beautiful.

You can hear a portion of Quartette’s version here
Click to expand...
This Christmas Song VENEZ, DIVIN MESSIE–CANTIQUE DE NOËL brings back so many memories. Thanks for quoting it.
My belated father was a baritone tenor. He sang it solo often in the choir during Christmas.
youtube.com/watch?v=lg0rxrKiKq8
 
We sang The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns tonight in Mass. New to me. I loved it.

(I guess I should be surprised I like it so much since looking at the history I find “Words: Unknown author; translated from Greek to English by John Brownlie in Hymns of the Russian Church, 1907.” LOL Actually, it seems like something that we would have sung in my high Anglican parish in the 1950s.)
 
5Loaves said:
We sang The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns tonight in Mass. New to me. I loved it.

(I guess I should be surprised I like it so much since looking at the history I find “Words: Unknown author; translated from Greek to English by John Brownlie in Hymns of the Russian Church, 1907.” LOL Actually, it seems like something that we would have sung in my high Anglican parish in the 1950s.)
Click to expand...
We sang that yesterday too and I had never heard it. It was cool.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top