"Communion hymn must be about the Eucharist"
  • In May I will be directing music at a friend's wedding at a different parish. The parish priest (who is notably traditional-minded within an OF parish context) and I recently went over the music selection. He was fine with everything I proposed (including Latin propers), but objected to If Ye Love Me as a communion hymn, saying the music sung then must be about the Eucharist.

    I didn't argue and I'm happy to follow his rules, but it seemed strangely literalistic to me. Like what could be the issue with, for instance, singing about loving God and obeying his commandments following communion? Or singing about the Passion, or the Trinity? This rule cuts out a vast repertoire of incredible and appropriate music, and feels like an over-application of a guideline that should really just be intended to exclude terribly inappropriate choices. It did make me wonder if I might be the odd one out or have some defect in formation.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw LauraKaz
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,023
    The choice of communion hymn shouldn’t be restricted to hymns about the Eucharist. The communion chants from the Graduale Romanum for example almost never are about the Eucharist, but usually repeat a verse from the Gospel or use a text from the Psalms. Its purpose is ‘to express the communicants’ union in spirit by means of the unity of their voices, to show joy of heart, and to highlight more clearly the “communitarian” nature of the procession to receive Communion’ (GIRM 86).

    When the communion chant is sung during communion, it helps to make the faithful aware that they are eating from two tables at the same time: the Body of Christ from the altar and Christ the Word from the Gospel. Goffredo Boselli has a beautiful exposition of this in his book The Spiritual Meaning of the Liturgy. School of Prayer, Source of Life (Liturgical Press, 2014), but my copy is now in a box somewhere for the next couple of weeks...

    When the communion hymn is sung after communion, it should be ‘a psalm or other canticle of praise or a hymn may also be sung by the entire congregation’ (GIRM 88).

  • Thank you. So this is at best his personal rule, and he may in fact be under a misapprehension about the liturgical guidelines for the OF. I'll run with it anyway, and maybe have a conversation with him about it later.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw ServiamScores
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,208
    In the OF context, both the Roman Gradual and Missal antiphons designated for Communion are not necessarily directly "about the Eucharist" in an reductive sense.

    Ask if the Magnificat would be a suitable canticle during Communion. (It would be, but he might not think so.) It's what our Lady proclaimed after receiving the Incarnate Word himself.
  • That's a perfect wedge example.
    Thanked by 2Liam tomjaw
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,208
    Many Communion antiphons* are not directly didactic about Eucharistic doctrine or about the Eucharistic ritual; rather, like the Magnificat, they are often about (1) proclaiming the loving-kindness of God, (2) remembering (hey, anamnesis) and giving thanks and praise/doxa (hey, Eucharistic by nature...) for God's extravagant generosity to his people, especially the lowliest of his flock, and/or (3) a foretaste of the beatific consummation of all things in the wedding banquet of the Lamb in the Parousia (hey, was-now-& forever) - et cet. When we sing of such things while receiving Communion, we are united in and as the Body sacramentally and ritually.

    See, for example, from Richard J Clark, director of music of the Cathedral of The Holy Cross, Boston, and for the Archdiocese of Boston: https://www.rjcceciliamusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/CommunionAntiphonsOrdinaryTimeRJC5.21.2020.pdf Run through them and mentally assign the ideas 1-2-3 I summarize above, and you'll have a working sense for the expansive nature of what the Church embraces as appropriate for Communion.

    * Example of all of them together: https://www.youtube.com/live/_na6NnRLOQM?si=-ZbInuvdn8KNyfqn&t=2738 . "The sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for her young, by your altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King and my God; blessed are they who dwell in your house, forever singing your praise."
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 1,038
    Sorry, I have no patience for things of this nature.

    The text for “If ye love Me” is shared by the Communion Antiphon (Missal propers) for the Sixth Sunday after Easter!

    If not per se a sung text, as a Missal Proper, it is at least a text given to be recited in loco of a sung text at Communion.

    If the liturgy spoke solely for itself as it is given to us, through the Proper texts, precious few of these arbitrary rules would survive.

    “We” language? Gaudeamus omnes
    Words put in Jesus’ mouth that aren’t in the Bible and without a “thus saith the Lord”? Resurrexi
    Hymns about us and what we do? Ubi caritas
    Communion chants not directly pertaining to the Eucharist? Nearly all of them

    Why is it bad when left-leaning clergy, so to speak, impose their wills and preferences on the liturgy rather than allowing it to speak for itself, but when conservative-aligned clergy do it, it’s OK?
  • kevinfkevinf
    Posts: 1,196
    If the liturgy spoke solely for itself as it is given to us, through the Proper texts, precious few of these arbitrary rules would survive.


    Arbitrary is an understatement.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 8,972
    The communion chants in the Graduale Romanum for a wedding Mass are Beati mundo corde and Primum quaerite regnum Dei.
    (GR 1974, p. 647)

    As we math students say, Q.E.D.
  • @NihilNominis

    I agree with all of it (and thank you for the additional info about the text), except that under these particular circumstances it would be intemperate of me to "have no patience" with it. He agreed to everything except this - I'm in unicorn OF territory, at least musically speaking. I do take you to be expressing yourself generally about arbitrary criteria, with that said. Here I'll just see if he is open to gaining this perspective later.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,947
    I'm in unicorn OF territory, at least musically speaking.

    This reminded me of todays prayers at Sexta.
    ℟.br. From the lion's mouth, * O Lord, save me.
    ℟. From the lion's mouth, * O Lord, save me.
    ℣. And my lowness from the horns of the unicorns.
    ℟. O Lord, save me.

    You don’t hear about unicorns very often.
  • Interestingly in my book (1956 missel vesperale) cornibus unicornuorum is translated as 'des cornes des bêtes sauvages' or the horns of wild animals.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 8,972
    I like the theory that 'unicornuorum' refers to rhinoceroses.
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 871
    (1) Of the 163 communion songs of the Roman Gradual only eight songs refer to the Body and Blood of Christ. All of these songs were realigned as a consequence of our new lectionary so that, as DOL 4298 says, "chants closely related to the readings should, of course, be transferred for use with these readings."

    (2) Of the sixty-two communion songs of the Simple Gradual, only four songs refer to the Body and Blood of Christ.

    (3) Of the 618 communion songs of the Sacramentary, only sixty-eight songs refer even indirectly to the Body and Blood of Christ.

    Why this infrequency? Because communion is about more than the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood. It is about how this Food and Drink is meant to forgive our sins, restore us to community, and to prepare us for life eternal, among many other things. (O sacrum convivium, in quo Christus sumitur, recolitur memoria passionis ejus, mens impletur gratia, et futurae gloriae nobis pignus datur. “O holy banquet in which Christ is consumed, the memory of his passion is recalled, the mind is filled with grace, and a pledge of future glory is given to us.” St. Thomas Aquinas, Canticle Antiphon for the Second Vespers of Corpus et Sanguinis Christi.)

    Because communion is the fruit of the proclaimed word, especially the gospel, the communion song ideally “quotes” the proclaimed word, especially the gospel. It must be at least seasonally relevant, long enough and interesting enough to bear the weight of repetition. Its style needs to be processional (more inspiring of movement than of meditation) and responsorial (sharing the burden of the text and music alternately, between the assembly and the cantor, choir, or instruments). Its texts need to have a biblical density and richness to it so that it can reflect as fulfillment what the Liturgy of the Word announced as promise.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,947
    No
    Thanked by 1mmeladirectress
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,624
    Most of the propers used at communion are Scriptural, but they need not refer to any other text used that day. This is not even fully the case with the liturgical reform.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 470
    If Ye Love Me is about the Eucharist. Jesus also commanded us to offer Mass and to eat his flesh and drink his blood, which we’re supposed to do out of love for him. Furthermore, one of the effects of receiving communion is that we receive an increase in sanctifying grace, which fills us with the life of the Holy Spirit.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • mmeladirectress
    Posts: 1,111
    "the communion song [...] must be [...] responsorial (sharing the burden of the text and music alternately, between the assembly and the cantor, choir, or instruments)."

    NO.
    This is in my opinion a novelty which is a marvel of shallowness.
    If ever in life there is a time for silence in which one can speak to our Lord and hopefully hear that still, small voice, the time after reception of Holy Communion is it. Don't let that precious time slip away in distraction, by forcing people to sing - walking in line to receive, or afterwards.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • @SponsaChristi

    This is how I see it too. For this priest, I think the standard is whether or not it has the words communion, eucharist, body of Christ, and so on, which is the "strange literalism" I noted.
    Thanked by 2MatthewRoth tomjaw
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 580
    This seems to be an issue mostly with priests of the JP2 generation. While it’s a silly and convoluted “rule” for all the reasons already discussed, I feel some sympathy insofar as many of those priests likely adopted it just to have some hope of avoiding “Anthem” or “Gather us in” or “We are called” or something similarly manifestly inappropriate at Communion.

    I’m too young to recall, but I think “we should sing the Communion antiphon from the Graduale at Communion” wasn’t exactly common wisdom in the seminaries of 1990, and almost certainly wasn’t remotely foreseeable for many Pastoral Musicians in the time before ubiquitous online helps on this site and others. Father may have never been formed toward the ideal, but such a rule, dumb as it seems in 2025, seems a reasonable defensive reflex against even worse options for Communion.
  • SponsaChristi
    Posts: 470
    The problem with a lot of communion hymns is that they aren’t really about communion either and at best border on heretical. Even in our common language we are heretics. We don’t worship “Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament/Eucharist/etc.”. That’s consubstantiation. That’s what Lutherans believe. Transubstantion is “We worship the Blessed Sacrament because it is Jesus”.
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 751
    @Chant_Supremacist

    There is a collection of Eucharistic Hymns published by Bishop Joseph Schrembs of Cleveland, Ohio. This collection embodies hymns from the Diocesan Hymnal Parts 1 and Parts 2. Some of the music for the hymns was composed by Bishop Schrembs and harmonized by other musicians. Copies of this hymnal are hard to find if not rare. It was published by J. Fischer & Bro., in 1935. The hymnal carries a NIHIL OBSTAT & IMPRIMATUR of Patrick Cardinal Hayes, Archbishop of New York.

    It contains Communion Hymns, General Eucharistic Hymns, Latin Eucharistic Hymns, a collection of Masses & Vatican Chants, and a number of Processional and Recessional Hymns that were widely used - in all about 80 pages. If interested PM.
    Diocesan Hymnal Covers_Page_3.png
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,947
    @don9of11

    Can we see a table of contents?
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 751
    @ francis and interested parties

    Here is the table of contents from The Eucharistic Hymnal by Bishop Schrembs. This is a black and white scan to keep the file size to a minimum.
    Index 1935 - Eucharistic Hymnal - Schrembs.pdf
    1M
    Thanked by 2oldhymns CHGiffen
  • GambaGamba
    Posts: 580
    Even in our common language we are heretics. We don’t worship “Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament/Eucharist/etc.”. That’s consubstantiation.


    What then of the Divine Praises?
    “Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.”

    It seems to me that such language is simply speaking of Our Lord’s presence in a particular “location”. We say similarly that he is in heaven, in the glory of God the Father, in the poor, in the midst of the two or three gathered in his name.

    Maybe the clearest example would be the Alleluia of Easter II: “ Cognoverunt discipuli dominum Jesum in fractione panis.”

    It is a heresy to say with Luther that both bread and Jesus are in the Host. But I do not see how it is incorrect to rejoice in knowing that the Lord is where he promised to be for us: in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.
  • PhilipPowell
    Posts: 122
    Even in our common language we are heretics. We don’t worship “Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament/Eucharist/etc.”. That’s consubstantiation.


    It seems to me that such language is simply speaking of Our Lord’s presence in a particular “location”.


    I agree with Gamba. When we say “in the Blessed Sacrament” we are speaking specifically of the Sacred Species reposed in the tabernacle.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores