Seasonal Communion Chant for Lent
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    Last year my choir used Parce Domine as a communion meditation for lent. I would like to offer something different this year. Even in the simplex there are specific texts for the communion proper each weekend (as compared to Advent where you simply have to choose from two options), but my Music Director wants just one that we repeat each Sunday of Lent. Any ideas, or could I feasibly just parse one of the antiphons for the entire season?
  • bkenney27bkenney27
    Posts: 444
    I used Attende Domine frequently last Lent.
    Thanked by 1canadash
  • Andrew Motyka
    Posts: 946
    I always thought these were good.
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    Does it have to be in (Gregorian) plainchant? ... or could it be an appropriate hymn that the choir could sing (at least at first)?
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    Yes, Attende Domine is a good choice.

    Miserere et parce
    Media vita

    The Office Hymns would be another...
    Ex More Docti Mystico (Matins)
    O sol salutis intimis (Lauds)
    Audi Benigne Conditor (Vespers)

    Or one of the Hymns from the Offices of the Instruments of the Passion.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    I don't think of Attende Domine as particularly good as a seasonal communion chant. Selections from Psalm 78 done to a psalm tone might work much better: it is replete with themes of conversion, God's wondrous deeds and his feeding/shepherding of his people. Lent is our Exodus experience, as it were.
  • Aristotle EsguerraAristotle Esguerra
    Posts: 1,186
    The Graduale Simplex recommends Ubi caritas, the offertory for Holy Thursday (OF) as one of the ad libitum Communion chants. Perhaps also consider using some setting of Taste and See with verses 1–2 and 8–21 (Fear the Lord, you his holy ones…)

    (related digression)
  • JPike1028
    Posts: 95
    Thank you everyone for the ideas! CHGiffen, my director would prefer chant for this portion.
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