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Views from the Choir Loft

The Mystery of Missal vs. Gradual has been solved!

Jeff Ostrowski · May 25, 2014

467 graduale OUR PRIEST HAS FINALLY agreed to let you sing the Mass Propers! Your choir practices for weeks. Finally, the big day arrives, and you feel Mass went well.

However, the Parish Liturgist summons you to his office afterward, demanding to know why you didn’t sing the “correct” Communion chant. Dumbfounded, you consult the relevant sources:

GRADUAL: 2nd Sunday of Lent
Tell no one about the vision you have seen
until the Son of Man has risen from the dead.

MISSAL: 2nd Sunday of Lent
This is my beloved Son, with whom
I am well pleased; listen to him.

Your mind races, and you feel weak at the knees. You vaguely recall learning the difference between “spoken” and “sung” antiphons, but referring him to Google seems risky. The following dialogue ensues:

“Everything after 2011,” he continues, “must correspond exactly to the texts printed in the Altar Missal. That’s what they said at a diocesan workshop. Do you understand?”

Regaining your senses, you reply, “OK, then we’ll take the readings from the Altar Missal, too.”

PL: “No, the readings aren’t found in the Missal. Those come from the Lectionary.”

You respond, “The same thing is true of the Sung Propers, which come from the Roman Gradual. That’s why, for example, the Offertory antiphons aren’t printed in the Altar Missal.”

Whoever created the image on the upper right seems to understand that confusing subjects are best treated with a healthy dose of humor.

WHEN MISSAL ANTIPHONS DIFFER from the Roman Gradual, it’s not forbidden to sing the Missal text. Liturgical law has allowed this since 1970, and no one disputes this. 1 Both texts come from the Bible, which is the inspired Word of God. Surely, then, one text is not to be preferred, right? In fact, there are reasons to prefer the Graduale. For example:

(1) Before setting a text, qualified musicians examine the piece’s history. How have composers treated this text in past centuries? The Sung Propers often go back to the 7th century, whereas the Spoken Propers came into existence in 1969.

(2) Bishop Donald Trautman has pointed out that the Spoken Propers “were never intended to be sung,” and Archbishop Bugnini said the same thing.

(3) Tradition is very important to Catholics, so preferring prayers in use for 1500 years is natural.

(4) The Gradual Propers are given in the Jogues Missal, and we have an obligation to make it as simple as possible for our people to participate in the liturgy.

Why would our bishops create such a confusing situation? The complete documentation fails to provide a plausible motivation.

      What’s the answer to this mystery??

The Spoken Propers were most likely created to add variety to daily Masses. 2 Before the Second Vatican Council, some daily propers — Os Justi, Justus ut palma, Dilexisti, and so forth — were used with great frequency, and this lack of variety bothered some priests (while others found such repetition beautiful and edifying).

SPOILER ALERT!   Book 3 of the Jogues Series is a “Daily Mass Companion” containing every Spoken Proper that could ever be used — more info will be revealed soon!

A great deal of the confusion over “sung” vs. “spoken” propers stems from the fact that we call the big red priest’s book a Missal. (It ought to be called a Sacramentary.) In any event, the following chart helps:


SOME COMPOSERS CHOOSE the Sung Propers, while others set the Spoken Propers. Still others compose settings for both. The following examples use the Gradual texts exclusively:

Lalemant Propers (CCW, 2013)

Graduale Parvum (Birmingham Oratory, 2012) …courtesy CMAA

Arbogast Propers (St. Joseph’s College)

American Gradual (Bruce E. Ford, 2008)

Simple English Propers (CMAA, 2011)

Laudate Dominum Communion Antiphons (Motyka, 2012)

Needless to say, parishes which sometimes sing the official Latin melodies will want to use only the Sung Propers, since no official Latin melodies exist for the Spoken Propers. As the President of the CMAA has reminded us:

The texts in the Graduale Romanum are not the same as those of the Missale Romanum, and it is those of the missal which are printed in the disposable missals used in the parishes. I have often been asked, “Where can I find the Gregorian chants for the introits and communions in the missal?” The answer is, you cannot find them, because they were provided for use in spoken Masses only.

TO SUM IT ALL UP: The Roman Gradual is the Church’s official Song Book, and was revised following the Second Vatican Council. However, for Masses without singing, special “spoken propers” were added to the priest’s Altar Missal. Sometimes they match the Gradual, and sometimes they don’t.

FOR THE RECORD: Our current Missal contains 2,509  “spoken” antiphons. Some clown will doubtless joke: “That’s not enough variety for me. I require 2,678.”



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   To my knowledge, no author has ever denied that Missal antiphons can be sung.

2   Incidentally, Spoken Propers for daily Masses seldom correspond to the Sung Propers for daily Masses.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Graduale Romanum Roman Gradual Propers, Hymns Replacing Propers, Missal Antiphons Dont Match Roman Gradual, THE ADALBERT PROPERS Last Updated: January 18, 2025

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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 Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
    EVIN ALLEN was commissioned by Sacred Music Symposium 2025 to compose a polyphonic ‘middle section’ for the GLORIA from Mass III, often denoted by its trope name: Missa Kyrie Deus sempiterne. This year, I’m traveling from Singapore to serve on the symposium faculty. I will be conducting Palestrina’s ‘Ave Maria’ as well as teaching plainsong to the men. A few days ago, I was asked to record rehearsal videos for this beautiful polyphonic extension. (See below.) This polyphonic composition fits ‘inside’ GLORIA III. That is, the congregation sings for the beginning and end, but the choir alone adds polyphony to the middle. The easiest way to understand how everything fits together is by examining this congregational insert. You may download the score, generously made available to the whole world—free of charge—by CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED:
    *  PDF Download • Gloria III ‘Middle Section’ (Kevin Allen)
    Free rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #24366. Related News • My colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, composed an organ accompaniment for this same GLORIA a few months ago. Obviously, the organist should drop out when the polyphony is being sung.
    —Corrinne May
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“It is the choir that can make the most valuable contribution to the liturgy; it is through the choir that significant numbers of the congregation can make a significant and valuable offering in the community’s act of worship. The choir links directly academic excellence, artistic creation, disciplined attention and self expression in the making of something fitting for the worship of God.”

— Father Daniel Higgins, Choirmaster at Saint Edmund’s College, Ware

Recent Posts

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