Short sung after Communion Meditation
  • ruthruiz1
    Posts: 2
    The Rector of our Cathedral has asked me to research and provide him with the name of the short song (usually one or two lines) that was sung following the Communion Meditation. He said this was part of the music liturgy many years ago and although I've looked at many resources, I can't find any reference to this music. Could anyone help me with this? Many thanks!
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,156
    Perhaps he means the (proper) Communion antiphon?

    See here.
  • lmassery
    Posts: 404
    What Cathedral are you at?
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    In the Sarum Use the communion antiphon was sung after communions, during the ablutions.
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,704
    Also a look at an older Liber, will suggest that the Communion Antiphon should be sung after the other music sung or played during the Communion of the people.
  • ruthruiz1
    Posts: 2
    We sing the three Propers, Introit, Offertory and Communion, followed by a Communion meditation, if necessary. He recalls many years ago, after the celebrant was seated after Communion, a song that was just a few lines, was sung, but he doesn't remember what it was called. I am the Music Director at Sacred Heart Cathedral in the Diocese of Gallup, New Mexico. Thanks for your comments.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,767
    I could imagine future archeologists so describing our parish's Regina coeli custom.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,951
    That explains what I have heard in the older form in Europe. Thank you, tomjaw.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    In the old days, i.e., through most of the '50s, the Communion Antiphon was sung, without psalm verses, only at the completion of Holy Communion, when the priest covered the vessels with the veil.

    So that may be what ruthruiz's rector is remembering.

    Under the current rubrics (both in the Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form of Mass), it's sung, preferably with psalm verses, during the reception of the Sacrament by the faithful. It can start when the priest receives.

    I can see good reason for making an exception and singing it at the end sometimes: e.g., if you had a choral setting of the antiphon text.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen eft94530
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I did not realise that. Such was Sarum usage. Actually, I think that singing the communion antiphon at the end of communions is a more effective meditative act for singers and listeners than singing it before. Something, liturgically, is, in fact, needed there; and the antiphon is the perfect thing. Then comes the post-communion collect. A beautiful continuum.
    Thanked by 1dboothe
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,157
    One reform in the 1958 music document was to place the antiphon at the start of Communion, so that it might be sung with verses (book) to accompany the reception of Holy Communion.
    Thanked by 3M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen eft94530
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 1,951
    Mhm, Chonak, that makes much sense.

    I wonder if for better or worse it was sung at that point because then they didn't need to account for there being (or not) a general Communion.

    Of course now in the revised form it is to be sung when the priest receives Communion, but there is the problem of the choir receiving as well as the fact that requires even more music to mind the gap, so to speak.

    Really, you just have to be a good organist who can improvise to cover in-between the hymn or anthem before the Communion antiphon is sung.
    Thanked by 2chonak eft94530
  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 139
    In wonder if a Litany of Thanksgiving might be what was recalled. Starting around 1965, J.S. Paluch (World Library Publications--WLP) included a short Litany in their periodical missals. I believe it was dropped around 1969, 1970.
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