It's that still hour in the early morning...

When the birds are silent, the night wind has died, the morning breezes haven't begun, the eastern sky is white and grey with an intimation of rose perhaps or orange. There go the crows, eh. It is the Vigil of the feast of Saint James Apostle the Greater (Introibo, CE, Wiki), patron of Spain, Santiago Matamoros, Saint James the Slayer of the Moors. It is a Holy Year at Compostela since the feast falls on a Sunday. I expect we are all meant to forget that our Catholic forebears had to fight to expel the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula; pft. From 1955, it is a Saturday when the liturgical commemoration of Our Lady is made, Pius XII having suppressed the Vigil (most of the ancient Vigils, as a matter of fact although I don't really know the numbers, and all the Octaves apart from Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost). 

The Introit Ego autem sicut oliva isn't at YT, tsk, but these three recordings of the Communion Magna est gloria eius are. Mikołaj Zieleński's ought to be below the chant versions but am not going to fuss with it. His Offertoria totius anni and Communiones totius anni, published in 1611 at Venice, are what survives of his work. The Magna est gloria eius is described as being for the feast of the Apostle Saint Matthew.







But there is an album at Spotify of Zieleński's setting of the Mysteries of Our Lady's Rosary from 2018 (La Tempesta, Divox)-- so the scholars must have discovered or identified new MSS in the archives at Kraków, Wrocław, Lwów and elsewhere. It is at YouTube, at least track by track, but not embeddable, evidently. Time for Prime.

Ante Sextam. The landlady and the dog are returned from their travels in California et cetera (she visits a friend; from what I can tell they shop each day, and dine). Have just begun Dr Catherine Cessac's Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1988), translated by Thomas Glasow, putting Juvenal and Apollonius aside for the time being. And the fact is I'm fairly tired of Traditionis Custodes nonsense, too, after a week of it. 

Post Sextam. I have just read Mr Glasow's explanation of the French  reposoir. He seems to be under the misapprehension that after Most Blessed Sacrament is worshipped at the temporary altar, the reposoir, a benediction is pronounced. 

"After a motet or the singing of a hymn, the benediction was pronounced and the procession moved on." 

Although it is true that I cannot call to mind the verb or verbs used in French-- we say, 'the priest then gives or imparts the Benediction'. 

It is also the feast of Saint Charbel (19th century), of Saint Christina (4th century), and of Saint Cunegunda (13th century).

V. Et álibi aliórum plurimórum sanctórum Mártyrum et Confessórum, atque sanctárum Vírginum. R. Deo grátias.


LDVM

Comments