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December 03, 2006
What did you hear?
First Sunday of Advent edition.
What hymns were sung? What were the Mass parts? How was the Advent wreath handled? What liturgical colors were in evidence? Homily?
So...when did Lo, How a Rose "ere Blooming become an Advent hymn? Especially a First Sunday of Advent hymn?
Just wondering.
Our parish uses the very unfortunate Mass setting - Missa Emmanuel - in which the Sanctus, Eucharistic Acclamation and Great Amen are awkwardly set to "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." It just doesn't work.
The Advent wreat was blessed and lit after the Offertory hymn and before the Prayer over the Gifts, a placement I'd not seen before. (Folks are assuring me this is "by the book." Not exactly. Perhaps you can see it that way if there had been no Offertory procession or hymn and the Communion vessels hadn't been prepared and were sitting on the altar, and the lighting of the Advent wreath hadn't occurred after all of that. So, yeah, technically, "After the General Intercessions"...but that's generally understood to be right after the General Intercessions. Not that I care. I was more interested in the wreath being blessed at the second Mass of the weekend, and visions of my old friend Dorothy kept dancing through my head, since I believe in the parish at which we worked one of the priests insisted on blessing the Advent wreath at every Mass and that drove...Dorothy...crazy!)
Homily? It concerned the circular nature of life, that the readings we had at the end of the liturgical year are echoed in the readings for the First Sunday of Advent. He then segued into the Gospel: Watch yourselves, or your hearts will be coarsened with debauchery and drunkenness and the cares of life, and that day will be sprung on you suddenly, like a trap, and a call for us not to let the busyness of the season distract us, etc.
Rich Leonardi gives us a snapshot of a Cincinnati parish here.
Posted by Amy Welborn | Permalink
Comments
At my parish we too used the Mass setting in which the Sanctus, Eucharistic Acclamation and Great Amen are awkwardly set to "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." As you noted it just doesn't seem to work, but at least it is a move in the right direction and away from things like Mass of Glory or Mass of Creation.
Posted by: Fr. Christensen at Dec 3, 2006 12:12:35 PM
Missa Emmanuel here too.
The Advent wreath was lit right at the beginning of mass, after the entrance hymn and procession. The priest's vestments and choir robes were all purple. The entrance hymn was something that I don't remember hearing before and can't quite remember the title of now, but it seemed like an Advent appropriate song.
Posted by: Bill H at Dec 3, 2006 12:28:14 PM
I blessed the Advent wreath at only one Mass, the 5 pm Mass at the northern parish.
Amy, what you witnessed, as far as the blessing, is "by the book" -- that's what the book of blessings calls for. Maybe I'll do it that way some day, but it seems odd to me.
So I had a mother and son come forward in procession, and did the blessing right away, then they lit the candle, and we were on with Mass. At the other Masses, I merely had someone come forward, during the procession, and light the candle during the opening song.
This Advent, we are trying some English antiphons, from Collegeville: this Sunday it was: "The days are coming, surely coming, the promise is coming, the justice of the Lord."
Positive: it's more in line with what the Missal actually calls for, although it's English, not Latin -- and this week was not actually the assigned antiphon. Negative: it requires handouts, which are a mess in the pews.
People did sing it well.
At the preparation, we sang "Creator of the Stars of Night" in English; God willing, we'll try it in Latin next year.
At communion, "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" -- another hymn I'd like to try in Latin; but I don't know if the hymnal has it that way (pity).
For Advent, we are doing something "educational" at some of the Masses: we are praying the Angelus, either before or after, depending on the time. It works out we're doing it for every one but 9 am. When it comes at the end, we simply do it after the dismissal, but before the closing hymn.
This was my idea: I want to help our parishioners learn some time-tested prayers, so I'm emphasizing different ones through the year.
The closing hymn was "O Come, Divine Messiah."
The Mass settings are Proulx, but not the Missa Emmanuel.
At the 9 and 10:30 am Masses (two different parishes), we had a Rite of Acceptance/Welcome for catechumens and candidates. That meant a short dialogue at the beginning, and a signing of them, and presentation of a crucifix, after the homily, before they were dismissed to break open the Scriptures.
I confess, due to time crunch today, I used Eucharistic Prayer II (I almost never use it for Sunday); I used the Roman canon on Saturday. I did do a shorter homily, found by clicking my name below.
Posted by: Fr Martin Fox at Dec 3, 2006 12:55:39 PM
7:45 am Mass, Immaculate Conception, Durham, NC.
Despite the handouts at the end of the pews for "Missa Emmanuel," I was relieved to hear Proulx's Community Mass for mass parts. This may have been because the early morning mass tends to have a slightly more traditional flavor in hymns: I think everyone else is getting "Missa Emmanel," like it or not. Either that or our choir guy is waiting until later in the advent season to use most of the handout. We'll see. Now if only they'd do Proulx's gloria during a non-purple season sometime! I can count on one finger how many times I've hear that Gloria at a mass!
I pretty much agree with Amy that using the "O come o come" theme for mass parts doesn't seem to work. Don't remember the opening hymn: something I'd never heard before. Psalm was Marty Haugen's version of "To you, O Lord, I lift my soul," which I've always liked tolerably well. "One bread, one body" for Communion, then some Advent-y hymn (16th century, I think) set to Stuttgart (of "Heart of Christ" fame: a tune I enjoy quite a bit) for recessional: not too bad. The pastor's homily was (as I've come to expect) a quite good one on the need to "pay attention." I'm pretty sure Fr. hit all of the readings, plus he talked about St. Francis' theological worldview and what it can teach us. Very nice.
Posted by: Pedantic Classicist at Dec 3, 2006 1:13:44 PM
We also had the Mass settings that were to "O come Emmanuel," which made me upset because a) its awkward as you said, and b) my parish used to (several years ago now) always sing the Mass parts in Latin in the two penitential seasons, to highlight that they were penitential. I always looked forward to that, and now we don't do it anymore. We sang an Alleluia before the Gospel--I don't know when that started, I don't remember doing that last year. We did a Taize chant at the Recessional, and I can't remember the name of the Processional hymn...and I never listen to the Meditation hymn, I'm always too busy praying.
The homily was on the need to practice the virtue of patience, that Christmas does not come until the vigil on the 24th, that we are in a great season of Advent that gets swallowed up by a culture that can't wait for Christmas, then is sick of it by Dec. 26th. He also addressed that this attitude is prevalent in other parts of our lives and causes cultural problems (We don't wait for marriage to live together and sleep together, so therefore we toss marriage like our Christmas trees, because its anticlimactic.).
The Advent wreat was lit before Mass by a server, no blessing, and the candle lit was not the one opposite the rose candle--the altar server was quite young so it may have been a mistake.
Posted by: nab at Dec 3, 2006 1:17:43 PM
St. martin of Tours, Louisville KY.
Traditional hymms, not however, O come O come... .
Chant, Sanctus etc. in Latin.
No Advent wreath (Yay--it's ment for home use!)
Homily on the end times, and Advent as a preparation to commemorate the Incarnation, but also to prepare us for the Parousia.
Smells, Bells, Chant and Glorificatio of God, in keeping with Tradition and the uses of a fine, liturgically oriented Parish.
Deo Gratias!
Posted by: ignorant redneck at Dec 3, 2006 1:21:24 PM
Started with O Come, O Come Emmanuel. The Advent wreath was blessed last night at 5:00 pm Mass. I wasn't there but I know that father did it during the Offertory, because that's went father always does it.
We unfortunately, do neither antiphons, nor seasonal Sanctus, Eucharistic Acclamation or Great Amen. Our music minister seems to believe that it is too difficult for the church community to learn a selection of liturgical music, but has no trouble at all with new hymns. Don't misunderstand me, he is very musically gifted and wonderful with the youth choir, but like many present day music ministers has no formal training in liturgical music.
The homily was on preparation for the second coming, with a call for us to renew our dedication to participating fulling in the liturgy, which is to say pray with conviction, sing with prayerful contemplation and to loudly proclaim our parts of the prayers.
Posted by: TerryC at Dec 3, 2006 1:21:59 PM
nab:
The Advent wreat was lit before Mass by a server, no blessing, and the candle lit was not the one opposite the rose candle--the altar server was quite young so it may have been a mistake.
o-0 WHAT? There's an order in which purple candle to light? Oh lord! I'm twenty-three years old and I never knew that. We've never done it in my house either, only known that it went purple, purple, pink, purple.
Posted by: Eileen R at Dec 3, 2006 1:27:32 PM
Holy Rosary, Indianapolis
Beautiful Indult Mass according to the 1962 Missal. Choir was in top form and the parish was filled. Smells, bells and the proper tone for the start of advent.
My wife went to Holy Spirit at Geist, blue vestments, blue advent candles, enough said.
Posted by: WRiley at Dec 3, 2006 1:32:06 PM
Oh, and this year, at one of my parishes, we replaced the blue, oil-filled candles from years past with real candles which are purple. Alas, the rose candle is pink. Can't have everything.
Posted by: Fr Martin Fox at Dec 3, 2006 1:38:36 PM
Just a couple of comments -- I've been in parish music since I was a child many years ago. Thank goodness we did not use Missa Emmanuel. It shoe-horns in words and destroys a perfectly fine hymn. Unless I am wrong, "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel," (the hymn) is more appropriately sung the fourth Sunday of Advent, because the O Antiphons are sung the week prior to Christmas.
The homily was excellent and based on the readings of being prepared. Our young priest emphasized examination of conscience each evening, Confession, and Eucharistic visits and reception. It was a prayerful Mass.
Posted by: bgb at Dec 3, 2006 1:41:54 PM
I had no idea that Proulx's Missa Emmanuel was so unpopular. I'm very traditional when it comes to liturgical music (if it were up to me, we'd all use the graduale not the 4 hymn sandwich) but I don't mind Missa Emmanuel at all. As Father mentioned above, it's not perfect but it's light years better than Haugen/Haas stuff. My parish will be using it for Advent. I do think it would work better if done a cappella - the organ accompaniement has too many short notes and sounds choppy and bouncy.
Our other hymns were all traditional vernacular from the red Worship hymnal. I'm drawing a blank remembering all the names, but our recessional was Sleepers Awake.
One candle on the advent wreath was already lit before Mass started - possibly it was lit at the earlier Mass this monring. The vestments were purple.
The homily stressed how Advent is a time of preparation and anticipation. Our priest specifically mentioned going to confession as an important part of preparing for Christmas.
Posted by: AJP at Dec 3, 2006 1:45:43 PM
Eileen R--
I've been taught that you do the purple candle opposite to the pink, so that you go around the wreath to do purple, purple, rose, purple. If you do one of the candles next to the rose candle then you can't move in a circle, you criss-cross. It's not huge, but it made me do a double-take.
Posted by: nab at Dec 3, 2006 2:01:37 PM
Ft. Wayne, IN, 8am Mass
Monsignor wore violet and blessed the Advent wreath at the back of the church by the font before the first hymn.
Much like Rich's parish, the Sanctus, Gloria, and Agnus Dei were chanted in Latin and the Kyrie in Greek.
The homily was about being prepared and separating yourself from the world because you never know when Christ will come, or short of that, when your last day on Earth will be.
Posted by: Dan at Dec 3, 2006 2:03:48 PM
The first candle lit should be the one opposite the pink candle. The correct sequence is purple, purple, rose, purple. At two Masses I had to stop the lector from lighting the wrong candle. It was the only one that had been lit, but it still seemed to be a problem. Dan in Ft. Wayne-- please tell me that you all really didn't do a Gloria.
Posted by: Fr. M at Dec 3, 2006 2:35:12 PM
St. Thomas Aquinas Univ. Parish, Charlottesville VA.
7:30 AM Sunday Mass, the Gregorian Schola.
Hymns: "Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending" (Entrance), "Awake, Awake, and Sleep No Longer" (Offertory), Creator Alme Siderum (Communion Meditation--Latin verses alternating with English), and "People Look East" (Recessional). The women of the schola sang the Communion Verse "Ecce Virgo"--yes, we know it is normally Sunday 4--and very nicely.
The Mass parts were those we normally sing, following the old Dominican prctice, on what used to be called "Major Sundays" (those of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Eastertime). In the Roman Gradual these are Kyrie XIV, Sanctus XVII, and Agnus II (when there is a Gloria--Not Today!--it is the Roman Gloria II).
The homily fit well with the "apocalytic" theme of the Gospel and hymns: Father's essential point was that our lives have many tramatic changes and "endings" in this world, and that these make only real sense when we meditate with Faith on the Great Ending that will be Christ's Second Advent and see them in the light of that coming.
Posted by: Quiet Soul at Dec 3, 2006 3:25:22 PM
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Carmel, IN
The celebrant was the pastor in purple vestments. The large Advent wreath in the santuary was already lit. There are small and uncharactertistically crude banners for the O Antiphons on the back wall of the sanctuary.
The homily was by a visiting priest who will be giving the parish mission this week. He walked around everywhere but the ambo and talked entirely too much about himself. I will be skipping his mission.
The processional was "O Come, O Come Emmanuel".The opening parts of the Mass were chanted. We used a Sanctus and Acclamation written by the Music Director. The recessional was "Creator of the Starry Night." Can't remember the other two hymns but the Offertory was something traditional, of German origin.
Posted by: Sandra Miesel at Dec 3, 2006 3:25:55 PM
O Come O Come, Emmanuel, purple robes, Advent wreath, an air of seriousness and simplicity. An impassioned call by our Haitian parochial vicar to respond to Christ, who has come, is coming now in Word and Sacrament and will come in glory at the end of time, by living a holy life. Father mentioned some ways we don't respond. He got everyone’s attention when he talked about how wrong it is to look at others besides our spouses on the Internet FOR OUR OWN PLEASURE. I thanked him afterwards.
Posted by: Judy at Dec 3, 2006 3:28:11 PM
Holy Family Cathedral, Tulsa Okla. 10 am mass
Bishop Slattery was the celebrant, Gregorian mass
Men chanted the Conditor Alme before mass, and the Veni Creator
prior to the Bishops homily, which was about our death and the
end of time.
It was nice to pray to the scent of incense in the Cathedral!
Posted by: Tim Young at Dec 3, 2006 3:52:41 PM
St Thomas the Apostle, Ann Arbor, MI
12:30
The priest was definitely in purple. (he happens to have gorgeous vestments)
There was an Advent wreath over the baptismal font which was blessed and lit after the procession.
Hymns: Some gathering hymn (Let all who gather??), O Come O Come, Emmanuel (Offertory). The reduced choir sang for communion (something I don't remember, and then Laudamus te =))and "Wherever He Leads I'll Go" for the recessional. The reduced choir sang for communion (something I don't remember, and then Laudamus te =)) Not a fan of the last one, it sounds strange on our organ in the big huge church. I also did not see how the first and last hymn were Advent related. It seems so much more complicated to try to find hymns that "match" the Sunday, rather than using the antiphons the church offers us.
At the 12:30 mass they have begun to do all the Propers (except the creed, and the Our Father) in Latin Chant (setting seven in a red missal I've seen in several churches). Last week for Christ the King we chanted all the actual antiphons (in English, but propers still in Latin) for all our singing, except the recessional. That was amazing. The impression was given that they (the priests and the music people) want to phase that in.
There was also a baptism today. I know that it used to be forbidden to marry during Advent, (I don't know if that's still true). Was that ever true for baptisms?
The homily was about the threefold coming of Christ, Advent's purpose of preparing us for the Second Coming as much as for Christmas, and the need to be awake, and vigilant for no one knows the hour or the day. A recommendation to make "New Year" resolutions because today is the beginning of the new year for the Church. Also talked about the dangers of materialism numbing us spiritually, hence the need to awake.
Posted by: rh at Dec 3, 2006 3:58:54 PM
Amy -- "There Is a Rose E'er Blooming" was referring to the first reading, which contains the prophecy in question. Maybe not the best choice, but there is a rationale there.
Opening Hymn: "O Come, O Come Emmanuel"
Psalm: Marty Haugen "To You O Lord I Lift My Soul" (which I too like)
Offertory: organ
Communion: "Take and Eat"
Meditation: "Advent Processional"
Closing: "The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns"
Posted by: Maureen at Dec 3, 2006 4:03:16 PM
Our Lady of Good Counsel, St. Augustine, FL
Tasteful Advent wreath, blessed at yesterday's vigil Mass just before the Prayers of the Faithful (some problems getting it lighted, but finally it lit).
Music last night and this morning:
O Come, O Come Emmanual (we'll do this every week, moving through the verses two at a time)
Psalm from Respond & Acclaim
Gospel Acclamation for Advent by Davis Haas
Offertory was The King Shall Come When Morning Dawns
Mass of Creation for Sanctus, Acclamations and Amen
Agnus Dei - Latin chant (this was new this week - and I think it went over well)
Communion - Psalm 85 Let Us See Your Kindness by Dominic MacAller - this will stay for four weeks
Recessional - People Look East
Slowly but surely, the pastor and I are trying to move away from the hymn sandwich. Maybe arriving at antiphons with a side of hymns?
Posted by: Mary Jane at Dec 3, 2006 4:14:38 PM
My wife went to the chant workshop at the cathedral in Mobile (Alabama) yesterday about which Amy posted a note here a week or so ago. The group showed off their new chanting skills at the Saturday vigil Mass. So except for the closing hymn it was an all-chant Mass. And I have to say that Amy's reflections of a few weeks ago about the superiority of this to the "now let's sing a song" approach were right on. It really imparted a sense of unity to the whole thing.
Posted by: Maclin Horton at Dec 3, 2006 4:16:00 PM
Our Cathedral choir in Mobile, I'm very pleased to report, did the full Propers from the Graduale for Advent, in Latin! This is an enormous step forward in every way, and provides wonderful support to what we are doing in our own parish. We sang the Introit ("Ad te levavi") and the Communio ("Dominus dabit"), and also a post-communion in English, Creator of the Stars at Night. The Schola sang for offertory the Thomas Tallis settings of "A New Commandment" and "Gloria patri et filio..."). No instruments were used. Only voices. It was a beautiful liturgy in every way--and especially uplifting for us, knowing that our own cathedral was at the same time setting a standard for the rest of the archdiocese.
Posted by: jeffrey at Dec 3, 2006 4:19:59 PM
We don't wait for marriage to live together and sleep together, so therefore we toss marriage like our Christmas trees, because its anticlimactic.
That is so incredibly cool! I can't believe a Catholic priest anywhere in America would have the nerve to draw this very pointed--and appropriate--connection. At our parish, references to the norms of the wider culture are always indirect, often so indirect as to be obscure--and therefore sure to pass over everybody's head. This was true in our first Advent homily.
Posted by: ron chandonia at Dec 3, 2006 4:39:25 PM
