O PREPARE for our sunrise Rorate Mass on Saturday morning (here at FSSP.la) I have completely redone the booklet from which we will sing. It’s one of my better booklets, and I think you’ll appreciate how I’ve indicated starting pitches.
* * PDF Download • RORATE MASS (13 pages)
The famed Mrs. Veronica Brandt generously helped me create the Offertory Hymn—thanks to the melody found in Hymni de Tempore et de Sanctis—to which we added an “Urbanite” translation by Fr. Adrian Fortescue (d. 1923). We chose Mass X, which is supposedly a more ancient “Blessed Virgin Mass” than Mass IX—although Mass IX is also fantastic.
I do not know a more gorgeous melody or text than Virgo Dei Genitrix, which we selected to sing during Communion. Do you?
Here is the translation for VERBUM SUPERNUM PRODIENS—for Advent, not the one by St. Thomas Aquinas—by Fortescue:
(Advent) Verbum Supernum Prodiens
IGH WORD of God,
coming forth from the eternal Father,
who being born in the fullness of time
dost succour the world;2. Enlighten now our hearts
and burn them with love of thee,
that leaving earthly things
they be filled with heavenly joy.3. And when the tribunal of the great judge
condemns the wicked to fire,
when his voice calls
the good to their reward in heaven,4. Let us not be cast into the darkness
to burn in flames,
but may we share the joy of heaven,
seeing the face of God.5. To the Father, to the Son,
to the Holy Spirit,
as it was, so always
for all ages be glory.
Somebody has created an alternate version of the same hymn, but the melody is not identical.
Veronica also sent Latin only version, for people who don’t like English translations.
(Of course, I’m not sure how perfect that Fortescue translation is, because Pope Urban VIII messed with some of the hymns pretty bad…)
