Lamb of God/Jesus Lamb of God

[Nick Baty]

better to discuss that without scotch, I think.

Scotch aside, this chant is there for a reason.
It accompanies a rite.
It is cultic.
If it's length doesn't matter, then why (historical accident aside) is it there?

[musicus]

presbyter, you're straining at gnats.

You know, having just realised where this phrase is from - that's very insulting.

Here is the context: "Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices - mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel" (Matthew 23:23,24)

Let's keep this fascinating discussion civilised, please.

[presbyter]

A little light on the matter of what happened when?

According to "Leitourgos" (Question-Box, Church Music June 1973, Vol 3 no 21) -

The then ICEL Texts of the Ordinary of the Mass may not be altered (exception - Penitential Rite III)
Texts agreed by the Bishops of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland - Gloria, Our Father, Creed etc.. - may not be altered

Status of the inter-denominational ICET texts is unclear ( June 1973 ). Very restricted use of these texts ad experimentum in operation from Low Week of 1971.
Anticipation that these ICET texts (now adopted by ICEL) will become the universal English texts.

This is 1973. I'm sorry SC, but I cannot believe that our Bishops approved troped texts for the Lamb of God other than the ICET text in 1971. Do the Scriptural test - evidence of two or three witnesses - apart from yourself - then I'll believe you.

[johnquinn39]

This discusssion is a complete waste of time.

The Liturgy Police will continue in their campaign to ban the singing (or even reciting) of this text, while for the time being allowing it to be said quickly and very sotto voce, while the congregation do the sign of peace. No doubt, this will soon be banned also - if they have their way - which they surely will.

Perhaps getting off-topic, but what is the point of the RC church? - Does switching the mic. off while the Word of God is recinted, banning the singing of the psalms and acclamations, introducing a (dead) foreign language, teaching people archaic, latinate and non-inclusive language, banning women from the choir & altar, reducing the proprotion of NT readings from 70% to 17% (EF mass), singing that truth decays and that there is plenty of time and telling young people that they only like guitar music etc. have anything to do with the Gospel?

PS Christ IS risen - (he did not rise from the dead in latin) - even if the Liturgy Police will not allow this fact to be acknowledged in the RC eucharist.

[alan29]

This discusssion is a complete waste of time.

The Liturgy Police will continue in their campaign to ban the singing (or even reciting) of this text, while for the time being allowing it to be said quickly and very sotto voce, while the congregation do the sign of peace. No doubt, this will soon be banned also - if they have their way - which they surely will.

Perhaps getting off-topic, but what is the point of the RC church? - Does switching the mic. off while the Word of God is recinted, banning the singing of the psalms and acclamations, introducing a (dead) foreign language, teaching people archaic, latinate and non-inclusive language, banning women from the choir & altar, reducing the proprotion of NT readings from 70% to 17% (EF mass), singing that truth decays and that there is plenty of time and telling young people that they only like guitar music etc. have anything to do with the Gospel?

PS Christ IS risen - (he did not rise from the dead in latin) - even if the Liturgy Police will not allow this fact to be acknowledged in the RC eucharist.

I am reminded of an extremely eminent archbishop - now sadly dead - who used to remind people that there was God's church and there was the Vatican, and that we would do well for our sanity not to confuse the two.

[presbyter]

This discusssion is a complete waste of time.

Some of it might be tending that way...

I think it's best if I agree to differ with SC on the question of our Bishops permitting troped texts and leave it at that, lest we generate more heat than light.

[presbyter]

I will, however, finish by quoting what I think is the origin of the modern troped Lamb of God, from the United Sates Bishops' Committee on the Liturgy Newsletter of 1979 (p 169f)

Music Committee report:

The need for texts for the Lamb of God was seen as particularly important, following the directive of the General Instruction, n. 56e, to use this musical movement to accompany the fraction rite. Because of the varying length of the rite, which has come to involve not only the breaking of the bread, but also the pouring of the wine into chalices from flagons, the present structure of the Lamb of God was thought to need expansion. The threefold movement no longer seems adequate to a rite which now takes considerably longer. Flexibility in the text and music was seen to be necessary for a better understanding of the fraction rite itself as a moment of prayer in which the assembly participates. The setting commissioned by the Music Subcommittee will allow for such flexibility, and, it is hoped, will further creativity.

Composers are being commissioned for this and other music. Following a lengthy review process, the music may appear sometime in early 1980.

There - enough! I retire from the discussion.

[docmattc]

but also the pouring of the wine into chalices from flagons,

A practice subsequently forbidden (if ever allowed) by Redemptionis Sacramentum (although it still goes on round here)

[nazard]

... the Word of God is recinted...

How do you do that? Is it in the rubrics?

[Southern Comfort]

Let me say first of all that the expression "straining at gnats" was not intended to be insulting. It has long since left its original Pharisaical context and is customarily used to indicate that someone appears to be worrying away at minutiae instead of looking at the bigger picture. I hope presybter will accept that no offence was intended by this observation.

A little light on the matter of what happened when?

According to "Leitourgos" (Question-Box, Church Music June 1973, Vol 3 no 21) -

The then ICEL Texts of the Ordinary of the Mass may not be altered (exception - Penitential Rite III)
Texts agreed by the Bishops of England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland - Gloria, Our Father, Creed etc.. - may not be altered

Status of the inter-denominational ICET texts is unclear ( June 1973 ). Very restricted use of these texts ad experimentum in operation from Low Week of 1971.
Anticipation that these ICET texts (now adopted by ICEL) will become the universal English texts.

Thank you for digging up this reportage. I think I know the identity of "Leitourgos".... You have succeeded in establishing that the Bishops' Low Week meeting in 1971 was the occasion when these permissions were granted, albeit ad experimentum. I did not remember the particular date on which the decision was taken, only the year. The use was restricted because the texts could only be used if sung.

The final ICET collection of texts was produced in 1975 (drafts were issued in 1969 (no alternative Lamb of God text) and then in 1971, 1972 and 1973)

Correct. The Lamb of God appeared in the 1971 edition. Successive editions added new texts (and occasionally revised existing ones).

According to "my friend", our Bishops approved the singing of the ICET Lamb of God text probably in the period 1975-1983 (MUSIC in the Parish Mass - 1983)
(However, Sing the Mass is dated as a compilation in 1974 and published in 1975. It contains settings of the ICET Lamb of God.)

I think your friend's guess is inaccurate, especially given the 1971 date you have established above. Throughout this discussion, I have the impression that people do not realize just how far-seeing our Bishops were at this particular point in a time of great liturgical flux.

For the record, the editorial work on Sing the Mass, though not published until 1975, was already complete by the end of 1973. In the throes of moving offices and being taken over and reorganized by a large American conglomerate, the publishers then frustratingly sat on the book for two years before issuing it. By the time it came out, they had missed the boat: the Folk Hymnal movement had already got a foot in the door and paraphrase mass settings were starting up.

There is no way that Sing the Mass would have included settings of the Apostles' Creed and the ICET Lamb of God if they had not already been approved for use in the expectation that they would become the official texts. And because the editorial work was complete by 1973, that already predates your friend's guess of 1975-83. (Am I right in thinking that he was not around in the early 1970s?)

The compilation date of 1974 reflects the year in which the book was approved for printing, not the actual date when the editorial work was complete. In the end, it went to press at the end of 1974 with a title page date of 1975, anticipating the year in which it would actually be printed and published.

"My friend" knows of no evidence to support your insistence that in 1971, the Bishops of England and Wales gave permission for troped settings of the Lamb of God beyond that of the ICET text. (There are no such settings in Sing the Mass)

The question of whether or not to include troped settings was indeed raised at editorial meetings for Sing the Mass. It was decided that it was too early to proceed with texts that were not specifically approved for use. Thus substituting "Bread of Life" or other phrases for "Lamb of God", while in theory permissible under the general heading of trope, would be introducing specific texts that the Bishops had not actually pronounced upon.

"My friend" wonders if you are being a little confused by the work of the Liturgy Committee of the Bishops of the United States of America. The US committee seems to have seen a particularly important need for flexibility in texts for the Lamb of God in a report dated 1979. The earliest troped setting "my friend" can think of is David Clark Isele’s Holy Cross Mass - GIA, dated 1979 - possibly a first-fruit of the US committee's deliberations?

I put it to you that you could well be in error in insisting that the Bishops of England and Wales gave permission for troped texts of the Lamb of God, other than the ICET text (be that in 1971 or any year up to 1983) and that what is more likely to have happened is that some composers took on and imported an American practice here from 1979 onwards.

There is no confusion with what happened in America, since I was not previously aware of the American BCL 1979 report. You might be interested in the fact that Robert Blanchard's 'Composers' Forum for Catholic Worship' initiative did produce at least one troped setting of the Lamb of God as early as 1969/1970, and that the question of tropes was being talked about in England from the time the 1969 GIRM appeared (it had been anticipated that they would be permitted in GIRM but no mention of them was found).

It is also worth bearing in mind that GIA's copyright dates are publication dates, and thus always sometime behind the date of actual composition, sometimes by as much as 10 years or more. I think the Isele Mass was written and being used considerably earlier than 1979.

As you say, I think we must agree to differ on the matter of tropes.

[presbyter]

I hope presybter will accept that no offence was intended by this observation.

Sure.

For the sake of clarity and the elimination of talking at cross purposes - which is what I think we have been doing:

In 1971 at the Low Week Conference, our Bishops approved the ICET Lamb of God - and in so doing approved the principle of troped texts - BUT (given your note about "Bread of Life" above) - there was no permission given to use texts that the Bishops had not approved. Is that what you are saying?

[Southern Comfort]

For the sake of clarity and the elimination of talking at cross purposes - which is what I think we have been doing:

In 1971 at the Low Week Conference, our Bishops approved the ICET Lamb of God - and in so doing approved the principle of troped texts - BUT (given your note about "Bread of Life" above) - there was no permission given to use texts that the Bishops had not approved. Is that what you are saying?

Not exactly.

(1) The Bishops approved both the ICET Lamb of God and other ICET texts, as we have already agreed, with restrictions on their use. They also mentioned the possibility of troped settings of the Lamb of God, without, however, specifying any particular troped texts.

I think it is therefore fair to assume that they did not consider the ICET text itself to be a trope, but rather were mindful not only of the expected official status of the ICET texts in the Order of Mass but also the ecumenical implications of those texts. There is much more to be said about what eventually (and to a certain extent disgracefully) transpired as regards the ecumenical aspect of the ICET texts under a new chair of the NLC, but this thread is probably not the place to do so.

(2) The editor at Geoffrey Chapman Publishers who was responsible for seeing Sing the Mass through the press, while acknowledging that the principle of troping had been established, nevertheless advocated caution in attempting to publish settings including specific trope texts, since no actual sample texts had been specified by the Bishops. It was therefore agreed that Sing the Mass would not include any troped settings. Between the completion of the editorial work and the eventual publication of the collection two years later, that editor departed for pastures new, and the new editor who took over the project (in fact more cautious than her predecessor had been) confirmed this decision.

[presbyter]

Thank you! A statement I can believe..

They also mentioned the possibility of troped settings of the Lamb of God, without, however, specifying any particular troped texts

as opposed to this one, which I cannot:

........... the Bishops' Conference permitted tropes in sung settings of the Lamb of God. .......

The latter reads as an open invitation to the production of the type of troped Fraction Songs I have mentioned above (Music for the Mass; Celebration Hymnal for Everyone) whereas I understand that there has never been formal, BCEW approval for such texts to be used at "The Breaking of Bread". (That is not to say that some of these texts are unsuitable for the Communion Procession. Some are indeed designated Communion Songs and work well as such.)

My inquisitorial tenacity has been sparked by the decline into desuetude of the singing of the liturgical text itself in many places. Music for the Mass - both volumes -and Celebration Hymnal for Everyone contain settings of both the liturgical text and other Fraction Songs. Yet Laudate contains no straightforward, setting of the liturgical text - a sad and sorry state of affairs, in my opinion, and to my mind, something of a scandal.

In regard to Mithras' opening question, the Guide for Composers outlines how liturgical texts can be adapted but not modified. Paraphrases of liturgical texts are now forbidden. I do not know the mind of the Bishops' panel screening compositions submitted but I would not be surprised if the ICET text is regarded as a paraphrase and as such, rejected for liturgical use. The test will be to submit a setting and see what comes back in reply. Has anyone done this yet?

[Southern Comfort]

I do not know the mind of the Bishops' panel screening compositions submitted but I would not be surprised if the ICET text is regarded as a paraphrase and as such, rejected for liturgical use. The test will be to submit a setting and see what comes back in reply. Has anyone done this yet?

Yes, this has already happened, and the ICET text has been rejected, not explicitly on the grounds of being a paraphrase but on the grounds that it does not follow the text of the new Missal.

I do think it is important to differentiate between paraphrase settings such as the Israeli Mass, and legitimate alternative texts such as the ICET Lamb of God. The two are not the same thing at all, and putting the ICET text into the paraphrase basket only serves to muddy the waters.

The fact that the ICET Lamb of God text did not appear in the 1973 Missal either and yet is approved for use by the Bishops as a legitimate alternative (as we have been discussing at length) has clearly not crossed the mind of the panel, nor that the same situation will continue to obtain unless/until the Bishops specifically abrogate their previous permission (as we have also been discussing).

Since the panel cannot anticipate the mind of the Bishops, nor when or indeed whether such an abrogation might occur (conceivably when the full Missal comes into use, in which case the ICET text will continue to be licit during that indeterminate period when only the revised Order of Mass is in use), it seems that they are not justified in withholding approval of existing compositions on the grounds that this text will not appear in the new Missal.

And the possibilities of a grandfather clause, or of specific transitional arrangements whereby (for example) old and new settings would coexist for a period of time, do not appear to have been seriously considered either. Transition is what happened in the mid-1970s, where old and new settings continued side-by-side for a while as people got used to the new texts. Does anyone remember Timothy Baxter's Sanctus? That excellent setting lasted for several years before finally dying away like the others.

[presbyter]

Yes, this has already happened, and the ICET text has been rejected, not explicitly on the grounds of being a paraphrase but on the grounds that it does not follow the text of the new Missal.

Consider it as a basis for a Communion Song then? (see my comments above) That could work.