Passion Narrative w/sung interruptions
  • OrganistfromOntario
    Posts: 10
    In Canada, many parishes have Novalis: Living With Christ hand missals. During the Passion Narrative on Palm Sunday & Good Friday, they intersperse a short, sung "Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie Eleison". I cannot find any justification for this practice either in the Lectionary or the Roman Missal.

    Where did this come from? Is it permissible? Like I said, I can't find any rubric allowing this.

    Thank you in advance. Pax.
  • CatholicZ09
    Posts: 284
    When in doubt, don’t do it.

    It’s one of those things that crept into the liturgy for the sake of dramatics and “giving the people something to do.” Fortunately, in the U.S., it seems as if many parishes that once did this have ceased, but it’s still a practice in many.

    The Congregation for Divine Worship came out with a document regarding the Paschal season and its liturgies in the late 1980s to give us a framework and clear-up confusion but remained silent on the issue of singing an acclamation/acclamations during the Passion: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/preparation-and-celebration-of-the-easter-feasts-2169
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Perhaps those hadn’t come up yet?

    My inclination is that where the rubrics changed in 1955–57 and in 1970, they changed, but otherwise, the Passion is sung (read) traditionally. My parish never managed to sing it on Good Friday or at the NO on Palm Sunday (they did get a deacon and therefore moved to singing on Palm Sunday for the TLM). But for some years they had enough deacons to read it without audience participation of any kind!

    That said, and as an aside, a sort of living liturgical “abuse” development in the trad seminaries is the combined choir of men singing the chant for the turba portions (and as someone who can reach D5 but who isn’t thrilled about it, I would appreciate the burden being shared among one hundred voices; even a harmonization in SATB that would be simpler than the polyphonic settings could be very cool).
  • FSSPmusic
    Posts: 285
    a sort of living liturgical “abuse” development in the trad seminaries is the combined choir of men singing the chant for the turba portions
    Is the “abuse” referred to the utilization of minor clerics for this purpose or their singing it without harmonization?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    No. As stated, it’s the whole choir singing the turba in plainchant. That was never done AFAICT.
    Thanked by 1FSSPmusic
  • DL
    Posts: 80
    Fortescue says “the choir may sing the words said by the crowd (the ‘Turba’) citing an SRC decision of 17 June 1706 - since he doesn’t mention either polyphony or chant, and I haven’t seen the relevant decree, one could very well envisage that it was done.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Stercky says that it was even allowed for lay people to do this (from the gallery or other part, essentially out of sight) without specifying. However, I don't actually think that it's an abuse to do chant (I was being silly), it's just that the repertoire, especially after R.R. Terry rolls on to the scene, the Victoria above all, became centered on polyphonic pieces, and I don't really want audience participation. However, using chant could be interesting in the right circumstances. I think the problem of using chant is that the range is quite high…
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    The more important question that should be asked is not whether it is permissible for the liturgical assembly to sing a "Kyrie eleison," or a chant such as the Taizé "Jesus, remember me...," or a stanza from "Were You There,?" or something else during the proclamation of the Passion, but whether it is permissible to read the Passion text instead of proclaiming it musically.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw M. Jackson Osborn
  • OrganistfromOntario
    Posts: 10
    @ronkrisman: That isn't really a question, as the Lectionary explicitly says:

    The Passion of the Lord may also be divided into three parts in the traditional manner, the parts being read or sung by three persons. Preferably it is to be proclaimed by a priest or deacons, but in their absence, it may be proclaimed by lectors, the part of Jesus being reserved to a priest.
    Thanked by 1Liam
  • GerardH
    Posts: 461
    @OrganistfromOntario but it was the question you started this thread with.
    I think we're all in agreement that the practice is unrubrical.
  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    Oops - Liam is correct below. I answered in haste.

    I know the acclamations have been around in Canada established by the CCCB for several decades. The permission for them to do so was not in the place I thought it was.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    No. 84 concerns solely the Exsultet, which is not a proclamation of the Gospel itself.

    84. The deacon makes the Easter Proclamation, which tells by means of a great poetic text the whole Easter mystery placed in the context of the economy of salvation. In case of necessity, where there is no deacon, and the celebrating priest is unable to sing it, a cantor may do so. The bishops' conferences may adapt this proclamation by inserting into it acclamations from the people.
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,394
    @OrganistfromOntario: I assure you that I am, and have been, aware of the norm you quoted, but my concern for a chanted Passion remains. Why does the norm state "read or sung" instead of "sung or read"? Does that wording appear to give a preference to reading the Passion? And if a church community has at least three very good cantors who could do a really fine chanted Passion, why would that need to cede to a recited Passion because the priest says he is unable to sing the Christus part? And why does the norm allow cantors but adds "the part of Jesus being reserved to a priest"? Certainly, there is no theological reason that the words of Christ have to be sung or read by a priest. If so, a deacon would not be able to proclaim any Gospel pericope at Mass that contained a quotation of Christ's words.

    In my humble opinion, the present norm could be improved to give preference to a chanted Passion, even if the priest himself is not able to chant the Christus part.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    Well, your framing wasn't quite clear, but sure. Lots of things that are read licitly should be sung, and the rubrics should be improved in this regard.

    I'm not particularly picky, but I do think that there is a vague awareness of turning this into a performance, and there is a general feeling of uncomfyness about turning the things closest to clerics over to non-clerics when it involves conformity to Christ and something ordinarily requiring holy orders. In the case of the Passion, you'd always have a priest. You probably didn't have three separate deacons. You may well not have had two deacons, one to be deacon of the Mass, the other subdeacon or, if you had another cleric (a subdeacon or a minor cleric), then to serve as deacon of the Passion with the deacon of the Mass and the celebrant, thus the traditional practice: the celebrant was always the Christus if he had to supply for one of the three (separate) ministers.

    The current rubrics imply the traditional practice: the celebrant is always the Christus in that case. For my money, if I was in a position where the difference was "sung Passion or no Passon", I'd be most comfortable with a priest who is a weaker singer singing the Christus, but in any case, preserving this means that you retain that it is actually important that the ministers, or at least one of them, be in holy orders. This is doubly important because there is no gospel of the day, not after 1956. The Passion is intended to be the gospel, but not requiring any clerical participation makes that difficult to sustain (although it's in tension with the idea that the narrator could be a lay person…)
  • DL
    Posts: 80
    Worth adding the 1988 CDW Circular Letter Concerning Preparation and Celebration of Easter Feasts:
    33. The Passion narrative occupies a special place. It should be sung or read in the traditional way, that is, by three persons who take the part of Christ, the narrator and the people. The Passion is proclaimed by deacons or priests, or by lay readers; in the latter. case, the part of Christ should be reserved to the priest.


    My hot take is that it doesn’t really matter whether it’s the gospel of the day or not.

    I knew a priest who liked the idea of the divided-out read passion with the congregation shouting “crucify” etc. This liking was maintained in the face of the evidence that some people simply wouldn’t join in; some would do so late because they’d lost their place or their spectacles; some were absorbed in listening; some were illiterate; some were not native English-speakers and not confident to do so, etc etc. This is like the line I read in a ‘60s Catholic magazine speaking of the “new closeness between priest and people” brought about by then-experimental versus-populum celebration. The altar at which this was done was and is eight feet wide, five feet deep, and made of polished granite. Only in the Church can you be closer to someone while standing further away from them, let alone behind something that could stop a tank.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,467
    Only in the Church can you be closer to someone while standing further away from them, let alone behind something that could stop a tank.
    I imagine they were talking of the removal, from the Mass of the Catechumens (Liturgy of the Word), of the rubrics about avoiding looking at the congregation, and using the altar as a bookstand for reading the Gospel. Not about the later aberrations common in the NO.
  • DL
    Posts: 80
    I’m sure they were - though I bet they did use the altar as a bookstand - but of all the words to choose (intimacy? familiarity? rapport? relationship?) they picked the one word which made least sense in plain English to describe what happens when someone used to be physically nearer to you and is now further away behind an immense chunk of stone.
    But we digress…
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    But it does, in fact, matter that the Passion is the gospel. This is according to the logic of both reforms; I set aside the question of the lack of ceremonies and a separate gospel, but to have no portion of the New Testament required to be read (well, sung) by someone who is at least a deacon is a total aberration.

    I’m fine with competent chanters, who are up standing members of the parish or of the local Catholic community, singing these parts (reluctantly, even the Christus) and even if it is a liturgical abuse, if there is also a separate gospel. That is no longer the case after 1955 (although the SSPX retains this anyway, and previously the ICRSP did too).

    And as I said, there is a tension with the narrator being a layperson, but I suppose that this ultimately reveals the weaknesses of the reforms.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
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