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Views from the Choir Loft

When Is The Sequence Sung? Before The Alleluia?

Jeff Ostrowski · January 2, 2014

899 Sequence O STUDENT of Gregorian chant needs to be told how sequences came into being, nor why they were always sung after the Alleluia. However, in 1969, things changed somewhat. Let’s take one thing at a time here … this subject confuses many.

So, first of all, when the (ancient) Gregorian Alleluia is sung, the Sequence comes after the Alleluia. If you don’t believe me, read the official Novus Ordo rubrics by clicking here. We provided three (3) different translations of the Ordo Cantus Missae, so there’s no doubt what it says.

However, the Ordo Cantus Missae makes no mention of the Gospel Acclamation, which can replace the (ancient) Gregorian Alleluia. For this, we have to look in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM). When the GIRM was first published around 1970, it didn’t specify when the Sequence is sung. It merely said “Sequences are optional, except on Easter Sunday and Pentecost.” However, the postconciliar books moved the Sequence, placing it before the Gospel Acclamation. You can see this by downloading the 1975 Missale Romanum.

If you don’t comprehend Latin, just look at the following:

      * *  1-page PDF • scanned from the very first Lectionary, ©1970

By the way, notice that in the 1970s they included a prose translation in addition to the “poetic” translation which was plagiarized and then horribly mangled (see this article).

THE ODD THING IS, THERE WAS AN EFFORT at restoring the Sequence to its proper place in the most recent edition of the Roman Missal. The Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (©2000) said in section 64:

Sequentia, quae praeter quam diebus Paschae et Pentecostes, est ad libitum, cantatur post Alleluia.

Fr. Robert Skeris, writing in Sacred Music (Vol. 128, No. 1), correctly translates this as:

The Sequence, which is optional except on Easter and Pentecost, is sung after the Alleluia.   [§64]

Again, to be clear, the GIRM is speaking of the Gospel Acclamation (not the ancient Gregorian Alleluia). You can read more here.

However, a few years later, in the official edition of the Roman Missal, this sentence was altered, and nobody knows why this change was made. Perhaps certain parties were unhappy that the Sequence would be restored to where it always had been, prior to 1969.

The end result is that the current GIRM has the Sequence before the Gospel Acclamation, whereas the 2012 Gregorian Missal continues to place the Sequence after the Alleluia … and they’re both right!

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Novus Ordo Lectionary Reform, Roman Missal Third Edition Last Updated: January 1, 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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Quick Thoughts

6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski
2 January 2021 • Temptation

When I see idiotic statements made on the internet, I go nuts. When I see heretics promoted by people who should know better, I get angry. Learning to ignore such items is difficult—very difficult. I try to remember the words of Fr. Valentine Young: “Do what God places in front of you each day.” When I am honest, I don’t believe God wants me to dwell on errors and idiocy; there’s nothing I can do about that. During 2021, I will strive to do a better job following the advice of Fr. Valentine.

—Jeff Ostrowski
31 December 2020 • “COMITES CHRISTI”

The feasts for Saint Stephen Proto-Martyr (26 December), Saint John the Evangelist The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved (27 December), and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December) seem untouched by any liturgical reforms. These are very powerful feasts—I believe they once possessed octaves—and I believe they could sometimes “overpower” a Sunday feast. The rules for octaves in the olden days are extremely complex. These feasts are sometimes referred to as a single entity as: Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). This is just a guess, but there seems to be a triple significance: STEPHEN martyred after Christ lived, JOHN was a martyr who knew Christ personally, and the HOLY INNOCENTS were martyred before Christ’s birth.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“In all this mediaeval religious poetry there is much that we could not use now. Many of the hymns are quite bad, many are frigid compositions containing futile tricks, puns, misinterpreted quotations of Scripture, and twisted concepts, whose only point is their twist. But there is an amazing amount of beautiful poetry that we could still use. If we are to have vernacular hymns at all, why do we not have translations of the old ones?”

— Fr. Adrian Fortescue (d. 1923)

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