Maundy Thursday

Here is a page with mp3s of all of the chants for the Vesperal Mass of Maundy Thursday, sung in Latin by the Schola of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary (FSSP). Audo files, along with chant scores in square notes, are also available at the Missa Vespertina in Cena Domini page at the Brazilian Benedictines' website.






Here's a video at YouTube of the King's College Choir singing Maurice Duruflé's Ubi Caritas, adapted from the Maundy Thursday chant of the same name, and for me the most beautiful song of the day:







Here's what TPL has to say about Ubi Caritas (and you can get the words at that page, also):

Ubi Cartitas is taken from the antiphons sung during the ceremony of the Washing of the Feet at the Mass of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. As is the entire Mass of the Last Supper, this hymn is intimately connected with the Eucharist, and is thus often used during the Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. Recent tradition has the first line as "Ubi caritas et amor" (where charity and love are), but certain very early manuscripts show "Ubi caritas est vera" (where charity is true). The current Roman Missal favors this later version, while the 1962 Roman Missal and classical music favors the former.

And here is an mp3, previously posted, of the Pange Lingua, sung in Latin; follow along with the words, in Latin and in English here. This hymn is usually sung during the procession to the Altar of Repose at the end of the service; it's in our hymnal, in two versions (#165 and #166), and is called "Sing, My Tongue, the Glorious Battle."

If you listen to the webcast of the Solemn Liturgy of Maundy Thursday from St. Thomas Church in Manhattan (for any year when it's available; as I write, none is posted), you will hear, instead of Sanctus Bells at the consecration, the Crotalus:

The crotalus (also called a "clapper") is "a wood rattle-like object which makes a terrifying sound. It replaces the Sanctus Bell during certain Holy Week Masses when the ringing of bells is surpressed." After the ringing of the Sanctus Bells throughout the Gloria at Maundy Thursday Eucharist, the bells go quiet until the Great Vigil. And in truth, the noise of the crotalus can be shiver-inducing. (Crotalus is also the genus name for the rattlesnake.)

[EDIT: No crotalus here, but you can watch and listen to the liturgy of Maundy Thursday at Trinity Church in New York here.]