Lessons for the choir from Saint John

For us charged with the choral office, the feast of Saint John the Baptist bears paramount importance. It is on this feast when, at vespers, we once again sing the hymn that became the basis of the names of the notes of the mediaeval hexachord. Paul the Deacon, to whom authorship of the hymn is ascribed, saw in the 8^th century the parallel in his and Zachary’s situation when, scheduled to sing the Exsultet in the Easter Vigil, he instead came down with a sore throat that very day. Needless to say, the anecdote confirms that, indeed, Paul’s throat was healed.

Annuncio a San Zaccaria della nascita di San Giovanni Battista | Massimo Stanzione | c. 1635

Six months after John’s birth, our Lord was born. Shortly after the birth of the Messiah, Herod the Great ordered the massacre of all male infants, two years and under, in Bethlehem. Only two survived. Christ, Whom Joseph and Mary spirited quickly to Egypt, and John, whom Elisabeth and Zacharias hid in the wilderness. And this nourishes our motley experience in promoting sacred music, our steadfast commitment to preserving Gregorian chant in the life of the Church.

San Giovanni Battista dice addio ai suoi genitori | Massimo Stanzione | c. 1635

Our isolation in this seemingly inhospitable part of the Lord’s vineyard, which other workers attempt to compromise by diverting irrigation (Goodbye, 2000-ish-year-old chant! Let’s support music that people want to hear!), adulterating fertiliser (Away with Latin! Nobody understands it these days!), or substituting crops (Hello, alius cantus aptus!) is not for naught. Sweeter is triumph at the height of adversity.

La predicazione di San Giovanni Battista nel deserto | Massimo Stanzione | c. 14635

Sacred music is becoming a stranger in its own home. It is as if we are continuously encouraged towards holiness from one side, and expected to act on this resolve while hearing in the liturgy music bordering on the wanton. Popes, bishops, concerned liturgists have spoken in favour of sacred music. To some Catholics, however, who harbour other notions, obeying such pronouncements, even those enshrined in the blueprints of reforms they so cherish to the point of canonisation, is a pill far bitterer than a quashed ambition. Germane thoughts of solidarity ripple across the vineyard. But when the stewards, his foremen, and their concerned labourers turn to other problems, the determination fizzes out, and we are left again in the wilderness of obedience. The head is willing but the members are weak.

La decollazione di San Giovanni Battista | Massimo Stanzione | c. 1635

But what immensely fortifies us most in the duty to which have been called and to which we have responded is the reality of persecution. Every day we labour is a day lived in martyrdom. Not necessarily with blood. Let us not shirk away from this reality, and call upon the guidance of the Precursor of the Lord, whose birth loosened the tongue of his father.

Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.

What child is this?

There is a pious tradition reckoning the feast of Saint John the Baptist as the Summer Christmas. It is, after all, the liturgical feast of the earthly birth of the Precursor of the Lord, Whose proper birth is celebrated six months later, a celebration the Anglosphere calls Christmas. These two and the earthly birth of the Blessed Virgin are the only earthly births the Church celebrates. All other birthdays are heavenly birthdays, coinciding with the martyrdom or the death of a saint.

Nascita di San Giovanni Battista | Artemisia Gentileschi | 1633–1635

La Vierge, l’enfant Jésus et Saint Jean-Baptiste | William Adolphe Bouguereau | 1882

That the birth of Saint John the Baptist has a summer character to it has to be underscored as well, because of its scriptural significance. The summer solstice usually falls on 21 June, and after this occurrence, we usually notice the days shortening. The shortest day, that is, the longest night, usually falls within the period of the misas de aguinaldo, and the days will begin to lengthen again after the winter solstice, which usually falls on 21 December. Indeed, even the arrangement of the season reflects the relationship between the Lord and His Precursor. Oportet illum crescere, me autem minui, so saith Saint John.

And so, today we prepare to celebrate this year’s Johnmass (which forms a triad with Christmas and Ladymass). Compared to Christmas, the feast of Saint John has not been blessed with a vast repertoire of hymns, either in Latin or in the vernacular, even if its vespers hymn is the basis of nomenclature in solfege. Years ago, therefore, we decided to appoint alternative lyrics to one the many tunes associated with Christmas, Greensleeves, which carries the Christmas title What child is this? This Johannine parallel (click the thumbnail to open the file), likewise, uses this same title, having taken the strange opportunity of commemorating in one carol the only three who were born with no original sin: Christ our Lord was sinless; Mary was conceived without original sin; the Lord sanctified Saint John while still in the womb.

Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.

Propers of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart

In July 2015, with the transfer of our priest, our community found a new home in the parish of the Most Holy Redeemer in Santol, Quezon City. The titular of the parish is, from its name, the Most Holy Redeemer (23 October in the Missal). The patron, on the other hand, is a Our Lady of the Sacred Heart (8 May in the Missal). (Cases where the titular saint and the patron saint of a parish church have been recorded in the Philippines since Spanish times.) In the Extraordinary Form, such feasts are ranked first class in the calendar proper to the parish church, and, therefore, outclass all other liturgical observations of lower rank.

The parish keeps the feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart on the first Sunday of June. Thus, on 5 June 2016, we first celebrated this feast. There was a little hiccup to this: the full set of propers for this feast is found neither in the Liber usualis nor in the Graduale Romanum. The introit and the communion are nowhere to be found. (The tract can be found in the 1924 Graduale Romano-Seraphicum, proper to the Franciscans.) We needed to set the missing propers into chant. And, so we did.

These chants proper to the choir (click the thumbnail to open the file) were first chanted in 2016. In 2017, the parish feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart was liturgically dislodged from the first Sunday of June in the Extraordinary Form. Pentecost fell on that Sunday, 4 June 2017. The liturgical observance of the feast was on the following 12 June, a Monday, the first unimpeded day after Whitsuntide. This year, 3 June is not impeded, so we have to observe the feast of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, impeding, however, the usual external solemnity of the Corpus Christi after the feast on Thursday.

Let us rejoice and exult in the Lord, for knowing His Name, we hope in Him, Who does not abandon those beseeching Him, and let us beg the intercession of our Blessed Mother, in whom is all the grace of the way and the truth, and all the hope of life and virtue!

Ut in omnibus laudetur Dominus.