Dies Irae as a sequence on All Souls on the Novus Ordo

ARC_Jols

I read from a priest on twitter that the CDWDS published in the notitiae a permission to use the Dies irae as a sequence for all Souls on the Novus Ordo.

Does anyone know if this is true and if so, which notitiae is it? The priest mentioned it was published in the 70s.

ServiamScores

In the missal of 1970, there is a footnote that says,

On this day, any Priest may celebrate three Masses, observing, nevertheless, what was established by Benedict XV in the Apostolic Constitution, Incruentum altaris sacrificium, August 10, 1915.

That document says, in part: (google translate)

I. On the day of the solemn commemoration of all the faithful departed, it is permissible for priests to celebrate three Masses throughout the Church, provided that one of the three is freely chosen, with the possibility of receiving the offer; the second Mass, without any offering, is to be dedicated to all the faithful departed; the third is to be celebrated according to the intention of the Supreme Pontiff, as specified above.

II. We confirm with Our authority, however necessary it may be, what our Predecessor Clement XIII granted with the Letter of May 19, 1791, that is, that all altars on the day of the Solemn Commemoration were privileged .

III. The three Masses of which we have spoken are to be celebrated according to the order established by Our Antecessor Benedict XIV of happy memory for the Kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. Anyone wishing to celebrate a single Mass should celebrate the one indicated in the Missal in the commemoration of all the faithful departed . This same Mass can be celebrated with singing, with the faculty of anticipating the second and third.

It would seem to me, therefore, that if the modern missal, specifically refers to this act of 1915, which obviously refers to the older rite, that the chants that form the structure of the older rite would therefore be permissible.

FWIW, I've sung the dies iræ in full at a N.O. mass before (at the request of the priest).

ServiamScores

Here's a link for a google translation of the italian:
https://www-vatican-va.translate.goog/content/benedict-xv/it/bulls/documents/hf_ben-xv_bulls_19150810_incruentum-altaris.html?_x_tr_sl=it&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en-US&_x_tr_pto=nui

CharlesW

Your permission to use it extends, for any practical purpose, on the degree to which your pastor will allow you to use it.

NihilNominis

From W. Dauffenbach's article on the Requiem Mass in the Caecilia of May, 1927. I tend to feel this way:

ARC_Jols

So understand (and support) this subtle arguments that one way or another appeal to tradition.

The issue is that in my particular case I need something a bit more explicit, an actual positive law like the one referred by this priest.

So thats why I'm looking for the supposed Notitiae that includes this permission.

trentonjconn

I am fairly certain it is not licit to sing the Dies Irae as a sequence in an OF context. You might be able to sing it during offertory or communion after the proper antiphons?

Andrew_Malton

I find it inconceivable that the footnote in the Missal of the Montinian rite is intended to allow celebrations according to the Roman books in use in 1915. I think it refers to I. above only. Note that privileged altars (cf. II above) haven't been a thing for well over fifty years.

I'm also certain that the sequentia is only allowed in the Montinian rite as specified in its Lectionary, and that is Easter, Pentecost, Corpus Christi, and Our Lady of Sorrows.

Surely if the Dies Iræ had been permitted, revising the rubrics, it would be reflected in subsequent editiones, not just buried in a notitia somewhere. And it isn't, so it wasn't.

Previous discussion here: https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/12376/sequences

(Montinian rite means novus ordo means “ordinary form”.)

irishtenor

My understanding is the same as Andrew Malton’s. Permissible sequences in the NO are Pentecost, Easter, Corpus Christi, Our Lady of Sorrows. Dies Irae could be an alius cantus aptus somewhere else, though.

I think an excellent argument could be made for expanding permission for this sequence in the NO, though I don’t think that exists currently. Also, would it not be a little weird to do Alleluia and Dies Irae? I think Tract + Dies Irae would be better, regardless of liturgical season. Just thinking out loud...

Andrew_Malton

In the Montinian rite (also in the venerable Eastern rites) the Alleluia is used during funerals,. Souls’ days, and similar. (Of course the Byzantine rite continues to sing Alleluia even in Lent.). It would indeed be weird to sing the Dies Iræ in those rites: and they don't.

In the Roman rite we do, though. And we sing Réquiem ætérnam at funerals.

Caleferink

My understanding is the same as Andrew Malton’s. Permissible sequences in the NO are Pentecost, Easter, Corpus Christi, Our Lady of Sorrows.

For the record, the Easter and Pentecost Sequences are required, not just permitted.

I think Divine Worship: The Missal (for ex-Anglican Ordinariates) prescribes a Tract instead of the Alleluia for All Souls Day and all Masses for the Dead, and permits (but does not require) the Dies Irae. It's one of the places where DW diverges from the Ordinary Form in favor of the more traditional practice. It also does not allow for white vestments, but prescribes black or violet only. Unfortunately, those of us who don't get to use DW have to do the Alleluia on All Souls Day and do not get to do the Dies Irae (at least in its appropriate spot in the Mass).

irishtenor

Yes, @Caleferink, Victimae paschali laudes and Veni Sancte Spiritus are obligatory.

ServiamScores

Lack of inclusion as “ordinary” is not necessarily the same thing as “suppressed”. One is passive, one is active. Sequences, while not the norm, are not “suppressed” per se, are they? I’ve never heard of such a decree. Clearly some were retained, as acknowledged above.

NihilNominis

My question still remains: why would you want to?

I love the Dies Irae, but this has always been one snip of the scissors that has made sense to me, as per that article that I cited above.

trentonjconn

I'm not sure the attitude of "what isn't explicitly banned is permitted" is necessarily how one should approach rubrics...

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Trenton,

The principle is, actually, IF it has been lawfully permitted in the past, over a long period of time and in continuous use, then it can not be implicitly banned.

davido

Have sequences ever been officially suppressed? Can someone show documentary evidence for their suppression?

Non-inclusion in a liturgical book doesn’t equal suppression.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

(I make the distinctions I do in my earlier post because Communion in the Hand was introduced contrary to the law, ostensibly recovering a practice long abandoned, and was then made lawful in spite of the fact that it was phased out for a bookshelf full of good reasons. Girl altar boys were introduced on the arguments that 1) we live in the modern world; 2) the Second Vatican Council....; and 3) it doesn't say they're forbidden, so they must be allowed.)

MarkB

Gets some things wrong about when the sequence is sung in the unreformed Mass, but this is what I found in a diocesan newspaper addressing the question:

Q. I would like to have the “Dies Irae” played at my funeral Mass (which I hope will be in the distant future). Is this permissible? (Towson, Md.)

A. The “Dies Irae” (literally, “day of wrath”) is a 13th-century hymn that served until 1970 as the sequence prayer (following the Gospel) in the standard Catholic funeral ritual. It had been set to soaring and majestic music by such composers as Mozart and Verdi.

That hymn was removed from the “ordinary form” of the funeral ritual in the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council.

In its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, the council had called for the funeral rites of the church to “express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death.” The “Dies Irae” foretells the second coming of Christ as the frightful “day of wrath and doom impending … when the Judge his seat attaineth and each hidden deed arraigneth, nothing unavenged remaineth.”

A leading figure in the postconciliar reforms, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini listed the “Dies Irae” as one of the texts that had “smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages,” had “overemphasized judgment, fear and despair” and so had been replaced by “texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.”

It should also be noted, however, that the “Dies Irae” still remains in the now-“extraordinary” 1962 form of the Roman funeral rite. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued an apostolic letter (“Summorum Pontificum”), which specified rules for offering Mass according to the 1962 Missal (in the form known commonly as the Tridentine Mass, celebrated in the Latin language).

Funerals are one of the occasions on which the letter states that “for faithful and priests who request it, the pastor should also allow celebrations in this extraordinary form.”

This presumes that the priest asked to celebrate the funeral Mass is familiar with the Latin language and with the rubrics of the earlier rite. And even if the current “ordinary” form of the Roman Missal is used for the funeral Mass, I suppose that technically the “Dies Irae” could still be inserted, not as a sequence hymn following the Gospel, but perhaps as a post-Communion meditation.

I would caution, though, that there are multiple goals in a funeral liturgy: not only is its purpose to pray for the deceased and to honor his wishes, but it is also celebrated for the consolation of the bereaved family and the other mourners. All of that should enter into the choice of hymns and their texts.

Source: https://catholicphilly.com/2012/11/catholic-spirituality/including-an-ancient-hymn-at-a-funeral-and-an-unconventional-mass/

CCooze

At a very recent NO funeral Mass for one of our deacons, he had specifically requested the Dies Irae be sung.
Father (celebrant) sang it from his seat, following (if I remember correctly) his homily, before rising to begin the offertory.

Liam

Is the Dies Irae included as a sequence in the current Graduale? That would seem to be the most likely point of licit entry as a permissible sequence qua sequence in the OF.

chonak

The Dies irae wouldn't really be fitting as a communion meditation, I think, but perhaps more as an added chant after the offertory antiphon (or song, etc.)

(And to answer Liam's question, it's not in the 1974 GR.)

smvanroode

While the Dies irae isn't sung a sequence before the Gospel in the ordinary form of the Roman rite, it can be sung as a hymn during the last week per annum at the offices of the Liturgy of the Hours.

That is an apt place, by the way, as the last weeks of Ordinary Time have an eschatological character.

Liturgical law is generally prescriptive and not proscriptive. It tells us what to do and doesn't usually forbid things explicitly. If the 1970 rubrics don't mention the Dies irae as a permissible sequence, one shouldn't sing it as such. One shouldn't even try to find loopholes like references in footnotes in Noticiae, just in order to justify a practice of which you know deep down that you're not supposed to do it, wether you like it or not.

CharlesW

A huge problem is the number of folks who look at the rubrics and say, "yeah, we know what you are saying but it isn't the way we want to do it." That is a genuinely slippery slope.

Salieri

If it was in fact necessary that Dies Irae be removed from the Requiem Mass, it should have been moved to be the sequence for Christ the King, removing the "pie Jesu", and perhaps adding the doxology as in the Liturgia Horarum, rather than relegating it to non-use in the almost-never-publicly-celebrated Office, and thus removing it from the memory of the faithful.

However, I'm not sure that it was a good idea to remove it: It served as a good memento mori, especially on All Souls' Day. The old Requiem going as it does from the Introitus to the Dies Irae to the In Paradisum, covers the gamut of human emotions surrounding death, and far from being 'morbid' as some claim, is truly soothing and cathartic: Even from a literary standpoint it is as much a masterwork as any great drama. By comparison, funerals in the New Mass always seem more like a treacly poem from a Hallmark card.

But then again, since everyone on planet earth except Hitler and Abp. Lefebvre is guaranteed to go to heaven, there's no need to do anything at funerals except sing Aunt Lucy's favorite songs, and there's certainly no need to worry about the general or particular judgment, since God is so merciful, and because a loving God would never damn anyone to hell, why should the Dies Irae (or any of the old Requiem Mass) be sung? (Purple or not, you decide.)

fcb

A leading figure in the postconciliar reforms, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini listed the “Dies Irae” as one of the texts that had “smacked of a negative spirituality inherited from the Middle Ages,” had “overemphasized judgment, fear and despair” and so had been replaced by “texts urging Christian hope and arguably giving more effective expression to faith in the resurrection.”

I don't count myself a Bugnini-hater, but this is just foolish, and would seem to betray either an extremely shallow spiritual life, or an extremely low estimation of the spiritual lives of the People of God. I could see making it optional, but why ban it?

CharlesW

I often had a soloist sing one of the many beautiful "pie Jesu" settings at funerals. It was a little more adaptable than the "dies..." the "Pie Jesu" was good for communion while the family, who had mostly left the church and hadn't attended in 20 years, looked around at the building without a clue as to what was happening. It also filled space so there was no room to insert the favored Haugen/Haas ditty.

Jeffrey Quick

If the Dies Irae was an accretion to the funeral mass, when did it accrete? And since it's only a century or two younger than the other sequences, shouldn't those be deprecated as well? Trent did a pretty thorough housecleaning of sequences; this was one of the few to make the cut. So we might well ask "Why?" If it's out-of-keeping with the old Mass, then what are we to make of the Libera me, which is every bit as terrifying as the Dies Irae. Domine Jesu Christe is not exactly cheery either.

I'll admit to being prejudiced; to my mind a funeral Mass without the Dies Irae is simply not a funeral Mass (and all that implies about the Rite of Paul VI).But I don't know what surprises me more: some of our sounder guys supporting creeping Bugninism/archeologism, or the Caecilia of 1927 (!!) indulging in proto-Bugninism.

ServiamScores

The principle is, actually, IF it has been lawfully permitted in the past, over a long period of time and in continuous use, then it can not be implicitly banned.

Chris, you hit the nail on the head. Thank you for articulating this more clearly than I did the first time around.

ClemensRomanus

We use it as a sequence in the OF. Our pastor Judy’s cites mutual enrichment. No one argues.

Caleferink

I'm not sure the attitude of "what isn't explicitly banned is permitted" is necessarily how one should approach rubrics...

In fact, it isn't. While I'm no liturgical law expert, my understanding is that liturgical law is generally prescriptive, and so unless something is explicitly permitted, it's not allowed (whereas much secular law in the west is proscriptive - if it's not explicitly banned, it's permitted). There are some "thou shalt nots" in the liturgical books, but generally I think they're for clarity purposes, to eradicate abuses that had been happening.

Example: holding hands at the Lord's Prayer, or at least assuming the "orans" position like the celebrant. I hear the argument, "The Missal doesn't tell the people what to do with their hands there, so we can do whatever we want - local custom." True, the Missal doesn't prescribe hand postures beyond those of the priest, which means that only the priest is to assume that posture.

ServiamScores

Caleferink, I don't think that anyone is arguing that lack of prohibition means cart blanche. That's certainly not how I approach the liturgy.

My observation, better articulated by Chris, was that if it was immemorial custom (and was in fact, "on the books") then its simple omission from the new missal is not tantamount to a prohibition, per se. Now I understand we shouldn't "mix rites" and just because the maronites do something doesn't mean we should do it in the roman rite. But there is also much talk of "mutual enrichment". (or at least... there was until recently...)

If sequences are reserved for other special feast days, it seems to me that one cannot argue that sequences are suppressed writ large. And if sequences are not suppressed in the novus ordo (they aren't, as best I can tell, as observed in the preceding sentence) and there is a sequence for this special feast day which has been sung for centuries, it seems permissible to me, therefore, to sing it, even within the novus ordo rite. If the priest can make any of the other bajillion [fact check: numerically accurate] choices and alterations to the liturgy, I can hardly comprehend what grounds one would use to say that the Dies Iræ—of all things—is in poor taste.

trentonjconn

Serviam, I understand what you're saying, but it seems there is a very fine line between this thinking and thinking which amounts to "progressives can't bend the liturgical rules but trads can."

That said, I certainly love the Dies Irae, and I hope that one way or another it is sung at my funeral (which, God willing, is many years off).

Chrism

you know deep down that you're not supposed to do it

We know deep down that we are supposed to pray this way for the dead, and we also know that someone in authority wanted to prevent us from doing it. How do we resolve this?

CharlesW

You realize that the someone in authority has the right to make those decisions and you don't. I would agree that Trads are often worse about disobeying liturgical laws and instructions than the so-called progressives. Just because something was done prior to Vatican II doesn't mean you have permission to do it now.

Chrism

someone in authority has the right power to make those decisions

Yes, but did they make those decisions? What decisions did they actually make?

davido

Trads are often worse about disobeying liturgical laws and instructions than the so-called progressives

This comparison is complete and utter nonsense.
The desire to preserve liturgical aspects of the True Faith handed down by our fathers is in no way comparable to progressives “singing a new church” into being.
When a liturgical law is destroying the faith and introducing novelty, there has to be room for skepticism of that law.

As for the sequences, they began as an addition to the mass that wasn’t in the liturgical books. Which is exactly where the Dies Irae stands now.

GerardH

If it was in fact necessary that Dies Irae be removed from the Requiem Mass, it should have been moved to be the sequence for Christ the King

Or perhaps back to Advent I, for which it was originally composed? Now that would give a different focus to early Advent instead of Veni Emmanual on repeat

Salieri

If it was in fact necessary that Dies Irae be removed from the Requiem Mass, it should have been moved to be the sequence for Christ the King

Or perhaps back to Advent I, for which it was originally composed? Now that would give a different focus to early Advent instead of Veni Emmanual on repeat

As the Meme saith: Why not both?

Schönbergian

The desire to preserve liturgical aspects of the True Faith handed down by our fathers is in no way comparable to progressives “singing a new church” into being.

That's like saying "the desire to remain relevant in modern society when the Church is losing influence and credibility is in no way comparable to traditionalists wanting to preserve outdated practices from a form of the Mass that was officially reformed fifty years ago."

Rubrics are rubrics and you don't get a free pass on ignoring them because you think you're in the right.

CharlesW

The desire to preserve liturgical aspects of the True Faith handed down by our fathers is in no way comparable to progressives “singing a new church” into being.

Ah, the true believers have spoken and everyone else is in error. Where have we heard that before?

Some of those liturgical aspects were never laws but practices. Their origins are known and they didn't really originate from the church fathers. Just as the church had the authority to use them in the first place, it also has the authority to discontinue or replace them.

Rubrics are rubrics and you don't get a free pass on ignoring them because you think you're in the right.

I totally agree. There is a degree of pride in some Trad circles that is nothing short of downright sinful.

a_f_hawkins

FWIW at Mass for the Dead in Divine Worship: the Missal (2015) the Sequence Dies Irae is permitted but not required (in English translation).

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Those of you standing on the pillar of "rubrics is rubrics is rubrics" .... On the strength of that principle alone, would you argue that since American law now allows men to marry each other, it's the law and people who feel otherwise (note, the emphasis on feeling) should just get over themselves?

I think [and pray and hope] that the answer to my question is a resounding NO, but I want to give anyone who hopes to stand on that principle the time to identify himself.

MarkB

The religious submission of intellect and will that Catholics owe to Church authority is hardly comparable to the relationship between citizens and government in a secular nation state.

Salieri

Perhaps what needs to be done is for a number of church musicians, and professional organizations such as CMAA, throughout the world to write to their respective bishops and bishops's conferences (blech) to ask them in light of the Ordinariate's Divine Worship, the Missal, and because of the restrictions placed upon the Vetus Ordo in Traditiones Custodes, to petition the Congregation for Divine worship to permit the use of the Dies Irae as an optional sequence after the second reading on All Souls' Day, and at funerals (if requested by the family---I actually had this request once: The deceased and family would have preferred a TLM, but there were no priests in the area at the time who could offer it, so they had the Novus Ordo instead).

Schönbergian

Those of you standing on the pillar of "rubrics is rubrics is rubrics" .... On the strength of that principle alone, would you argue that since American law now allows men to marry each other, it's the law and people who feel otherwise (note, the emphasis on feeling) should just get over themselves?

I think a more apt comparison would be those individuals who insisted on the legitimacy of their homosexual marriages in the past despite the law not recognizing them. Your example is akin to somebody merely not approving of the Dies Irae in liturgy despite it being one of many permitted options.

CharlesW

I think [and pray and hope] that the answer to my question is a resounding NO, but I want to give anyone who hopes to stand on that principle the time to identify himself.

American law and church law are not one and the same and never were. If current church rubrics and law don't suit your fancy, petition to change it. However, you can't disregard the result if it doesn't agree with your preferences.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

I'm pleased that the two kinds of obligations and the two kinds of laws are not treated identically.

New example, trying to narrow the playing field, this time on the authority of the Holy Father.

If the Holy Father were to declare tomorrow that only politicians who supported the murder of the unborn could receive Holy Communion -- work with me here -- there would be some people who would claim that since the Pope had declared it to be, so it was. Others would claim the Pope had, by this declaration, ceased to be Pope. Others would have a field day pointing out the South American's connections to Peron and his desire to mold reality to his own will. Honest Catholics wouldn't have to accept the statement as binding precisely because it contradicts what the Church has always taught.

Liturgical Law is somewhere between Divine Law and Human Law. A Pope can't change the form or matter of the sacrament, but he can make some changes. He can't say " the text now reads 'this is a commemoration of my body, as seen in Pachamama'", and have anyone take it seriously as binding. On the other hand, he can regulate the Eucharistic fast.

trentonjconn

Does this mean that, in eliminating the many medieval sequences which had existed for quite some time, Trent made restrictions which were unacceptable and which could be freely ignored?

tomjaw

@trentonjconn
Trent did not eliminate any Sequence, the Missal of the Canons of Rome only ever had a handful off sequences just like some other Missals. Yes, many of the northern European Missals had plenty of Sequences, but the decline of the Sarum Use was nothing to do with Trent, just as the other Uses also declined and the Roman Rite became dominant.

As for the other points above why are people so worried about what Trad's do? They are the least of the problems the Church has at the moment...

CharlesW

I would agree Trads are the least of the problems facing the church. Although they can tend to make a lot of noise and create disruptions far beyond their numbers. I also never thought I would see the day when the American bishops are more conservative than the Vatican. Strange times we live in.

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