Propers for the Religious Profession Mass
  • brGregory
    Posts: 3
    Hello, everybody. I'm not a newcomer though I registered only yesterday, but one question made me finally register.
    I'm going to prepare the music for the Religious Profession at our abbey but since I don't have the actual Graduale Romanum, I don't know exactly which Propers we should sing. That's why I'd like to ask some person who has the recent edition of GR to write the incipits of the Propers for such a mass (I mean the mass for the Perpetual Profession). Then I hope to find the pieces in my old edition of Graduale. Please write every option because there could be some innovation with no equivalent in older books.
    Thank you in advance for any help!
    br. Gregory OCist.
  • smvanroodesmvanroode
    Posts: 1,000
    Here are all the options (caution: there are a lot of options!) for "In die consecrationis virginum et in professione religiosorum":

    Introit:
    Dum sanctificatus fuero in vobis
    Expecta Dominum, viriliter age
    Lætetur cor quærentium Dominum
    Tibi dixit cor meum

    Tempore paschali:
    Exaudi, Domini… tibi dixit cor
    Venite, benedicti Patris mei

    Gradual:
    Beata gens
    Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum
    Lætatus sum
    Unam petii a Domino
    Venite, filii, audite me

    Alleluia:
    Domine, dilexi decorum domus tuæ
    Ego vos elegi de mundo
    Lætatus sum
    Lauda, anima mea, Dominum
    O quam bonus et suavis est
    Paratum cor meum
    Quinque prudentes virgines
    Venite ad me, omnes

    Tract:
    Qui confidunt in Domino
    Sicut servus desiderat

    Offertory:
    Confitebor tibi, Domine
    Domine Deus, in simplicitate cordis mei
    Expectans, expectavi Dominum
    Meditabor in mandatis tuis
    Sicut in holocausto arietum

    Tempore paschali:
    Deus, Deus meus, ad te de luce vigilo
    Lauda, anima mea, Dominum

    Communion:
    Amen dico vobis quod vos
    Beati mundo corde (cum ps. 33)
    Ego vos elegi de mundo
    Memento verbi tui servo tuo
    Notas mihi fecisti vias vitæ
    Optimam partem elegit
    Qui mihi ministrat, me sequatur
    Qui vult venire post me
    Quicumque fecerit voluntatem
    Quinque predentes virgines
    Unam petii a Domino

    Tempore paschali:
    Ego sum vitis vera
    Populus acquisitionis
    Si consurrexistis cum Christo

    And, to be complete, those from the Graduale Simplex, "In professione religiosa":

    IN Oculi mei
    PR Quemadmodum desiderat
    AL Beati immaculati
    OF Qui te expectant
    CO Adiuva me
    CO Quærite primum (extra tempus quadragesimæ)
    Thanked by 1brGregory
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    Brother Gregory, here for the sake of discussion are the texts from the Roman Missal.
    The Roman Missal for Religious Profession.Pdf
    356K
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    I am sure you are using the litany for monastic religious profession, with its special invocations and petitions.
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    You might consider adapting the following text I prepared for a solemn profession in Ireland, at which many non-catholics attended.
    solemn profession commentary.doc
    60K
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 864
    To me there is nothing more moving than the surrender to God at a monk’s vow-taking, symbolized by the monk’s singing three times on ascending pitches : Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam. Et non confundas me ab expectatione mea (“Uphold me, Lord, according to your word and I shall live; let not my hope be put to shame”), repeated each time by the monks.

    What does the drama of the Suscipe mean? In pagan Latin, the paterfamilias, the head of the household, was the one before whose feet the newborn child of the household, freeborn or slave, was placed. If the head decided to be the susceptor by picking up the child to hand it to its mother, then the child could be nursed and brought up. If he chose not to lift up the child, the child was left to die.

    Christians who spoke Latin immediately gave to the Abba of Jesus and our Abba the title of Susceptor. By singing the Suscipe, the monk, who had just signed his life away, is begging his heavenly Father to pick him up, to sustain him, to confirm the incredible act of hope that religious profession is.

    In many monasteries, the offertory chant is from Daniel 3:40: Sicut in holocausto arietum, et taurorum, et sicut in millibus agnorum pinguium, sic fiat sacrificium nostrum in conspectu tuo hodie, ut placeat tibi, quoniam non est confusio confidentibus in te (“As though it were holocausts of rams and bullocks, or thousands of fat lambs, so let our sacrifice be in your presence today as we follow you unreservedly; for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame”)—a wonderful response to the self-offering just made!
  • Smvanroode, thank you for helping me so quickly! That's exactly what I needed!
    Paul F. Ford, thank you too. The mass text you uploaded won't be useful for me because the mass will be in Polish, however the liturgical commentary seems to be very interesting, I'll try to translate it in Polish. Concerning the Litany, we have not only our proper Cistercian text but also a particular melody, somewhat simpler than the Roman one.