USCCB has texts for the Nascent Life prayer vigil
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    The Pope wants every parish in the world to do a prayer vigil for "nascent life" (nice term for the unborn! I like it!). He's doing his on the 27th, but apparently US parishes have leeway to do it during Advent or whenever. The USCCB has .doc and .pub files up, for various formats of prayer vigil for this.

    Given that Evening Prayer is included in three of the options, maybe we should have something up about potential music for this?

    Especially since the pope's new exhortation "Verbum Domini" just pointed out "the importance of Gregorian chant"? :)
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    As a hymn is integral to Evening Prayer, anyone may please feel free to use the following (perhaps to the tune of Beach Spring):

    1. At the dawning of creation, God divided light from shade,
    And He made us, male and female. In His image we were made.

    (Refrain) And the life that God created we will honor and defend
    From conception to the heavens; from beginning to the end.

    2. God the Father called a people, and He drew them by the hand
    And He led them through the desert and into the Promised Land.

    3. In His saving Incarnation, Jesus bore a human frame
    To restore the sacred Image hidden by our sin and shame.

    4. And He walked among the people, healed the sick and raised the dead,
    And the poor rejoiced at hearing the appealing words He said.

    5. On the Cross, our gracious Savior Jesus laid His body down,
    Dying as the Man of Sorrows; giving humankind a crown.

    6. And He sent the Holy Spirit for forgiveness of our sins.
    Even now God dwells among us; even now, new life begins.

    7. When we share the Holy Myst’ries in the Eucharistic food
    We are filled with life eternal: Jesus’ Body and His Blood.

    8. When He comes again in glory, all the dead shall rise again,
    And our human eyes shall see Him in the splendor of His reign.

    Kathleen Pluth, cc by-nd
  • Maureen
    Posts: 675
    Kathy, you are so on-the-ball it's not even funny. Yay!

    My archdiocese says the archbishop is going to do Exposition along with all this prayer vigil stuff, and suggests that parishes do the same. He's doing it the 2nd of December, but the suggested date was right after the Holy Day of Obligation (or the Vigil) Mass for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. (Which is pretty shrewd - no extra trip to church and people are already oriented toward Mary and the unborn.)

    You apparently don't have to use the USCCB aids or formats, unless your bishop says so; but the Vatican apparently provided some sort of general outline of what was wanted. The texts are quite nice, though, and sort of meld hope for the unborn (including the unborn dead) with eschatological expectation of Jesus coming, as is proper for the vigil night before Advent. I don't know if this is the regular text for that night or not, because I'm too lazy to get up and look.

    So I'm looking at the USCCB provided worship aids now. The biggest one (Marian procession, Rosary, and Evening Prayer) has a nice color picture of Our Lady of Guadelupe. (Though why they didn't provide a black-and-white line drawing version also, I don't know. I doubt that's going to look good in grayscale.)

    It assumes that you know how to sing the following hymns without needing music:

    Hail, Holy Queen or some other Marian hymn (for which you won't need words, either)
    O Salutaris Hostia in Latin
    Tantum Ergo Sacramentum in Latin
    Holy God, We Praise Thy Name

    Of course, in parishes inclined to do this, people probably do know! I sense that USCCB expects a lot of Spanish-language parishes to choose this option.

    The Spanish formats are exactly the same, as far as a quick glance went, except that they suggested "Bendito, bendito, bendito sea Dios" instead of "Holy God, we praise Thy Name" and obviously they called "Hail Holy Queen" "Salve" instead.

    Oh -- and there's a "rubric format" which seems to be meant for priests running Exposition in addition to all this other stuff. They suggest the Litany of Loreto and "Ave verum corpus" in Latin, in both the English and the Spanish version. So there you go. :)

    Stuff that we could provide:
    Canticle of Mary with antiphon "See the Lord coming from afar, His splendor fills the earth".
    Rorate Coeli or other Advent hymn
    Psalm 141: 1-9, with antiphon "Proclaim the good news among the nations, our God will come to save us"
    Psalm 142, with antiphon "Know that the Lord is coming and with Him all his saints, that day will come with a wonderful light, alleluia"
    Philippians 2:6-11 with antiphon "The Lord will come with mighty power, all mortal eyes shall see Him"

    If people've already got some of this stuff up somewhere, providing links and publicity would be all that would be needed, although I'm sure a CMAA music worship aid that people could just download and go would also be nice. :)
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Yes, this would be very helpful. I'm going to have to point it all myself if no one else has done it. Or maybe we could divide the labor, so to speak?

    JDE
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    BEACH SPRINGS is a great tune, but people may also want to consider CHARTRES if it would be ok with Kathy for them to sing it to this tune, it's a graceful tune that has served for a number of good texts.
    pbeh_saw_you_never.pdf
    41K
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    NAB Psalm 141-142 Pointed
    Psalms141-2NAB.doc
    22K
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Bendito

    SAB with optional Tenor part - was written for SAB so may be sung either way.
    NDHSBendito.pdf
    104K
  • SkirpRSkirpR
    Posts: 854
    I thought I remember seeing a post that had a link to the psalms for Vespers of that night set to Fr. Weber's tones. I believe from the Diocese of Charleston. Can't find the post now. Maybe someone will have better luck?
  • Dan F.Dan F.
    Posts: 205
    Here's Vespers I as I put it together for the 1st Sunday in Advent. I include the Hymn, Antiphons, Responsory, and Benedicamus Domino from the Antiphonale Romanum II (2009). Psalms are in English according to the Grail psalms used in the Liturgy of the Hours. I used Fr. Weber's tone for mode Va, but had to modify the tone for mode II*a myself to fit the English.

    PDF file
    DOC file (must have Meinrad Fonts installed to view and edit)
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