Recessional Hymns

[Reginald]

Just idly wondering - after reading about the various liturgical goings-on at our Cathedrals - whether anybody else has taken Celebrating the Mass and GIRM3 at face value and dropped the recessional/last hymn.

[Anne]

Hallam Cathedral in Sheffield dropped the final hymn soon after GIRM / CTM were published.

I am part of the Journey in Faith team (the RCIA) at Hallam Cathedral. In the last few weeks we have been looking at the different parts of the Mass, and this week we were 'doing' the concluding rites. I found myself saying 'Until about 18 months ago we always sang a hymn at the end of Mass, but now there is an emphasis on being sent out (mission, Ite Missa est...) to live out in the world what we have been celebrating at Mass.

In one of the earlier session on the Mass I did feel pleased when the person leading the session asked the group 'Who celebrates the Mass' The answer by one of the enquirers was 'We all celebrate the Mass and the Priest presides'

[docmattc]

We also dropped the final hymn a year ago last September, to surprisingly little (at least vocalised) opposition. A couple of people commented to me that it didn't feel like Mass had ended without it. My reply was that was exactly the point!

I have reinstated a final hymn in Lent as its inappropriate to play the organ other than to accompany the congregation. We are using "Sent by the Lord am I" unaccompanied and sung as people are leaving (by all of them). Its literally a recessional hymn as we recess during it.

[dmu3tem]

Personally I am broadly in favour of recessional hymns. Without them the service can often end with a whimper - although there are occasions when perhaps something quieter or more reflective is needed at the end. Thus where I am, during Lent our parish priest has instituted a full sung version of the Angelus. However, he has then asked me to 'play the congregation out' with an organ voluntary. This, incidentally, highlights one difficulty with a rousing final hymn. Such a hymn effectively keeps congregations standing in their pews; so either you have to provide some other instrumental item to 'play them out' or you accept and enjoy (as I do) the cheerful chatter that then succeeds such a hymn.


More generally I am dismayed by the campaign against the allegedly malign effects of the 'four hymn sandwich' of which the attack on the final hymn is a part. The campaign against the use of hymns in this manner appears to be endorsed by GIRM. Yet, as far as I can see, without such hymns it is difficult to see how whatever progress made in persuading many Catholic congregations to sing since Vatican II could have been made. Whether we like it or not, the fact remains that hymns are the item that congregations are most likely to know, despite all the efforts to promote settings of the Mass Ordinary, let alone Responsorial Psalms, Entrance and Communion Antiphons. To throw hymns aside is therefore tantamount of musical suicide as far as many congregations will be concerned, although I am sure people will be able to point to individual cases where this may not be so.

This sort of difficulty is compounded by the copyright problems associated with setting Grail Psalm texts in particular (see the copyright thread for this), and to a lesser extent with the rest of the mass that is mainly under ICEL copyright. The proposal to apply this more comprehensively to the new translations of the mass must therefore be cause for concern. No hymns plus a series of plainchant or officially approved anodyne settings is surely a guarantee that there will be very little congregational singing in many (though perhaps not all) places.

Another argument I have heard is the distinction drawn between people 'singing the mass' and 'singing at mass'. Off the cuff I think this was reiterated by Martin Baker in a recent issue of Music and Liturgy. Presumably this means the difference between singing the liturgical text and singing other items - e.g. hymns - that have been added on to it or substituted for it. I find such distinctions semantic and arcane. I do not regard myself as a liturgical academic, but surely Liturgy ought not to be regarded as a sacred cow that cannot be freely adapted or added to because it is a divine text (as Gueranger, the founding father of liturgical studies, argued). Nor should it be seen as some sort of propitiatory sacrificial rite which, if we get it 'wrong', will result in dire penalties being visited on us. We should certainly treat it with respect, and think carefully about what we are doing with it and how we use it; after all we are employing it as a device for worship. Yet we should not be silly about this. Are we honestly to believe that God, who is supposed to be all wise and all knowing, is incapable of distinguishing between mindless mechanical ritual and worship that is the product of genuine spiritual belief and effort, even if it does not fit in with prescribed norms instituted by fallible human beings? At the end of the day, we have to appreciate that liturgy is 'man made' and therefore, however much it may be imbued with truly spiritual qualities, it displays both human strengths and weaknesses. Thus any distinction between the liturgy proper and other supposedly inferior items around it cannot not mean much, and hymns should not be excluded on such grounds. Besides, one of the main functions of liturgy must be to present Christianity to the outsider. A service should not just be something for the initiated believers. That is a recipe for a contracting inward-looking ghetto like church. Hymns, especially the final hymn, that encourage participation and appeal to all - Christian and non-Christian alike - are a prime (though not the only) means of avoiding this.

Thomas Muir

[Dot]

I find these latest views of Thomas very refreshing. Whether we're singing the Mass or singing at Mass, isn't it the point when the singing takes hold of the assembly (voices, hearts, or both) at which it is felt to be at its most empowering? It's palpable, as on occasions such as a recent Deanery Mass at our church, or at the Rite of Election last Sunday (admittedly, not a Mass). The singing of hymns has a unifying power at services I attend with a mixture of different denominations. The services may lack some liturgical rigour (the singing and playing may even lack musical beauty at times!) but they have a lot to offer me and others spiritually.

Sometimes, the rules do prescribe a formula for effective music, such as the continuity of a song or chant throughout Communion. That usually works well with us, though it is a difficult thing to achieve practically, with the comings and goings of singers and instrumentalists.

Roll on Saturday. See you at Composers' Group, Thomas.

Dot

[docmattc]

I too agree largely with the sentiments above. If for instance the entrance hymn gathers the people, introduces the theme of the celebration and accompanies the procession (in that order!) I couldn't give two hoots whether or not its a hymn or the prescribed antiphon. I certainly wouldn't want to throw away hymns as that is precisely what congregations sing best as Thomas says. (although ours sing the ordinary with a good deal of gusto too). I'm certainly not one to blindly follow rubrical minutiae just for the sake of it.

I don't think however that the dropping of a recessional hymn is a hymn vs prescribed text issue, or a part of the "hymns are bad" school of thought.

Once we have been dismissed it makes little sense to stand about for another fourteen verses. Having been nourished and strengthened by the Word and the Eucharist we should be eager to go out with "missionary imperative", to be Christ in the world.
Having made the move away from a final hymn I can see that it had the potential to conclude the Mass so completely that God is 'put away' to be forgotten about until next Sunday.

I would welcome more suitable recessional material which conveys the message of "Now we must go out and be Christ to the world" and are simple enough to sing without hymnbook. It would be wonderful to see the entire congregation follow the procession from the altar singing and then dissolve into that "cheerful chatter" which is such a sign of community. Some of the recessionals that are out there are in second person, leaving us with the message that its everyone else's job to "take his word to others" not mine.

When we had a recessional hymn, I usually picked one of thanksgiving. (precisely because the choice of truly 'recessional' hymns isn't that great.)
More often than not we still have that hymn, but its a hymn of thanksgiving after the communion procession has ended, so the total amount the congregation has to sing has not altered. In effect the last piece is just earlier than it used to be.

[Reginald]

I'm not opposed to the singing of hymns at Mass - so long as they 'know their place', but I am intrigued by the arguments expressed in favour of recessional hymns in particular.
We have, each of us, chosen to be a part of a liturgical Church and, at the risk of sounding too ultramontane, we have chosen to be part of a Church that makes some decisions for us. For me, at the point that the Bishops of England and Wales stress that there ought not to be a 'last hymn' the debate ends. This is even more important when what they are trying to preserve is one of the specific characteristics of the Roman Rite - namely the brevity of its conclusion. The Council Fathers at Vat II expressed the wish that the liturgy should grow organically, and the 'last hymn' is a break with that organic growth.
I know that I'm not in the league of your Jungmanns, Martimorts, Boyers and Messaiens, and they're the kind of people who were consulted about the reform of the Roman Rite. If they didn't see a need for some kind of concluding chant then who am I to argue?
The origins of the infamous four hymn sandwich lie in the desire of our bishops to provide some form of external participation at Mass until the reformed liturgy was ready for use in the parishes. Its original use was specified for Low Mass only (I imagine that, given that it was forbidden to say the Dialogue Mass in some dioceses of England and Wales, it was considered unseemly to allow the laity to sing the Ordinary of the Mass!) and so there's a certain irony in our perpetuating the Low Mass mentality when it was one of the intentions of the liturgical reformers that the Low Mass should be no more, and that the Missa Cantata should be the normative Mass.
The fact that something has become established practice doesn't, to my mind, give it legitimacy. The formulae for the dismissal all tell us to 'go', and I think it's reasonable that we should do just that, because the formula "In about ten minutes time, after you've had a last sing-song, you should go and be the Body of Christ in the world" is just too unwieldy! Surely, as a missionary people, there should be a sense of urgency and excitement at the end of Mass at the prospect of going out and making the world a better place, not a sense that we can put it off until tomorrow?

[presbyter]

At the end of the day, we have to appreciate that liturgy is 'man made'

Errr, I think you need to qualify quite a few statements in your post Thomas. IMHO, the theology is at best fuzzy.

More to follow......

[Vox Americana]

I was amazed to see some rather intriguing practices in Venice.

Whatever floats your boat…

Surely, as a missionary people, there should be a sense of urgency and excitement at the end of Mass at the prospect of going out and making the world a better place, not a sense that we can put it off until tomorrow.

If only that were how people left the building! Even without a hymn after the final blessing, the only folks who leave our church with that sense of urgency and rush are those off to do something else, like taking their kids to football or soccer practise, and they leave after communion so never hear the dismissal and call to mission. The rest of us congregate around the coffee jug and form Church by talking to each other, quite often facilitated by what we just sang before. That's important too, bro!

And yet most of us still choose to kneel during the eucharistic prayer

Really?! "We thank you for counting us worthy to stand in your presence"… and we surely do over here.

[musicus]

Good to see you here again, Vox! It's been too long.

M

[asb]

However, he has then asked me to 'play the congregation out' with an organ voluntary. Thomas Muir

i'm sorry, but this is quite wrong. Except for Laetare Sunday, and Feasts, "The organ is played only to sustain the singing"

[Ian]

"The organ is played only to sustain the singing"

Did anyone tell the French?

[dmu3tem]

Here is the reply so many of you have been dreading!

Many thanks for drawing my attention to the fact that many people do not object to hymns per se, but to their use as the only form of music at Mass. Nevertheless, it should be noted that GIRM seems to prohibit their use at the entrance, offertory and communion in favour of antiphons - preferably set to chants. Certainly this is the interpretation given by Anthony Boylan in his carefully worded article 'Renewing the renewal 2: The new General Instruction of the Roman Missal' (M and L, 31/3, p. 7. If the recessional hymn is also discarded, it is difficult to see where hymns (apart from the Gloria) can find a place at Mass.

Many thanks also for the reminder that the overlap between the hymn repertories of different communities can be very narrow. Yet it is reasonable to expect many people to know certain items e.g. Amazing Grace, The Lord is my Shepherd (Crimond), or Jerusalem. I would also content, albeit without statistical proof, that hymns as a genre (especially the solid four-part harmony variety) are better known in this country than any other form of church music. Thus, any strategy to promote congregational singing is likely to start with hymnody. This, indeed, was what happened over the last two years here at Whalley. We inherited a four hymn sandwich; we then added settings of the 'Holy Holy' /Sanctus, Memorial Acclamations, Gospel Acclamations, Gloria, 'Lord have mercy'/Kyrie, 'Lamb of God/Agnus Dei, Responsorial Psalms, 'Our Father'/Pater Noster and occasionally a communion antiphon.

If, for all intents and purposes, we remove hymns from Mass, it seems likely that in many cases, Catholic music in this country will be dealt a body blow from which it will take decades to recover - given the decline in many areas of the supply of competent performers, arrangers and composers, as well as the weakening of links between music departments in Catholic schools and their local parishes. How often do we see children compose Responsorial Psalms as part of their GCSE coursework?

Now it cannot be denied that the concluding responses 'The Mass is ended, go in peace' imply that nothing, not even a hymn, should follow. But is this necessarily what the Latin 'Ite, Missa est' actually means? 'Mitto', the verb from which 'missa' is derived, means 'I send'. 'Missa' therefore suggests 'message', just as its English derivative 'missive' means a 'communication' or 'letter'. Following Reginald's excellent advice I consulted Benedict XVI's 'Sacramentum Caritas'. In clause 51 he comes to virtually the same conclusion. Admittedly, he starts by saying that in antiquity 'missa' simply meant 'dismissal'; but then he goes on to assert that 'in Christian usage... the word "dismissal" has come to imply a "mission". Later, especially in clauses 84-5, he argues that the eucharist should be the motivation for Christian action in the big wide world in just such a manner as has been suggested by some contributors to this thread. Under this scenario 'Ite, missa est' is not something that demarcates the end of Mass from everything that follows outside; it is an exhortation to action - a point reinforced by Benedict's insistence in clause 44 that the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the eucharist are indissolubly linked. What better way to do this than by singing a hymn whose text underlines the message people have heard at Mass? Viewed in this light the term 'Recessional hymn' is somewhat misleading. It does not signal the end of Mass; it marks the beginning of what we hope will happen after it.

Thomas Muir

[nazard]

I thought the words the bishops used in the girm, although they discourage a recessional hymn, do not forbid it. I read their text as giving us the option.

[docmattc]

GIRM doesn't mention a recessional hymn at all, because, as one eminent liturgist put it, it wouldn't have occurred to Rome that anyone would sing one.
Our bishops say that a recessional hymn is 'foreign to the Roman Rite'

This, I agree, doesn't actually say 'thou shalt not'