Monastery of the Holy Cross

Silence in the City

Prayer and Gregorian Chant

“The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art.” So begins the chapter on sacred music in the document Sacrosanctum Concilium, of Vatican II. Above all, this reference to sacred music means Gregorian chant, which enjoys ‘pride of place’ in liturgical celebrations. While our celebration of the Divine Office utilizes English translations of traditional chants, at Mass, we sing God’s praises with the contemplative melodies of Gregorian chant, melodies whose origins are found in the eighth and ninth centuries in Europe and whose inspiration surely derives from the Apostolic Church.

Singing these chants forms us to be men who are lovers of the Word, lovers of ancient and proven traditions of spirituality and lovers of peace and inner stillness. This page features recordings of our renditions of chant, accompanied by theological reflections on the teachings of these chants.

The following books may be referred to in the reflections:

The Graduale Triplex (GT):book containing the chants of the Mass as well as the earliest notations of these chants, indicating rhythmic and rhetorical nuances.
The Chants of the Vatican Gradual (CVG) by Dom Dominic Johner, OSB: this ‘guide to the appreciation of chant’ gives musical and theological reflections on the chants, but was written in 1928, prior to the discoveries of the more recent science of semiology, the study of the more ancient notation of chant. Our reflections here aim to take into account some of this more recent work of scholarship while remaining indebted to Dom Johner’s earlier expert work.

Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Communion: Introibo

I will go in to the altar of God, to God who gives joy to my youth.

We use this communion at other times during the year because of its simplicity, but also because of its beauty. The text is a familiar one. In the older version of the Roman Rite, this was the prayer of the priest as he approached the altar at the beginning of Mass. We have in our sacristy, where we gather before processing in to Vespers, a window bearing this text (click on the picture of the window to hear this chant).

The opening interval of a rising fourth gives a resoluteness to the text: I will enter! This strong and joyful beginning receives new impetus from the second phrase: to the altar of God, by the raising of the melody to one note above the highest of the previous phrase, and a certain melodic tension is engendered by the echo of the perfect fourth transposed from the opening sol-do to la-re in the word 'Dei'. This tension is warmly resolved at the end of this first phrase.

This exuberance of leaping fourths gives way to the more sober and stout linear movement of the second phrase, in which the mood shifts a bit from eager anticipation to the tender reassurance of past favors from the Lord. As Dom Johner puts it, "The altar is the inexhaustible spring of joy and of strength for all [CVG 106]." We might add that it is the spring of everlasting youth as well.