14May2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
Today is that Feast of St Matthias and the Communion Antiphon is a text from the Gospel according to St Matthew (19: 28).
Vos qui secuti estis me, sedebitis super sedes,
iudicantes duodecim tribus Israel, dicit Dominus.
You who have followed me, shall sit upon thrones,
judging the twelve tribes of Israel, says the Lord.
The promise of future glory is made in the context of having followed Christ. Our reception of Holy Communion is a pledge of future glory, as the antiphon “O Sacrum Convivium” reminds us. It is also at the same time, our commitment to follow Christ. Of course, the apostles, and perhaps St Matthias too, were not very good followers - they understood little and deserted Christ in his Passion. Consolation perhaps for us in our weakness. Yet we ought not to forget how they were transformed on the day of Pentecost, which we celebrated on Sunday, into fearless witnesses, following Christ, even to death, in imitation of their Lord and Master. There is hope yet for us, that we may be better followers, for the gift of the Holy Spirit is given to us too in the sacraments of initiation.
12May2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
This week’s Introit (i.e. Entrance Antiphon) is presents us with lovely images of God - protector, refuge, saviour, support. It is taken from Psalm 30: 3, 4.
Esto mihi in Deum protectorem, et in locum refugii, ut salvum me facias :
quoniam firmamentum meum, et refugium meum es tu :
et propter nomen tuum dux mihi eris, et enutries me.
(Be to me a protecting God, and a place of refuge, to save me;
for you are my support and my refuge;
and for the sake of your name, you will be a leader for me and feed me.)
We can quickly see why this text has been chosen as an entrance chant for the Mass. Christ leads us. He is our “dux”, as the processional cross borne aloft reminds us. He is our crucified leader who leads by his example of love and he feeds us with his body at Mass. This is underlined by the musical interpretation that the anonymous composer has given to this text. It mostly remains in the line of FA. But at the words “et propter nomen tuum”, the melody surges from an octave from DO, leading to “dux” and a triple repercussion on “mihi”, before a swift descent to “enutries” with a delightful ornament that allows us to savour the word and prolong it on our lips. We say emphatically to our Lord, “You will be a leader for me and will feed me!”
Do we follow the leader?
11May2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
We now enter the “Tempus per annum” or “Time through the year”, taking up the annual cycle in the Sixth Week.
In the Paschal cycle comprising Lent and Easter, the Church reads the history of Israel and her relationship with God and sees in it a type or foreshadowing of that between the Church and God. In Lent, at the Office of Readings, we read of the Exodus and the wandering in the wilderness in order to remind ourselves of our need for conversion. At the Easter Vigil, the crossing of the Red Sea is always read as the Church sees this as a symbol of the passage of Christ and also of our passage from death to life in our sharing in the Paschal mystery through baptism.
It seems fitting that in this period between the Easter season and the imminent celebration of Corpus Christi, this week’s Communion Antiphon recalls the wandering of Israel in the wilderness after leaving Egypt. The text comes from Psalm 77: 29, 30.
Manducaverunt, et saturati sunt nimis, et desiderium eorum attulit eis Dominus :
non sunt fraudati a desiderio suo.
(They ate and were fully satisfied; the Lord gave them all that they desired;
they were not deprived of their wants.)
Now, Psalm 77 is a summary of salvation history. The immediate context of this text is the murmuring of Israel against God for the lack of food, to which God responds by sending quails in the evening and manna in the morning. And so they ate and were satisfied. But, as the psalm continues, even as the food was in their mouths, God’s indignation “rose up against them” and he “slew the fattest of them, and overthrew the choice men of Israel”.
God satisfies our wants, especially with the gift of his Son in the Eucharist. But as St Paul warns us, “Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor 11: 27). We should not be too quick to dismiss the thought of an “indignant” God as merely a reflection of an archaic Old Testament mentality.
It seems evident that the Church, in selecting this text for the Communion antiphon, means to remind us of the overflowing love of God that asks for our response. Our receiving our Lord in Holy Communion is the renewal of the betrothal of God with his people. This astonishing fact, that God has come to us, should not become mundane. We need to be true to the act we perform and the promise we receive in Holy Communion.
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die” (John 6: 48-50)
Israel was castigated for its murmuring, lack of fidelity and for being stiff-necked. And what of us today, who have eaten and have been satisfied so much more than Israel in the wilderness?
10May2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
We have arrived at the end of the glorious 50 days of Easter with today’s great feast of Pentecost. The sequence, Veni Sancte Spiritus is replete with beautiful images of the action of the Holy Spirit - he melts the frozen, warms the chill; he is coolness in the heat, solace in the midst of woe.
But it is to the Communion antiphon that we turn to in order to see what we are to take to heart today.
Factus est repente de caelo sonus advenientis spiritus vehementis, ubi erant sedentes, alleluia:
et repleti sunt omnes Spiritu Sancto, loquentes magnalia Dei, alleluia, alleluia.
(And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a mighty wind coming, where they were sitting, alleluia: and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking the great works of God, alleluia, alleluia.)
The text is a recension of Acts 2: 2 and 4, part of the First Reading (Acts 2:1-11). The melody paints a dramatic picture of the sound of the mighty wind, but that should not distract us from the words its underlines: “loquentes magnalia Dei”. As we receive our Lord, body, soul and divinity in the gift of the Eucharist, we are reminded by this chant that the gift we have received is not only for us. We are to speak of the “magnalia Dei”, great works of God.
Now, in order to speak of the great works of God, evidently we have first to recognise them in our lives and the lives of those around us. This calls for attentiveness. We should note well that the Holy Spirit came upon those gathered in prayer “ubi erant sedentes”, where they were sitting. In other words, attentiveness is not attained by ceaseless activity!
The distractions (and by that token the inattentiveness) of modern life are often lamented. Yet are we not also guilty of restlessly seeking diversion and entertainment? From whom or what are we hiding? In her Dialogue, St Catherine of Siena reveals to us that it is only when we see our destitution that we can see the overwhelming love God has for us. What do we wish not to see? And in so doing, have we overlooked the great works of God?
30April2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
People often ask if it is possible to appreciate Gregorian chant without a knowledge of Latin. To the extent that beauty can speak to us beyond words, it is possible. But in order to get into the chant and marvel at its full splendour, knowing some Latin is indispensable. That is because it is in savouring the texts that one can see how the chant honours the text, as a servant his master, as we our Lord and Master.
So how does one go about the seemingly impossible task of learning Latin? Here’s an excellent free primer that teaches the Latin one needs for the liturgy:
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/simplicissimus/index.htm
A less obvious benefit of learning Latin is that it improves one’s English.
Try it for yourself!
23February2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
There are many reasons to learn Gregorian Chant, but one of the most important is in order to understand the nature and function of liturgical music in order to inform our discernment regarding vernacular liturgical music. This was underlined by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006 when he said, “An authentic updating of sacred music cannot occur except in line with the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian Chant, and of sacred polyphony.” (http://www.zenit.org/article-16415?l=english)
In the same vein, Pope John Paul II noted to special qualities of Gregorian Chant in 2003 in his Chirograph for the Centenary of the Motu Proprio Tra le sollecitudini on Sacred Music:
Among the musical expressions that correspond best with the qualities demanded by the notion of sacred music, especially liturgical music, Gregorian chant has a special place. (7)
With regard to compositions of liturgical music, I make my own the “general rule” that St Pius X formulated in these words: “The more closely a composition for church approaches in its movement, inspiration and savour the Gregorian melodic form, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the more out of harmony it is with that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the temple”. It is not, of course, a question of imitating Gregorian chant but rather of ensuring that new compositions are imbued with the same spirit that inspired and little by little came to shape it. (12)
The Sacred Congregation of Rites, predecessor of today’s Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacramenets) in 1967 issued this counsel for vernacular compositions:
In preparing popular versions of those parts which will be set to melodies, and especially of the Psalter, experts should take care that fidelity to the Latin text is suitably harmonized with applicability of the vernacular text to musical settings. The nature and laws of each language must be respected, and the features and special characteristics of each people must be taken into consideration: all this, together with the laws of sacred music, should be carefully considered by musicians in the preparation of the new melodies. (54)
Among the melodies to be composed for the people’s texts, those which belong to the priest and ministers are particularly important, whether they sing them alone, or whether they sing them together with the people, or whether they sing them in “dialogue” with the people. In composing these, musicians will consider whether the traditional melodies of the Latin Liturgy, which are used for this purpose, can inspire the melody to be used for the same texts in the vernacular. (56)
The chief reason why Gregorian Chant is the paradigm of liturgical music (and there are many other reasons!) is its unique marriage of word and melody, in which the word takes primacy and the melody, which is totally at the service of the sacred text, serves to release the music that is embedded in the text. Indeed the melody has no free existence apart from the text, to which it has been indivisibly fused. To do that, Gregorian Chant absolutely respects the nature and laws of the Latin language. It is utterly imbued with a reverence for Sacred Scripture that enables it to make holy writ come alive on our lips. Just as the chant is totally at the service of the sacred text, we its singers, must be totally at the service of the Word, Christ our Lord.
In short, Gregorian Chant pesents us with a paradigmatic relationship between melody and sacred text that is the standard against which the success or failure of vernacular liturgical music is to be judged.
13February2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
The ancient discipline of Lent comprises prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Too often, we imagine prayer to be more complicated than it is, because we imagine it should comprise ecstatic contemplation or the prolonged silent meditation. In the Summa Theologiae, Question 83, when he discusses prayer, it is clear St Thomas Aquinas understands prayer as petition, quoting St Augustine and St John Damascene as authorities. He insists that we should not shy away from asking God for definite things, including temporal things. As to whether prayer should be vocal, he answers that public prayer needs to be vocal, and private prayer should be vocal unless that proves a hindrance. That our prayer ought to be vocal reminds us that we relate to God with our bodies, not merely our minds. We cry out to God! These twin aspects, that prayer as vocal and as petition, are echoed in the proper chants for Thursday in the First Week of Lent.
The Introit reads:
Verba mea auribus percipe, Domine, intellege clamorem meum :
Intende voci orationis meæ.
V : Quoniam ad te orabo, Domine :
mane exaudies vocem meam. (Ps 5 : 2, 3, 4)
Which translates as:
Give ear, O Lord, to my words, understand my cry.
Hearken to the voice of my prayer.
For to thee will I pray: O Lord,
in the morning thou shalt hear my voice.
The chant springs vigorously from the words “verba mea” to the tenor of the mode, DO on “auribus percipe” and “percipe” is emphasized by a triple pulsation on the first syllable. The words “clamorem meum” span the entire ambitus of this composition (FA to MI) while the words “orationis meae” receive the most melodic elaboration, albeit in the lower part of the ambitus (FA to DO). The cry of the psalmist is insistent and his prayer is very vocal indeed.
The Communion takes up the same theme, with the words of our Lord (Luke 11: 9, 10):
Petite, et accipietis ; quærite, et invenietis ; pulsate, et aperietur vobis. Omnis enim qui petit, accipit : et qui quærit, invenit : pulsanti aperietur.
Which translates as :
Ask, and you shall receive: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asks, receives; and he that seeks, finds; and to him that knocks, it shall be opened.
Ask, seek and knock! We cry and God hears.
23January2008
Posted by fn under: Singapore.
When one turns to the proper chants of the First Sunday of Lent, the most striking aspect is that they are all drawn from Psalm 90 Qui habitat. Here is the psalm in the Douai-Rheims translation:
He that dwelleth in the aid of the most High, shall abide under the protection of the God of Jacob. 2 He shall say to the Lord: Thou art my protector, and my refuge: my God, in him will I trust. 3 For he hath delivered me from the snare of the hunters: and from the sharp word. 4 He will overshadow thee with his shoulders: and under his wings thou shalt trust. 5 His truth shall compass thee with a shield: thou shalt not be afraid of the terror of the night.
6 Of the arrow that flieth in the day, of the business that walketh about in the dark: of invasion, or of the noonday devil. 7 A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee. 8 But thou shalt consider with thy eyes: and shalt see the reward of the wicked. 9 Because thou, O Lord, art my hope: thou hast made the most High thy refuge. 10 There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy dwelling.
11 For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. 12 In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. 13 Thou shalt walk upon the asp and the basilisk: and thou shalt trample under foot the lion and the dragon. 14 Because he hoped in me I will deliver him: I will protect him because he hath known my name. 15 He shall cry to me, and I will hear him: I am with him in tribulation, I will deliver him, and I will glorify him. 16 I will fill him with length of days; and I will show him my salvation.
The Introit or entrance chant uses verses 15, 16 and 1. Bear in mind that on this day, we read in the Gospel about the temptation of Christ in the wilderness. Through the Introit, it is as though the Church imagines God the Father pronouncing these promises to the Only-begotten. It announces to us, even at the start of Lent, the goal of the season, that is, the solemn celebration of the glorious resurrection of our Lord - the melodic eloboration over “glorificabo eum” (I will glorify him) confirm this. By our incorporation into the body of Christ through baptism, which together with the other sacraments of initiation is the heart of the Paschal Vigil, these promises are made to us. In this manner, the Gregorian propers tell us what the joyful season of Lent is all about and reveal a Christological reading of the psalm. Above all, they help us to appropriate to ourselves and meditate upon the sacred word of Scripture.
21January2008
Posted by admin under: Singapore.
Thank you for visiting us at this site. We hope that you would gain some insight into this ancient form of worship.