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Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • Last Minute Holy Saturday File

Jeff Ostrowski · April 17, 2017

225 resurrection This was the last thing I created before the Easter Vigil:

* *  PDF • ALLELUIA with Laudáte (2-pages)

Eventually, I hope to create a “Musician’s Guide to Holy Saturday,” including both English and Latin, similar to what we made for Good Friday.

The 1955 rubrics say:

After the Priest’s Communion, Holy Communion is distributed, and the purification and ablutions take place as usual. For LAUDS of Easter Sunday, the following antiphon is sung.

[ Post sumptionem Sacramenti, distributio communionis, purificatio et ablutio fiunt more solito; deinde pro LAUDIBUS dominicae Resurrectionis in choro cantatur antiphona. ]

That’s actually the one place—the one place—where that famous Alleluia belongs, and could not fit more perfectly.

For the record, Psalm 116 was used on Holy Saturday prior to Pius XII:

“The use of Psalm 150 is a change from the experimental Easter Vigil (1951-1955) in which Psalm 116 was used for Lauds.” — Msgr. Frederick McManus, The New Holy Week (1956)

It’s not easy to imagine why 116 was found deficient, but Psalm 150 is also quite beautiful. And here’s a 13th-century manuscript that employs a variant “Alleluia” melody:

230 Holy Saturday ALLELUIA mode 1

The tone looks almost identical to the first mode (not the sixth) but is, in fact, Mode 6.

These ancient traditions—maintained for so many centuries with such care—make it difficult to accept the changes made by Pope Pius XII. 1 Indeed, I find it remarkable that so few speak about (or realize) what he did to the Psalter, which Pope John XXIII later reversed. Here’s the antiphon for Holy Saturday before the changes made by Pope Pius XII in 1950:

226 three women

Do you see how the artist included the holy women mentioned by the antiphon, in the most marvelous way?

Notice the strong tradition that existed for choosing GLORIA II with KYRIE I at Eastertide:

231 kyr

Indeed, the 1961 version of the Ordo Hebdomadae Sanctae chooses KYRIE I for the Easter Vigil and GLORIA II on Easter Sunday. Observe, too, the 13th-century KYRIE’s avoidance of the “Teutonic dialect” at the beginning of Kyrie I. This precise question would lead to bitter fights among the members the 1904 committee, established by Pope St. Pius X to restore the Church’s authentic Gregorian chant.

 


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   And it is truly horrifying, in light of the ancient tradition of the Church, to hear the term used by Msgr. Frederick R. McManus: “experimental Easter Vigil.”

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

Filed Under: Articles, PDF Download Last Updated: September 16, 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

Random Quote

“What will be the results of this innovation? The results expected, or rather desired, are that the faithful will participate in the liturgical mystery with more understanding, in a more practical, a more enjoyable and a more sanctifying way.” [Enjoyable?]

— Pope Paul VI (26 Nov 1969)

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