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Pope Saint Paul VI (3 April 1969): “Although the text of the Roman Gradual—at least that which concerns the singing—has not been changed, the Entrance antiphons and Communions antiphons have been revised for Masses without singing.”

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Views from the Choir Loft

The Prophet Baruch: Surge, Ierusalem, Look to the East!

Fr. David Friel · December 6, 2020

ARUCH, who served as secretary for the prophet Jeremiah, also has a prophetic book of the Old Testament attributed to him. Passages from the Book of Baruch do not appear very often, either in the Ordinary Form or the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. I’ve always loved this short book (six brief chapters), so my ears always perk up when it appears among our liturgical texts. The Second Sunday of Advent is one such occasion.

The communion chant appointed for the Second Sunday of Advent is this:

Ierusalem, surge et sta in excelso, et vide iucunditatem, quae veniet tibi a Deo tuo.

Up, Jerusalem! stand upon the heights, and behold the joy that comes to you from God.

This communio actually splices together portions of two related verses from the Book of Baruch (Bar 5:5 and 4:36). In what way are these verses related? The relationship is twofold, and it becomes clearer when the verses are viewed in full. The NABRE renders the complete verses in this way:

Bar 5:5 — Up, Jerusalem! stand upon the heights; look to the east and see your children gathered from the east and the west at the word of the Holy One, rejoicing that they are remembered by God.

Bar 4:36 — Look to the east, Jerusalem! behold the joy that comes to you from God.

The first way in which these two verses are related is their “middle term,” so to speak, which is elided in today’s communion chant, namely the encouragement to “look to the east.” Looking toward the dayspring is very much a theme of Advent. Consider, for example, the famous “O antiphon” that begins O oriens.

The second thing that unites these two verses is that they are drawn from the same section of Baruch. Verses 4:30 through 5:9 are regarded by Scripture scholars as a unit, united by the theme of the consolation of Jerusalem as an end to captivity comes into view. This, too, is a clear Advent theme, as the coming of our Savior means the end to our captivity to sin and death.

This communion chant is not only interesting on its own merits. It is all the more fascinating for its inclusion in the Advent-Christmas series of communio chants, which reveals so much about how the Roman proper of the Mass came into being.

Some readers will be familiar with the seminal work of James McKinnon in this field, expressed principally in his 2000 book, The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper. Following is an information-rich excerpt from this work, which places today’s communion chant into a fuller context.

The Advent-Christmas season occupies a special place in the Roman Mass Proper; its chants display a level of compositional planning and perfection of execution not met with elsewhere in the annual cycle. . .

The Advent-Christmas communions . . . fall into two distinct groups, the ten chants of Advent and Christmas day, and the nine post-Christmas chants. All nineteen are unique and all nineteen are thematically appropriate to their assigned dates; all, in a word, are carefully designed to fit just one liturgical occasion. There is, moreoever, an overall compositional plan of the vertical type. . . The ten chants of the Advent-Christmas Day set all have short prophetic texts, six of them from the Prophets as such and four from David, who ranks in the medieval mind along with Isaiah as the prophet par excellence of Christ’s coming. The texts of the nine post-Christmas chants form a sharply contrasting group; they are all derived from the New Testament and have in each case a vivid narrative quality as opposed to the meditative or lyric quality of the prophetic set. They signal a new departure, moreover, in chant creation; nearly all of them are derived not only from the gospels, but from the gospel of the day. . .

The Advent-Christmas season is marked also by a high proportion of . . . horizontal compositional planning, that is, the maintenance of some common theme throughout the Proper of a particular festival. This is a rare phenomenon in the Mass Proper; there are only a handful of examples in the entire liturgical year, and two of them are found in this season. The first Sunday of Advent derives its introit, gradual and offertory from the same psalm, Psalm 24, and the second Sunday of Advent, with its station at the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, has a distinct Holy City theme in its chants; there is its introit Populus sion, its gradual Ex sion and its communion Hierusalem surge. The Franks, by the way, appreciated this theme and added their own alleluia Laetatus sum to the mix, derived as it is from Psalm 121, which celebrates Jerusalem from start to finish. 1

There is always a richness waiting to be discovered in the Proprium Missae, but today this is especially so. The Second Sunday of Advent invites us to reflect on the Holy City, Jerusalem, and its eschatological significance.

As Baruch exhorts us, let us look to the east, and behold the joy that comes to us from God!


NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   James McKinnon, The Advent Project: The Later-Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000), 137-141.

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

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Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: chant, Graduale Romanum Roman Gradual Propers, Gregorian Chant, James McKinnon, Mass Propers Proprium Missae, Propers Last Updated: January 16, 2021

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

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President’s Corner

    Why A “Fugue” Here?
    I believe I know why this plainsong harmonizer created a tiny fugue as the INTRODUCTION to his accompaniment. Take a look (PDF) and tell me your thoughts about what he did on the feast of the Flight of Our Lord Jesus Christ into Egypt (17 February). And now I must go because “tempus fugit” as they say!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    New Bulletin Article • “12 October 2025”
    My pastor requested that I write short articles each week for our parish bulletin. Those responsible for preparing similar write-ups may find a bit of inspiration in these brief columns. The latest article (dated 12 October 2025) talks about an ‘irony’ or ‘paradox’ regarding the 1960s switch to a wider use (amplior locus) of vernacular in the liturgy.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Reminder” — Month of October (2025)
    Those who don’t sign up for our free EMAIL NEWSLETTER miss important notifications. Last week, for example, I sent a message about this job opening for a music director paying $65,000 per year plus benefits (plus weddings & funerals). Notice the job description says: “our vision for sacred music is to move from singing at Mass to truly singing the Mass wherein … especially the propers, ordinaries, and dialogues are given their proper place.” Signing up couldn’t be easier: simply scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    “American Catholic Hymnal” (1991)
    The American Catholic Hymnal, with IMPRIMATUR granted (25 April 1991) by the Archdiocese of Chicago, is like a compendium of every horrible idea from the 1980s. Imagine being forced to stand all through Communion (even afterwards) when those self-same ‘enlightened’ liturgists moved the SEQUENCE before the Alleluia to make sure congregations wouldn’t have to stand during it. (Even worse, everything about the SEQUENCE—including its name—means it should follow the Alleluia.) And imagine endlessly repeating “Alleluia” during Holy Communion at every single Mass. It was all part of an effort to convince people that Holy Communion was historically a procession (which it wasn’t).
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Canonic” • Ralph Vaughan Williams
    Fifty years ago, Dr. Theodore Marier made available this clever arrangement (PDF) of “Come down, O love divine” by P. R. Dietterich. The melody was composed in 1906 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (d. 1958) and named in honor of of his birthplace: DOWN AMPNEY. The arrangement isn’t a strict canon, but it does remind one of a canon since the pipe organ employs “points of imitation.” The melody and text are #709 in the Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Did they simplify these hymn harmonies?
    Choirs love to sing the famous & splendid tune called “INNSBRUCK.” Looking through a (Roman Catholic) German hymnal printed in 1952, I discovered what appears to be a simplified version of that hymn. In other words, their harmonization is much less complex than the version found in the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal (which is suitable for singing by SATB choir). Please download their 1952 harmonization (PDF) and let me know your thoughts. I really like the groovy Germanic INTRODUCTION they added.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

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