Entrance and Communion Chants for Independence Day
  • GregoryWeber
    Posts: 46
    I am looking for suggestions for the entrance and communion chants for the mass of Independence Day on Friday, July 4, 2025 (ordinary form, U.S.A.).* At our First Friday masses (of which this will be one) we usually sing entrance and communion chants from the Graduale Romanum or Graduale Simplex, either the Latin antiphon with English psalm verses (with a translation of the antiphon printed in the mass program), or one of the English adaptations of GR or GS such as Esguerra or Bartlett's.

    Here are the options (or maybe non-options) I'm aware of:

    A. Entrance antiphon

    1. From the missal p. 892 "Give peace, O Lord, to those who wait for you; hear the prayers of your servants and guide us in the way of justice." set to music (are there musical settings?)

    2. There is a rough match to this in the GR 1974, p. 336, "Da pacem," listed on p. 653 as the introit for the mass "pro pace et iustitia servanda". It has two phrases that match the missal antiphon and two that do not match, so I don't know if it would be fitting to use in its entirety.

    3. I'm leaning toward using the first phrase "Da pacem, Domine, sustinentibus te," from the GR, followed by the entire antiphon from the missal set to the psalm tone, and ending with a repeat of the first phrase from GR.

    B. Communion antiphon

    1. From the missal p. 895 "With you, O Lord, is the fountain of life, and in your light, we see light" (Ps. 36(35):10)

    2. I have not found anything corresponding to this in the GR or GS.

    3. I do not know of any musical settings but could set it to a psalm tone, or maybe something I compose.

    4. For the communion chant, we usually sing psalm verses as specified in GR or GS, but the missal does not give any. Would it be appropriate to add verses from Psalm 36(35), or any other source? (For the entrance chant, we do not need verses, because the priest's entrance is so quick.)

    Am I overlooking any other reasonable choices?

    For the rest of the program, we sing Mass XVIII, the ICEL Gloria as in the Missal. Readings of the day call for the responsorial psalm and alleluia of the day. We will sing hymns for the offertory and recessional. I thank CatholicZ09 for suggesting "Judge Eternal, throned in splendor" in America the Beautiful at Mass.

    *Whether Independence Day should be celebrated at mass at all is not the question I am asking. It has been (more than?) adequately discussed in other threads of this forum.
  • GregoryWeber
    Posts: 46
    Looks like I've found what I was looking for in Fr. Samuel F. Weber's Proper of the Mass, volume 3, numbers 489-504, as linked from MarkB's post.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • lmassery
    Posts: 427
    If it's helpful, I have a hymn adaptation of this at my website https://www.antiphonrenewal.com/entrance-antiphon-hymn-project

    It resembles the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, which uses Psalm 122 as the verse, Thus, the second verse is from Psalm 122. Organ score and image png available at the website. Here's a pdf of the melody
    https://www.antiphonrenewal.com/_files/ugd/a10150_76f4b87fe3ca4070830a0f8576c7bf5a.pdf
    Thanked by 1GregoryWeber
  • GregoryWeber
    Posts: 46
    Looks like I've found what I was looking for in Fr. Samuel F. Weber's Proper of the Mass,


    I think I'll stick with this, although the text he has used for the introit is not exactly the text for Independence Day from the Missal. It is a translation of Da pacem from GR, which is prescribed (GR, p. 653) for the mass for the preservation of peace and justice (MPPJ). But the missal's text for MPPJ is the same as their text for Independence Day, so I guess that's fine.

    lmassery wrote:
    If it's helpful, I have a hymn adaptation of this at my website


    Luke, that is lovely! Prayers and best wishes for your Antiphon Renewal Project!
    Thanked by 1lmassery
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