Gregorian Missal Download
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    It means: for people who have never seen the chant propers before, this book presents the Church's model for what should be sung at Mass, all in context. For some folks, it's a revelation.

    It gives the chant propers for each Sunday (introit, gradual, offertory, communion), presented in sequence, with the priest's prayers and the Scripture references for the same Mass.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    So, what happened to propers, anyway? The music director here probably has no idea what the things are. When I called the ordinaries "ordinaries" she was like, "what?" and I had to call them "Mass parts" for her.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,848
    Mass Parts - Dismembered limbs of the liturgical corpus?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    For me, the propers represent coherence, clarity, and freedom.

    I was explaining to someone how much I enjoy the Communion antiphon, and she rather suspiciously said, so, the Church is telling you what to think. But it's not quite that. The Church is giving me something to think ABOUT, which is a much different thing. By focusing the attention on one aspect of the saving mysteries, I can begin to meditate with freedom. It's not didactic, but I learn.

    That is my experience of the individual propers. And then, the GM unites the propers, laying out the day's special contact with the mysteries, giving the Mass a shape. Again, they are not didactic--it's not like being regimented by a "theme." There is a welcoming and an invitation to prayer and everything is ordered well.

    I find the propers very light and joyful.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Jam, I learned that I want to sing the propers, and pray what the Church invites you to pray about ,as Kathy says, rather than singing and following the individuals' prayers, such as David Haas, Haugens' as if they are the represnetatives of our prayers in the Mass.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    I should add that two of the things that can be "caught"--as distinct from
    "taught"-- by the propers are a) correct relationships, both human-divine and ecclesial, and b) the elevation of desires. in other words, the propers form the mind for life in the reign of God. And that's just the words! The singing, and the ecclesial presence brought about by singing, form the whole human being: body, soul, and spirit.
  • miacoyne
    Posts: 1,805
    Thanks, Kathy. You said it beautifully. Everything makes sense when I started to focus on God, God only, during mass, especially in music. Focusing on God, very simple, but how easily we forget. So much distractions, we loose our focus.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Query: Is there any great body of English chant propers anywhere around? Or do you just have to find particular ones from particular places? I think that liturgy in the vernacular is a good idea, and what all these folk want. Why not? What we need is a good mix of English chants with our beautiful inherited Latin ones. I've been studying Latin for a year but with a chanted proper, I need something printed and in front of me if I'm going to understand it and pray with it. I guess having worship aides and stuff is fine, but there's something awesome about hearing a chant in your native tongue and being able to memorize it after just a few iterations, hear it in your head at random points for the rest of the day, and basically have God's word following you around. It's easy to be immersed in the Word if you hear a lot of it in English very often. So yeah, just wondering where some English chant propers might be hiding out.

    Seeing the Mass laid out the way it's always meant to be is really cool, actually.
  • marymezzomarymezzo
    Posts: 236
    English chant propers: The Anglican Use Gradual and the American Gradual. AUG is available for download on the cmaa site; about half of the American Gradual may also be downloaded here. I am grateful to cmaa (and the books' authors/editors) for these resources . . . I use both with my small chant schola as well as the Latin propers from the Gregorian Missal.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Awesome! thanks. I got that too, now.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    Beautifully put, Kathy.

    (Save the Liturgy, save the World)
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    don't forget the Rice Gradual
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    One more yakkity yak from me:

    I think that the most important problem with the current hymnals is not a) heresy (although yes, blatant heresy is sometimes found) nor is it b) horizontalism per se. I think that the most important problem is the effort that some hymn writers make to change the relationships of worship. These are not relationships governed by some ideology but are GIVEN. They can be easily found in the Scriptures and in the Fathers. And they are really rather simple. We are a people standing before God because of the grace given through the two divine missions: the Father's sending of Jesus and the Holy Spirit's sending from the Father and the Son. We've been transferred into a kingdom of light and grace and are being conformed to our future heavenly citiizenship and elevated by constant, ongoing gifts of grace. Meanwhile, we sin.

    That's pretty much it.

    The propers and the dialogical prayers pass a true understanding of these relationships by giving us words to say that are appropriate to these relationships. They are not didactic but formative. Contrast the subtlety of this learning process with the hammering didacticism of the most popular "songs for the time of gathering."

    When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he said, "Pray like this." He gave them words to say. The Church does the same thing, in the given liturgical texts, but many seem to want us to pray another way, because, I suspect, they want to re-found the relationships on principles that are not biblical but come from some other source. Perhaps these sources are just exactly right for developing the principles of relationships in the civic world, maybe so, I don't know. But are they right for worship? No. The principles for worship come from the inspired sources.
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,199
    "We are a people standing before God because of the grace given through the two divine missions: the Father's sending of Jesus and the Holy Spirit's sending from the Father and the Son."

    Kathy,

    I think you are on the right path, but your statement above implies a verticality that is often missing. Relationships in the world (i.e. civic,friendships,etc) imply an immanence that is necessary for the question. Standing before God brings us to a vertical relationship that God makes both transcendent and immanent (notice: GOD makes). The vertical element is what is missing.It is both transcendent and immanent that is the long tradition that forms us. Gerald O'Collins once said that an imbalance in those two is what creates heresy.

    Kudos for your yakking. I could only wish for more.
  • rogue63
    Posts: 410
    OK, can someone help? I was absolutely thrilled to see this download available, but I've tried both links on three different computers and it never works. Two of them have XP, and my laptop has Vista. How can I get this wonderful darling Gregorian Missal into my digital hands? The download always stops after 2 or 3 MB.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Rogue, download the actual file to your hard drive if you can, rather than opening in your browser. Often when I try to open large PDFs in the browser, the file freezes up.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,986
    "When the disciples asked Jesus how to pray, he said, "Pray like this." He gave them words to say. The Church does the same thing, in the given liturgical texts, but many seem to want us to pray another way, because, I suspect, they want to re-found the relationships on principles that are not biblical but come from some other source."

    I don't know how old you whippersnappers are, but I remember all of the Vatican II changes from my teen years. They did not "seem" to want to pray another way, they deliberately wanted us to pray differently. Many considered the previous attitudes and approaches to God to be wrong, and worked to change them. In many ways, they succeeded. All of what we are trying to fix did not happen by accident. It was deliberate.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,513
    Scholarly types might enjoy this article: http://faculty.caldwell.edu/lpristas/novaetveteraweb.pdf
  • janetgorbitzjanetgorbitz
    Posts: 968
    Rogue

    I initially had the same problem (it would get about 3/4 finished and stop)... but kept trying with the 1st link and it went through... don't know if volume of traffic plays a role or not, but it came through fine after a few tries... I also have vista on a laptop (using router).
  • David Sullivan
    Posts: 355
    Jeffrey, Thanks very much for posting this. An important move forward, especially with the cooperation of Solesmes. Good work!
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    posted at last with some fanfare. we never went down! so it worked.
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Unthinkably awesome!
  • urli
    Posts: 35
    As a non-American I chuckled at the first part of that post, Jeffrey!!

    I wonder if Solesmes might release the Latin-Dutch version...
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    Any download statistics (e.g., locations, counts) to share?
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