Lent recessional music
  • JazFenn
    Posts: 10
    Is there any official reason from the church to omit the recessional hymn during Lent? What are your thoughts on this practice and reasoning for or against it?
  • DL
    Posts: 88
    Perhaps unhelpfully, we simply don’t have a recessional hymn, ever, apart from maybe once or twice during the year. We have the Marian anthem and then either organ or silence according to the season.
    Thanked by 1tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,368
    I don’t do one on Palm Sunday but we still do the Marian antiphon. It’s always optional anyway, but it is a good thing especially for congregations that have less to sing due to choral/Latin ordinaries and motets.
    Thanked by 1Chant_Supremacist
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,661
    Unlike the beginning of Mass, the church lays down absolutely nothing after the formal end. GIRM :
    III. THE INDIvIDUAL PARTS OF THE MASS
    A. The Introductory Rites
    46. The rites that precede the Liturgy of the Word, namely, the Entrance, the Greeting,
    the Penitential Act, the Kyrie, the Gloria in excelsis (Glory to God in the highest) and
    Collect, have the character of a beginning, an introduction, and a preparation. ...
    D. The Concluding Rites
    To the Concluding Rites belong the following:
    90.a. brief announcements, should they be necessary;
    b. the Priest’s Greeting and Blessing, which on certain days and occasions is expanded
    and expressed by the Prayer over the People or another more solemn formula;
    c. the Dismissal of the people by the Deacon or the Priest, so that each may go back
    to doing good works, praising and blessing God;
    d. the kissing of the altar by the Priest and the Deacon, followed by a profound bow
    to the altar by the Priest, the Deacon, and the other ministers.
  • My experience of the "no recessional during Lent" is that it's often an awkward, ham-fisted attempt at creating a sort of stark stillness. If there are hymns at the other typical four-hymn-sandwich slots, it doesn't make much sense to omit all music during the recessional. Much more effective, in my opinion, is eliminating or vastly reducing instrumental accompaniment and doing things mostly a capella. This conveys a sort of starkness characteristic of Lent without being too awkward.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,947
    My understanding has been that the silent departure is reserved for the Passion Services, though I've sometimes come across it on Ash Wednesday too.

    Ash Wednesday
    229 Attende Domine/Hear us Almighty Lord
    234 Parce Domine
    12 O radiant light

    Lent I (Desert)
    241: Again we keep this solemn fast OLD 100th
    242 Tree of Life THOMAS
    243: Forty days and forty nights HEINLEIN

    Lent II (Anniversary/Transfiguration)
    239 The glory of these forty days OLD 100th
    413 Tis good Lord to be here SWABIA
    238 Lord Who throughout these forty days ST FLAVIAN

    Lent III (Samaritan woman)
    237 From ashes to the Living Font ST FLAVIAN
    447 Shepherd of souls
    356: I Heard the Voice of Jesus say

    Lent IV (Laetare/sight to blind)
    849 The King of Love
    358 There is a balm in Gilead
    316 Thanks be to You forever

    Lent V (Lazarus)
    234 Parce Domine
    463 Precious Lord
    353 What wondrous Love is this

    Palm Sunday
    244 All glory, laud & honor
    250 O Sacred Head
    (silence)

    Holy Thursday (bilingual?)
    452 At that first Eucharist
    Ubi caritas
    528 Weave a song/Pange lingua

    Good Friday
    (silence)
    250 O Sacred Head
    (silence)
    Thanked by 1probe
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,224
    We will have a recessional hymn, just no postludes. I put a note in today’s worship aid warning people about the restrictions on organ use during lent, and encouraged them to leave Lenten masses in a “reverent silence”. YMMV
  • We usually do Ave Regina Caelorum for Recessional during Lent. I saw this morning that this is also what the Vatican will do on Ash Wednesday.
  • In Lent I do both processional and recessional hymns, but without organ, and no prelude or postlude. There's a treasury of good devotional music for the season that otherwise wouldn't get sung at my parish. IIRC, the only time I do silence is All Souls Day.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 1,046
    For the weekend Masses, there is a recessional hymn. For the weekday Mass, I skip it.
  • It’s merely an invention and not required. I think it’s to emphasize the austere nature of Lent. It often doesn’t work well in practice because people naturally want to fill that new-found void with chatter.

    I always did enjoy it as a kid when we did it a few times at my parish though, because it made that roaring recessional of “At the Lamb’s High Feast” on Easter Sunday that much sweeter.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,368
    I would do the Marian antiphon with its versicle and collect, which would at least begin to cut down on the idea that this is time to chat.

  • It’s merely an invention and not required. I think it’s to emphasize the austere nature of Lent. It often doesn’t work well in practice because people naturally want to fill that new-found void with chatter.


    I think you’re right. I never heard of it until my brother came home angry from the Life Teen Mass he played guitar at because the priest unplugged his guitar during the recessional because it was Lent and he wanted silence for the recessional instead of a recessional “hymn”.

    It would likely get rid of the round of applause for the choir after Mass as well, but at my parish it would just turn into a cacophony of chatter and noise. I have had to go outside for a walk before Mass just to pray my rosary because the people from the Mass prior were so loud that even earplugs didn’t work and I kept getting lost and having to start over. You know there’s something wrong when you have to go outside the church to pray because you can’t pray inside. But I digress.

    We had the opposite the start of Lent in the Year of Covid. The pastor at the time wanted to encourage silence before Mass during Lent, so he got rid of parts of the Introductory Rites including the processional (we’re talking the whole thing) and the start of Mass. Basically it started at the The Act of Penitence. It only lasted for one Sunday. Somehow the chancery mysteriously found out about it and advised it’s not allowed.
  • Sponsa,

    That’s indeed interesting. For several years, we did a more “penitential” opening during the Sundays of Lent where at the start of Mass during the procession, the congregation would kneel while the cantor began the entrance chant. Father would process to the sanctuary and kneel in front of the altar until the chant concluded. Then he would rise and head to his chair as everyone else rose, and Mass continued in the usual manner.

    While I understood the vision, the Mass isn’t our “play-thing,” as I say.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • The pastor I work for specifically asked for silent recessionals during Lent. Makes it easy for the musicians. My parish does not have the chatter problem.
  • francis
    Posts: 11,271
    Oh my gosh. I went to mass this evening at an NO Parish because a storm is looming and I might not make it to church tomorrow. It wasn’t chatter at the back of the church after Mass. The organist was trying to keep a solemn air by playing pretty loud but it wasn’t working. People were shouting over the organ. It was like they were hanging out at a sports event in a stadium. I almost got up and made a face. But I didn’t.

    I think I’m going to revise The litany of the Saints-

    Lord have mercy on us.
    Christ have mercy on us.
    Lord, have mercy on us.

    Christ hears us.
    Christ most surely hears us.