Was raining hard a few minutes ago...

Impeding my spatiamentum after Prime, tsk. Still-- omnis spiritus laudet Dominum. It has been raining on and off through the night and early morning. Not a solemn Mass at Saint-Eugène this morning but M. Ratovondrahety displayed the best of the organ the use of which is suppressed during Advent except today, Gaudete Sunday, named so from the first word of the introit: 

Phil 4:4-6
Gaudéte in Dómino semper: íterum dico, gaudéte. Modéstia vestra nota sit ómnibus homínibus: Dóminus enim prope est. Nihil sollíciti sitis: sed in omni oratióne petitiónes vestræ innotéscant apud Deum.

Ps 84:2
Benedixísti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Jacob.

V. Glória Patri, et Fílio, et Spirítui Sancto.
R. Sicut erat in princípio, et nunc, et semper, et in sǽcula sæculórum. Amen.

Gaudéte in Dómino semper: íterum dico, gaudéte. Modéstia vestra nota sit ómnibus homínibus: Dóminus enim prope est. Nihil sollíciti sitis: sed in omni oratióne petitiónes vestræ innotéscant apud Deum.

The video recording of the Mass itself is here. 




The prose or sequence Qui regis sceptra for the Third Sunday of Advent from the ancient rite of Paris was sung at the Communion; the melody seems to have come from the pen of Notker of Saint-Gall although it acquired a different text in France than what the more eastern Catholic regions preserved. 

From my vantage, their rose vestments (color rosaceus, not pink!) are as close to perfect as is necessary. They are only used today and then on Laetare Sunday in Lent so it is understandable that a parish wouldn't choose to invest thousands of dollars in a set of vestments only used twice a year. The cope was Advent violet (as is perfectly acceptable, the use of rosaceus being a fairly late development and not necessary in the sense that the rubric allows the use of the ordinary violet if rose vestments are unavailable).

It continues to rain too hard for me to go out, eh.

Dr Vicente Urones Sánchez continues his discussion of the neumes today, using the exemplum of the introit Gaudete, in the Neumz 'Advent calendar'. It is his final appearance in the series, alas. 





Klassikaraadio is broadcasting at 0900 the Estonian Sinfonietta's Christmas concert featuring-- on a day that is also the feast of Saint Lucia, who enjoys a wide cultus (and/or some secular approximation thereunto) in the Northern lands-- 'works related to light': Pärt Uusberg's Palve, Prayer, Erkki-Sven Tüür's Violin Concerto no 2 Ingli osa, Angel's part (the idea of which has to do with the fact that whiskey in the barrel loses about 2% of its volume each year-- the dedication is to Estonia's Whiskey Club: I'm not going to attempt to discern how whiskey and light are related in the Tüürian imagination) and then Arvo Pärt's Fratres. Since Vespers from Saint-E. is at 0845 I may have to catch that concert in its recorded version.





The second part of Arcangelo Corelli's op 6 Concerti grossi is performed this morning in Gdansk at the Actus Humanus Festival by the {OH!} Historical Orchestra. Whether it will be streamed on YouTube or Facebook I'm not sure. I do know that Radio Polskie is, now, broadcasting a concert from Warsaw marking the imposition of martial law in Poland on December 13, 1981-- Penderecki, Weinberg, Shostakovich. Will try to get to that later. Today is when (in Advent, I mean) I allow myself to listen to the first scenes of Mr Handel's Messiah-- through 'Behold, darkness shall cover the earth...'-- and then I skip to parts two and three. Later, after None, well, through 'The people that walked in darkness...'. The question is, how far into Advent do I last without listening to nos 12-22, ha.
 
Today, the 13th, is the anniversary of the first Bourbon king of France, Henri IV, and the Chapter of the Lateran Archbasilica of the Most Holy Savior celebrates Holy Mass in his honor pro felici ac prospero statu Galliae. It is because of this special relationship begun at the time of Henri IV that the French head of state, even the execrable M Macron, maintains his unique honor of being the honorary canon of the Lateran (here and here in French, Wikipedia in English).

~~~

Had a pleasant walk at a far later hour than usual-- I could see the plantings, the flowering shrubs and so forth along the street! Vespers is underway.








Dr Eleanor Parker has written a magnificent exposition of the Advent Lyrics from the Exeter Book, about Advent and on the 'O Antiphons' specifically. At her blog A Clerk of Oxford there are a series of posts devoted to the 'O's and to the old Anglo-Saxon religious culture; for access to the essay she sent out yesterday one needs to subscribe, for as little as five pounds a month, to her Patreon site. But since mine is not a web site that sees a wide circulation, ahem, I'll quote a bit here.

... The poem [i.e. the extracts of the Advent Lyrics that she is commenting on] says that because it is impossible fully to understand Christ's relationship to his Father, we want all the more to know his medrencynn, his 'mother-kin', maternal origins. This is where the 'golden gate' fits in, because it's probably meant here to be an allusion to the Virgin Mary, which will be developed further in the next section of the poem. There the poet explores the idea of Mary as the 'door in the wall', the gate between this world and eternity, the door through which Christ chose to enter the human world. The image is a Biblical one (an interpretation of the temple gate of Ezekiel 44), but in the early medieval church it was also given a specific narrative expression through the apocryphal but very popular story of Mary's conception. According to apocryphal tradition, Mary's parents Anne and Joachim were long unable to have a child, and parted from each other in grief; but while they were apart angels appeared to them and told them they would conceive a baby, and in joy they rushed to meet at the temple gate, the Golden Gate, in Jerusalem. In later medieval art Mary's conception is often represented by an image of her parents embracing in front of the Golden Gate. So Mary's own conception, as well as her unique place in the architecture of the universe, are both evoked by the phrase 'golden gates'....


Post Nonam. I've had an overlong rainy Sunday afternoon nap, tsk.





~~~


LDVM


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