• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

“If we do not love those whom we see, how can we love God, Whom we do not see?” Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

  • Our Team
    • Views from the Choir Loft • “Our Team”
    • Our Editorial Policy
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • Saint Antoine Daniel KYRIALE
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Father Enemond Massé Manuscripts
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
    • Guillaume Couture Gregorian Chant
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
    • Gradual by Pothier’s Protégé
    • Mass in Honor of Saint Noël Chabanel
  • Donate
Views from the Choir Loft

“Jesu Nostra Redemptio” • Ancient Hymn for the Ascension translated into English!

Jeff Ostrowski · May 21, 2020

NE MAJOR FLAW in too many Catholic hymnals has to do with editors who delete verses. They do it constantly—as if it’s a type of compulsion. 1 Verse expunction has a deleterious effect on the poetry and causes great inconvenience to choirmasters. We need all those verses! For example, we need them to fill up the time when the congregation is receiving Holy Communion. In 2018, the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal did something wonderful by restoring all the missing verses to the Roman Catholic treasury of hymns.

Many people believe the Antiphonale contains hymns, whereas the Graduale does not. They are wrong; the Graduale does contain hymns. An example would be “Jesu Nostra Redemptio” (the title was changed by Pope Urban VIII to “Salutis Humanæ Sator” in 1631AD). You can see that this hymn is also found in the 1908 Graduale. Page 256 of the Brébeuf Hymnal provides a marvelous English translation, courtesy of an FSSP priest who assisted with the project. The second verse will give you a taste of this hymn’s power and beauty:

What mercy conquered thee,
so as to bear our misdeeds,
suffering a cruel death,
so as to lift us from death?

The Brébeuf hymnal has many versions of this ancient hymn for the Ascension—and here’s one:

Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #260.

The same melody is used in another place, at a higher key:


Which key do you like better? Higher or lower?

Every Mass Commemorates the Ascension

Immediately after the Consecration, the priest says:

Wherefore, O Lord, we, Thy servants, as also Thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed passion of the same Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, His resurrection from the grave, and His glorious ascension into heaven, offer up to Thy most excellent majesty of Thine own gifts bestowed upon us…etc.

Father Leslie Audoen Rumble (d. 1975) helps us understand the Ascension better in his famous “Radio Replies,” Question #1007:

1007. Christ ascended to heaven beyond the clouds. To the moon? Or did He continue beyond the sun and the stars? Or is heaven everywhere?

The ascension of Christ until a cloud received Him out of the sight of the Apostles was a phenomenon sufficiently clear to impress upon them some higher state of being. As a matter of fact He ascended only relatively to those who were watching Him. Our notions of ascent and descent are regulated by direction from the center of the earth. To the man on the opposite side of the earth the direction taken by Christ would be in the direction of descent. However, relatively to those watching Him, Christ ascended, and after a few moments they found themselves looking at a cloud. How far did Christ go? He merely allowed His supernatural qualities to assert themselves, and His body took upon itself a nature independent of all earthly conditions and limitations. He simply passed into another state of being, even as the thoughts incorporated in these words on paper are passing into another state of being within your mind as you read. And His new state at once renders useless all calculations based upon visible qualities as we know them. You might just as well try to measure abstract beauty with a wooden ruler. Christ’s glorified body is not subject to conditions of which we have experience.

One last time, here’s what the priest says at every Mass:

 


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Even the good Catholic hymn editors mutilated and decimated hymns in a most inexplicable way. If you look through the Mediator Dei Hymnal (1955), you will see that J. Vincent Higginson (a.k.a. “Cyr de Brant”) deleted 70% of the verses for almost every hymn in his book. Achille P. Bragers had a very good reputation, and his harmonizations for certain hymns (such as “Holy God We Praise Thy Name”) are quite clever. Yet, look how Bragers eliminated most of the verses from “Jesu Nostra Redemptio” in English and Latin! That example comes from “The Monastery Hymnal,” published by Achille P. Bragers with a 1954 IMPRIMATUR by Francis Cardinal Spellman, Archbishop of New York.

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

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Filed Under: Articles, Featured Tagged With: Jean de Brebeuf Hymnal, Jesu Nostra Redemptio, Leslie Rumble Radio Replies Last Updated: May 13, 2021

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

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).

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Requesting Our Advent Eucharistic Hymn
    A young lady named Agnes wrote to us: “Dear Mr. Ostrowski, do you have the PDF score for Ave Corpus Domini set to the ADVENT melody? Last year, we sang the hymn tune “Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland” quite a bit using your contrafactum technique. My choir appreciates the Latin hymns and practice videos, especially in the ADVENT and CHRISTMAS seasons. Your recent article on Gregorian Psalm Tones is a great help to my organist brother, and reminds us of attending VESPERS years ago when we lived in California. Thank you so much for all the effort put into providing these wonderful resources!”   Agnes, if you are listening! Yes, the PDF file you desire can be downloaded for free at the Brébeuf Portal via this URL link. Thanks for writing to us!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Message from the Vice-President!
    The Vice-President of the Church Music Association of America, Dr. Horst Buchholz (who also serves as Director of Sacred Music for the Archdiocese of Detroit) sent us an email yesterday regarding the harmonizations (PDF) I composed for the Gregorian Chant psalm tones. Dr. Buchholz says: “Those settings are absolutely exquisite, as I'm used to when it comes from you. Bravo! Well done! Now, as a sequel, if you could write something for accompanying psalms in English that would be awesome.”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Seven (7) Hymn Verses for November!
    In the month of November, we remember in a special way the souls in purgatory. The BRÉBEUF HYMNAL often includes text alone versions for its hymns; why is that? The short answer is: flexibility. The “text only” version allows each choirmaster to employ a myriad of melodies. For example, I recently set the English translation of “De Profúndis” with the DAVOST MELODY (PDF). We are singing this before November ends. Indeed, you can hear our volunteer singing this (in real life) if you click here.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“I prefer to preach,” said one priest “even without immediate preparation, for I can always draw—from the various studies stored away during the seminary years—enough material to interest our good Catholic people. But when I have to go to the altar and sing High Mass or a Requiem, and I know that I cannot read a note of the Preface and the ‘Pater Noster’, I feel like going to martyrdom. Yet the notes are right there before my eyes, but they seem to mock my ignorance.”

— From a 1920 article by Very Rev. Leo P. Manzetti

Recent Posts

  • Stumped by Psalms? Try This
  • Requesting Our Advent Eucharistic Hymn
  • Message from the Vice-President!
  • PDF Download • “Eight Gregorian Psalm Tones” (Harmonized by Jeff Ostrowski)
  • Four (4) Excellent Hymns for Catholic Funerals

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2023 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.