The second antiphon for the Fourth Sunday in Advent follows:
Ecce veniet desideratus cunctis gentibus: et replebitur gloria domus Domini, alleluia.
Lo! the Desired of all nations will come: and the house of
the Lord shall be filled with glory, alleluia.
The antiphon is based on Haggai 2:8, with the speaker changed from
God to the monks:
"And I will move all nations: AND THE DESIRED OF ALL NATIONS
SHALL COME: and I will fill this house with glory: saith the Lord of hosts".
There is an interesting discussion of the translation on the
blog of an American Benedictine who notes that the key word here is desideratus
and that the Vulgate follows more closely the Hebrew than the Septuagint Greek
in rendering the Hebrew chemddah, (delight, desire).
“Normally, this is understood as a prophecy of 'precious
things' or 'treasure' pouring into the temple, and this is corroborated in this
same verse of Haggai by references to silver and gold, which are obviously
things desired and delightful for those who own them.
In the context of the Advent liturgy, with its emphasis on
the world's longing to be redeemed from the slavery of sin and death, and the
theme of the opening of salvation to the Gentiles, this antiphon is now
referring to Jesus Christ as the One longed-for by all nations.”
Vespers began with Father Andrew chanting 'Deus in adjutorium
meum intende' (O God come to my aid) and everyone answers 'Domine, ad adjuvandum
me festina'. (O Lord, make haste to help me). This is based on Psalm 70:2 and
was originally introduced at the start of prayer in the west by John Cassian in the fourth
century. Saint Benedict had used Cassian’s prayer at the start of most offices
and for tasks such as weekly service in the kitchen.
See Kevin Peterson's blogpost at Compline Underground
We sang Advent Vespers in St Mary's church in Stirling. Father Andrew Kingham officiated
We started the Processional Hymn in the doorway from the
vestry so it sounded distant and had little reverberation from the
surroundings.
This was quite effective in communicating that we were
coming from a distance.
Then we began to enter the nave and by the end of verse 2 the
reverberations sounded better, as you can hear.
By verse three the building was making us sound like chant
experts.
Those Pugin boys really knew how to build churches with great acoustics for Chant.
We processed to the back of the church by way of the north
aisle, then up towards the Altar along the centre aisle. Our voices hardly
changed until we walked past the hand-held phone microphone at verse seven,
when you can hear our individual voices as we rustled by.
We sang the final Gaude in front of the Altar, before
ascending to our places, bowing first to the Tabernacle and then to each other,
after we had climbed the Sanctuary stairs in twos.
Veni, Veni, Emmanuel
The hymn is the Latin original of Oh Come, Oh Come Emmanuel and
lists the seven 'O Antiphons’ used in the days before Christmas. The congregational
Booklet had both the Latin text and the translation of the hymn and described
the ancient origin of the O Antiphons. These dated from the earliest centuries
of the Catholic Faith.
The congregational Booklet also explained that the first
letter of each Antiphon spelled the Latin for 'Tomorrow I will come' (Ero Cras).
Clever, these long-ago Benedictines who arranged the verses
so.
December 23: O Emmanuel
(O God who is with us)
December 22: O Rex
Gentium (O King of the nations)
December 21: O Oriens
(O Dayspring)
December 20: O Clavis
David (O Key of David)
December
19: O Radix Jesse
(O Root of Jesse)
December
18: O Adonai (O
Lord)
December
17: O Sapientia (O
Wisdom)
O come, Thou Wisdom from on high, And order all things, far and nigh;
To us the path of knowledge show, And cause us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Adonai, Lord of might; Who to Thy tribes, on Sinai's height,
In ancient times didst give the law, In cloud and majesty and awe.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Rod of Jesse, free, Thine own from Satan's
tyranny;
From depths of hell Thy people save, And give them victory
o'er the grave.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Key of David come; And open wide our heav'nly home ;
Make safe the way that leads on high, And close the path to misery.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Thou Dayspring, from on high,
And cheer us by Thy
drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, And death's dark
shadows put to flight.
Rejoice ! Rejoice ! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, Desire of nations, bind, All peoples in one heart
and mind;
Bid envy, strife and quarrels cease; Fill the whole world
with heaven’s peace.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, O come, Emmanuel, And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here, Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel; Shall come to thee, O Israel.
The annual Una Voce Mass at The Abbey of St. Mary of
Cambuskenneth was held on the 18th October. Our Schola had assumed
that this was to be the same as the regular Missa de Angelis we pray at the
monthly 5.00pm Latin Mass in Holy Spirit church.
But them Alan explained that the Mass was to be for the
Feast of Saint Luke. So we had to have an online rehearsal using this expert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_Dn8IC7bag
Here is another version
We also had an early practice meeting which had visiting tourists standing
outside and saying how much they enjoyed our singing. We milled about after our practice:
Despite my forgetting to list the Mass in Stirling’s
local Parish bulletins, the Tower was full of worshipers. Refreshingly, most
were younger than me, there was even an impatient toddler.
Here is the Altar before Mass:
I had invited the CountyArchaeologist
who had expressed an interest after accompanying me on my ‘Catholic Stirling’
tour. I gave him a Missal with the Latin and English texts for the
Mass and marked the passages for St Luke, as well as the translation of Adoro
te Devote. But when I looked over to see how he was faring, he had closed the Missal
and was just watching and listening. I later apologised to him that I had been
a very poor host, leaving him alone while I joined the Schola. He countered
that he had enjoyed the Mass and had ‘lost himself’ in the occasion.
AcoLight?
When I was a young altar boy we learned the basic Latin prayers
and where to stand, kneel etc.
Then I was promoted to Acolyte. This involved
carrying one of the two candles when the priest read the Gospel. As a boy, I
saw this as a symbolic action to light the Bible so that it could be read by
the Priest. I was sure that the name Acolyte had something to do with providing lyte.
Now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things … so I know that akolouthos
means an attendant. But deep down, I still think that it refers to the guys with the
candles who give light.
These days, this task can be accomplished using the 'assistive light' function
on a smart-phone, as Martin demonstrates. Father Emerson can read the Epistle despite the gloomy interior of the Tower:
Martin even invented a solemn rubric as he transferred the smart-phone to the Gospel side, moving the longer way and bowing before ascending to the Altar, where he joined the server in the responses. All very dignified, Lex Credendi and all that.
The Schola's voices sounded strong and united as the old stones echoed to our chant.
“Last
Saturday’s Missa Cantata was
celebrated in this modern chapel, which has received seven
major architectural
awards so far. This was the first time the ancient rite of the
Order has been
said in it, and it was probably also the first public
Dominican rite Mass in
the city for almost five decades. Mass was sung by fr.
Lawrence Lew, O.P., who
is assistant Catholic chaplain at St Albert’s, and two
students of Edinburgh
University served as acolytes; the students had ably mastered
in just two days
the intricacies of this role in the Dominican rite. The sermon
was preached by
the Prior, fr. Dermot Morrin, O.P., in which he reflected on
Canon Gray’s
conversion to Catholicism having glimpsed the simple reverent
beauty of the
Mass, and Raffalovich’s love of beauty and the Dominican
charism.
ASchola Gregoriana comprised of
singers from
Stirling-based ‘Cantors of the Holy Rude’ sang the Mass
propers and ordinary
from the Dominican Gradual. They were led by an alumnus of
St Albert’s
Catholic Chaplaincy, James MacMillan
CBE”.
Alan
took the
opportunity to askJames
MacMillan
to be our Patron and he agreed.
Here we are led by our soon-to-be Patron (wearing suits rather than soutanes)
.jpg)
