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Views from the Choir Loft

Why No Offertory Antiphon In Roman Missal?

Jeff Ostrowski · May 10, 2013

OMETIMES IT IS NICE to have our questions answered, even when the answer makes absolutely no sense. For years, many have wondered why the Offertory Antiphons in the Missal were not revised for MWMs (Masses Without Music). The Introit and Communion were revised for MWMs. They are called the Spoken Propers because they’re only supposed to be used when there is no singing. Why not the Offertory?

I gave some possible reasons several years ago in this article:

* *  Why are the Missal Propers different from the Graduale Propers? [url]

Reading an Archbishop Bugnini on the CMAA forum, it seems that I was pretty close:

To be noted in particular is the wide range of possibilities offered for singing. This allows both the full preservation of the traditional patrimony (Gregorian and polyphonic) and, at the same time, a genuine openness to new musical creations for new texts.

Thus, for the entrance song, in addition to the texts in the Roman Gradual and the Graduale Simplex, it is possible to use other texts that are liturgically adapted to the season or feast and are counterparts of the old texts. They are to be approved by the episcopal conference. The same holds for the offertory and communion songs.

All these songs accompany an action. It is therefore possible to allow a certain flexibility, especially with an eye on the heritage of popular song in the various countries and the various modern languages. This means in turn that the texts must be to some degree adaptable to new and different musical requirements.

The document [Bugnini refers to the General Instruction of the Roman Missal] prescribes how each ‘sung’ text is to be handled when the Mass is actually a Mass with singing and when the Mass is simply read. The entrance and communion antiphons, for example, are to be sung or read for their value in showing the meaning of the celebration and feast. The offertory antiphon, on the other hand, may be omitted if it is not sung, because it then loses its value as accompaniment to a procession and to the offertory rites; if it is simply read it would create a textual overload of this part of the celebration.

The Reform of the Liturgy: 1948-1975 by Annibale Bugnini (Page 387).

Unfortunately, Bugnini’s “answer” is incomprehensible. A textual overload? Really? And it is really true that neither the Introit nor the Communion antiphons accompany a procession? Really?

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Graduale Romanum Roman Gradual Propers, Sung Vs Spoken Propers Novus Ordo Last Updated: August 20, 2020

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Jeff Ostrowski

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

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Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski
15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski

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“In everything of any importance at all, Sarum (and all other mediæval rites) was simply Roman, the rite which we still use.”

— Fr. Adrian Fortescue (1912)

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