Lux æterna luceat eis, Domine,
cum sanctis tuis in æternum,
quia pius es.
Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine;
et lux perpetua luceat eis ;
cum Sanctis tuis in aeternum,
quia pius es.
May everlasting light shine upon them, O Lord,
with your saints forever,
for you are merciful.
Grant them eternal rest, O Lord,
and may everlasting light shine upon them.
with your saints forever,
for you are merciful.
But actually, I really like John Rutter's version of the Lux Aeterna, here sung expertly by the Clare College Choir, Cambridge. (The section in English just prior to the Lux Aeterna proper is from the Book of Common Prayer's Rite for the Burial of the Dead.)
Here are links to posts on this blog, for all the movements of the Requiem mass:
About the song, including the words, again, from Wikipedia:
O Sacrum Convivium is a Latin prose text honoring the Blessed Sacrament. It was written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. It was included in the Latin Catholic liturgy as an antiphon on the feast of Corpus Christi. Its sentiments express the profound mystery of the Eucharistic miracle: "O sacred banquet at which Christ is consumed, the memory of his Passion is recalled, our souls are filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given to us."
Original Latin (punctuation from Liber Usualis):
O sacrum convivium! in quo Christus sumitur: recolitur memoria passionis ejus: mens impletur gratia: et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur. Alleluia.
Translation of original Latin:
O sacred banquet! in which Christ is received, the memory of his Passion is renewed, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory to us is given. Alleluia.
There are in existence two different versions of this hymn. About the original Verbum supernum prodiens (Celestial Word, to This Our Earth), TPL has this:
Verbum supernum prodiens dates to somewhere around the 6th or 7th century and can be found in monastic breviaries of the 10th century. The hymn is used for the Office of the Readings as an Advent Hymn.
LLPB calls this Verbum supernum prodiensHigh Word of God (mp3); this is the Sarum Advent Mattins hymn melody. Here's the chant score, and below that the Latin words, along with the English translation (Oremus says it's by Charles Bigg, 1906) used on the audio file:
VERBUM supernum prodiens
a Patre lumen exiens,
qui natus orbi subvenis
cursu declivi temporis:
Illumina nunc pectora
tuoque amore concrema;
audita per praeconia
sint pulsa tandem lubrica.
Iudexque cum post aderis
rimari facta pectoris,
reddens vicem pro abditis
iustisque regnum pro bonis,
Non demum artemur malis
pro qualitate criminis,
sed cum beatis compotes
simus perennes caelites.
Sit, Christe, rex piissime,
tibi Patrique gloria
cum Sancto Spiritu Paraclito,
in sempiterna saecula. Amen.
High Word of God, who once didst come,
Leaving Thy Father and Thy home,
To succor by Thy birth our kind,
When, towards Thy advent, time declined,
Pour light upon us from above,
And fire our hearts with Thy strong love,
That, as we hear Thy Gospel read,
All fond desires may flee in dread;
That when Thou comest from the skies,
Great Judge, to open Thine assize,
To give each hidden sin its smart,
And crown as kings the pure in heart,
We be not set at Thy left hand,
Where sentence due would bid us stand,
But with the saints Thy face may see,
Forever wholly loving Thee.
Praise to the Father and the Son,
Through all the ages as they run;
And to the holy Paraclete
Be praise with Them and worship meet. Amen.
Giovanni Viannini sings this to another melody, though:
Verbum Supernum was written by St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) in honor of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament at the specific request of Pope Urban IV (1261-1264) when the Pope established the Feast of Corpus Christi in 1264. It is used as a hymn at Lauds on Corpus Christi. The last two stanzas are used for the hymn O Salutaris Hostia (O Saving Victim).
Again, these are the words of Aquinas' version of the hymn. As you can see,
again the last two verses make up the text for one of the very famous
hymns sung about the Holy Eucharist; this time it's O Salutaris Hostia ("O Saving Victim"):
Verbum supernum prodiens, Nec Patris linquens dexteram, Ad opus suum exiens, Venit ad vitæ vesperam.
In mortem a discipulo Suis tradendus æmulis, Prius in vitæ ferculo Se tradidit discipulis.
Quibus sub bina specie Carnem dedit et sanguinem; Ut duplicis substantiæ Totum cibaret hominem.
Se nascens dedit socium, Convescens in edulium, Se moriens in pretium, Se regnans dat in præmium.
O salutaris hostia, Quæ cæli pandis ostium, Bella premunt hostilia; Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino Sit sempiterna gloria: Qui vitam sine termino Nobis donet in patria.
The heavenly Word proceeding forth,
Yet leaving not his Father's side,
And going to His work on Earth,
Has reached at length life's eventide.
By false disciple to be given
To foemen for His blood athirst,
Himself, the living bread from heaven,
He gave to his disciples first.
In twofold form of sacrament,
He gave His flesh, He gave His blood,
That man, of soul and body blent,
Might wholly feed on mystic food.
In birth man's fellow-man was He,
His meat while sitting at the board;
He died, our ransomer to be,
He reigns to be our great reward.
O saving Victim, opening wide
The gates of heaven to man below;
Our foes press hard on every side,
Thine aid supply, Thy strength bestow.
All praise and thanks to thee ascend
For evermore, blessed One in Three;
O grant us life that shall not end,
In our true native land with Thee.
Here's Giovanni Vianini's rendition of an Ambrosian version of this hymn (not the same tune as given above):
Our good friend Derek the Ænglican has explained this in the comments: "This
is another one of those where Aquinas has taken an early medieval hymn
and tweaked it for different theological purposes. As a result there are
two texts with the same incipit. It can be quite confusing and I wish
Thomas would just stop it...". I disagree with Derek in this one
instance, because I love "O Salutaris Hostia," and am happy that Thomas
tweaked it - but I do see his point.
So, there are two hymns with the same name - but for the purposes of this post, I'm really interested in the words to the Aquinas hymn, and the last two verses specifically, which are:
O salutaris hostia,
Quæ cæli pandis ostium,
Bella premunt hostilia;
Da robur, fer auxilium.
Uni trinoque Domino
Sit sempiterna gloria:
Qui vitam sine termino
Nobis donet in patria.
The English words I'm familiar with are these:
O saving victim, opening wide
the gate of heaven to us below,
our foes press on from every side
thine aid supply, thy strength bestow.
All praise and thanks to thee ascend
for evermore, blest One in Three;
O grant us life that shall not end
in our true native land with thee.
The translation above is from Edward Caswall, 1849, and John Mason Neale, 1854, says Oremus Hymnal. And this is the famous hymn that's sung at Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament; at my local convent, it's sung every day immediately following Vespers, to one of eight different tunes.
Here's an mp3 of an Elgar version, a very beautiful motet that I've fallen absolutely in love with, sung by the St. Clement's choir. (I know a different version, which is also very beautiful, but alas cannot find it online.)
The procession, exposition, incensing of the altar and singing of "Oh Salutaris Hostia" in preparation for the Litany of the Sacred Heart and the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. Filmed at Mother Angelica's Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Hanceville, Alabama.
I'm not sure what this is, but I do really like it:
At the 2006 General Convention, the Episcopal Church replaced the Sunday Lectionary that was adopted with the Prayer Book in 1979 with the “Revised Common Lectionary” – the “RCL.” The resolution authorizing this change provided that the 1979 lectionary could be used until Advent 2010. The just concluded 2009 General Convention took no action to alter this change. So, in Advent 2010 we will begin using this new lectionary. The new pew edition Prayer Books for sale in our gift shop already include it.
For us at Saint Mary’s, it will require a great deal of editorial work to get these materials ready in a user-friendly fashion for use at the lectern. So far, Church Publishing has not printed a Book of Gospels for the RCL using the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. (No, we are not going to start using the New Revised Standard Version unless required to do so by the canons of the Church.) No translation or lectionary is perfect. The Bible was not written with what we call a lectionary in mind. Of course, there were a number of technical and editorial problems with the present lectionary. I think it is fair to say that there are even more with the new one.
The push for this new lectionary began with the 1997 General Convention. For better or for worse, the members and leaders of our Church are no longer shaped primarily by ongoing public Prayer Book worship. Very few congregations, parishes or cathedrals, actually have Daily Morning and Evening Prayer or a daily celebration of the Eucharist. In a way that few foresaw, the decline of public worship among us has only accelerated since the adoption of the present book in 1979. This has consequences for the way new decisions are made about the way we will worship in the future.
The RCL was promoted as being “a truly ecumenical lectionary shared by most Protestant denominations and widely used throughout the Anglican Communion” (web page for the “Revised Common Lectionary” on the web site of the Episcopal Church). But what does that mean? I know a fair number of clergy colleagues in other Protestant denominations who would call themselves “lectionary preachers.” For them, Baptists, Methodists and Presbyterians, that means most of the time, as preachers, they would select one or more verses from one of the lessons appointed on a given Sunday and use those verses as a basis for the sermon. This usually partial passage would be read in worship and the rest would not. On more than one occasion I have heard the psalm referred to as “one of the lessons.”
The normative experience of the Bible during worship in these denominations is fundamentally different from our own – or of the other liturgical churches, such as our brothers and sisters who are Lutherans or Roman Catholics. Moreover, if memory serves, our 1979 lectionary is closer to the Roman Church’s present lectionary than the RCL. More people are Roman Catholic than anything else.
Stay with me; there are even more complications. One example is the RCL decision to adopt the Roman Church’s lectionary for January 1. The Roman Church celebrates January 1 as the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God – and its first and second readings are chosen for that title. The celebration of Mary on January 1 is an ancient commemoration of Christians in Rome, but in the East and among Anglicans since the Reformation, January 1 has been kept as a commemoration of the circumcision of Christ – and our first and second readings reflect this. Now we have a title and collect for the Holy Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ along with lessons for the Roman Church’s celebration of Mary, the Mother of God. We love Our Lady at Saint Mary’s, but I think it’s fair to ask how many of our ecumenical partners in the RCL will be meeting to celebrate the Holy Name of Jesus or Mary, the Mother of God, on New Year’s Day.
Perhaps the greatest single problem with the RCL is the option it gives during the season after Pentecost for a congregation to choose to follow week by week a series of continuous readings from the Old Testament narrative. This is to enable preachers to preach on more of the Old Testament. In fact, this Sunday’s lesson from this series is one of the important lessons in the Old Testament narrative, David’s lust for Bathsheba and his decision to have her husband put in a place during a battle where he would die (2 Samuel 11:1-15). The problem is that we Christians don’t gather in the name of David, but in the name of Jesus Christ. Our focus is on Christ. This Sunday’s gospel is one that will no longer be read in the RCL, namely Mark 6:45-52, where Jesus walks on water, a reading that is paired with 2 Kings 2:1-15, where Elijah is taken up to heaven and the water is parted by Elisha as he takes up Elijah’s mantle. This lesson from 2 Kings will no longer be read unless one chooses the continuous option for Sunday readings in the summer.
Here’s another passage that’s no longer part of the appointed Sunday readings for what will be this year, Sunday, August 9, “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and him who comes to me I will not cast out. For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (John 6:36-40). This is good news that I would like to hear. I think these words are far more important good news than whatever a preacher might make of the story of David, Bathsheba and Uriah. But the RCL is shaped by a Protestant, not a liturgical sensibility.
We take worship and evangelism through worship very seriously at Saint Mary’s. We put an enormous amount of our community’s resources into keeping our church building open and clean. The parish invests in clergy, sisters and staff so that there will be Daily Offices and Daily Masses seven days a week all through the year. More than any other factor, the way in which we worship is shaped by the Prayer Book. We will be loyal to the new edition of the Prayer Book just as we were loyal to the old. I will continue to hope for the widespread return of public worship according to the Prayer Book.
Loyalty to Prayer Book worship was at the heart of the Methodist revival in the eighteenth century – Methodists got their name because they were Anglicans who were “methodical” about the use of the Prayer Book. Prayer Book worship was also at the heart of the High Church tradition before and after the nineteenth-century Oxford Movement. However, we live in the first era of liturgical change since the Reformation when the public Prayer Book worship no longer shapes the common life of our Church. I think we Episcopalians have enormous opportunities to do new and good things, to bring out of our treasure what is old and what is new. Prayer Book worship has a way of calling people back to it. Once its joys and its call get into one’s soul, they don’t let go.
The Sanctus and the Agnus Dei in the Requiem Mass use the same texts as in all ordinaries of the mass - except that in the Agnus Dei, the petition miserere nobis (Have mercy upon us) is changed to dona eis requiem (Grant them rest), and dona nobis pacem (Grant us peace) to dona eis requiem sempiternam (Grant them everlasting rest):
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus,
Dominus Deus Sabaoth;
pleni sunt coeli et terra gloria tua.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis. (reprise)
Holy, Holy, Holy,
Lord God of Hosts;
Heaven and earth are full of your glory.
Hosanna in the highest.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem,
Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, dona eis requiem sempiternam.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest,
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant them rest, eternal.
As you can hear, Maurice Duruflé uses these Gregorian melodies almost without alteration in his own Requiem, although with some lovely embellishment. The Sanctus is sung by the choir of the Cattedrale di Bergamo; the Agnus Dei by the choir of King's College Cambridge.
Here are links to posts on this blog, for all the movements of the Requiem mass:
Here's a great recording of the beautiful Corpus Chrisi antiphon O Sacrum Convivium ("O Sacred Banquet"):
The blurb at the YouTube page says that this was a "live recording of de Begijntjesprocessie [the procession of the Beguines], 19th of October 2008 in the Predikherenkerk, Leuven, Belgium." The excellent singers are Psallentes [www.psallentes.be], a "Belgium based professional chant group with a focus on late medieval chant," and the antiphon itself comes from "a sixteenth century Turnhout processionale (Flanders, ca. 1550)."
O Sacrum Convivium is a Latin prose text honoring the Blessed Sacrament. It was written by Saint Thomas Aquinas. It was included in the Latin Catholic liturgy as an antiphon on the feast of Corpus Christi. Its sentiments express the profound mystery of the Eucharistic miracle: "O sacred banquet at which Christ is consumed, the memory of his Passion is recalled, our souls are filled with grace, and the pledge of future glory is given to us."
Original Latin (punctuation from Liber Usualis):
O sacrum convivium!
in quo Christus sumitur:
recolitur memoria passionis ejus:
mens impletur gratia:
et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur.
Alleluia.
Translation of original Latin:
O sacred banquet!
in which Christ is received,
the memory of his Passion is renewed,
the mind is filled with grace,
and a pledge of future glory to us is given.
Alleluia.
LOVE bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here:'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'
'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them: let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'Who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down,' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.
Here's a video of this piece; as you'll hear, the choir remains silent until the last verse. At that point, all voices sing the Gregorian O Sacrum Convivium in unison, as background while the baritone continues singing his song:
And here's the beautiful (composed) Gabrielli version; the YouTube page says it's "A Venetian Coronation 1595: Communion: O sacrum convivium à 5 (Andrea Gabrieli, 1565)"; Artist Florida Players, Gabrieli Consort and Players & Paul McCreesh":
Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriæ,
libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum
de pœnis inferni et de profundo lacu.
Libera eas de ore leonis,
ne absorbeat eas tartarus,
ne cadant in obscurum;
sed signifer sanctus Michæl
repræsentet eas in lucem sanctam,
quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini ejus.
Hostias et preces tibi, Domine,
laudis offerimus;
tu suscipe pro animabus illis,
quarum hodie memoriam facimus.
Fac eas, Domine, de morte transire ad vitam.
Quam olim Abrahæ promisisti et semini ejus.
Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory,
free the souls of all the faithful departed
from infernal punishment and the deep pit.
Free them from the mouth of the lion;
do not let Tartarus swallow them,
nor let them fall into darkness;
but may the sign-bearer, Saint Michael,
lead them into the holy light
which you promised to Abraham and his seed.
O Lord, we offer you
sacrifices and prayers in praise;
accept them on behalf of the souls
whom we remember today.
Make them pass over from death to life,
as you promised to Abraham and his seed.
Of the composed versions, I love the Faure version best, myself. This was recorded at the Solemn Mass on All Souls' Day, 2nd November 2011 and is sung by the choir of the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, New York City:
Here are links to posts on this blog, for all the movements of the Requiem mass:
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