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“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

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Views from the Choir Loft

Pope Benedict XVI on this Sunday’s Introit

Jeff Ostrowski · February 6, 2017

N THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM, this coming Sunday is Septuagesima Sunday. The recording we had on the Goupil website was terrible, so I recorded a new version with the new microphone. The text mysteriously speaks of Christ being “surrounded” and the melody seems to reflect the idea of “surrounding.” Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Capital “C” seems to show Christ wrapped in swaddling cloths (i.e. tight clothing) and the Tree of Jesse is represented as (figuratively) the Tree of the Cross:

380 Circumdederunt me

Pope Benedict has written:

Iconographic tradition has theologically interpreted the manger and the swaddling cloths in terms of the theology of the Fathers. The child stiffly wrapped in bandages is seen as prefiguring the hour of his death: from the outset, he is the sacrificial victim, as we shall see more closely when we examine the reference to the first-born. The manger, then, was seen as a kind of altar.

And we remember the words of Good Friday, in the hymn by Fortunatus:

A child he lay in the narrow cradle
and the virgin mother bound his limbs in swaddling clothes;
such bands held the hands and feet of God.

Here’s the entire hymn, as found in the St. Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal:

    * *  PDF Download • Excerpt from the St. Isaac Jogues Hymnal

It’s undoubtedly one of the most beautiful hymns.

P.S.

You can read what the 1957 Solesmes book “Mass and Vespers” has to say about the season of Septuagesima.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Pange Lingua Fortunatus Last Updated: April 9, 2022

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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 Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)
    The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent
    The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)
    Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!
    —Jeff Ostrowski

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“Parish Priests have to think first of the simple faithful: people now used to the Roman Missal at Mass. They don’t want change.”

— Cardinal Spellman (one of the Vatican II fathers)

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