Today is the feast of the Translatio of Our Holy Father Saint Benedict, Patriarch of the West and of monastic life therein, Confessor and Doctor of the Church, and in the Roman Missal (before Pius XII and Ioannes XXIII, deliramenta of) the feast of Pope Saint Pius I, Martyr. The feast of the Transitus of Saint Benedict is March 21, i.e. the date of his earthly death, and it is to that date that the Pauline arrangements have moved his single feast in the Roman Church; both the March 21 and July 11 feasts continue to be kept with great honor in the Benedictine abbeys. Dr Peter Kwasniewski wrote about these feasts at New Liturgical Movement last year; the Octave of the Translatio he mentions doesn't happen at the Abbey of Sainte-Madeleine, evidently.
I found the text of the Mass of the Translatio (from the Missale Monasticum) Faciam te in gentem magnam at the web site Liturgia Latina of Mr David Forster. Am going to reckon, however, that at Barroux the Mass is Gaudeamus omnes in Domino, which is what is in the Graduale and Graduale triplex after the 1970s-- but we shall see. There seems to be no record of the Introit Faciam te at Cantus Index.
The monks are singing various chants in honor of the Holy Patriarch during the procession after Terce but I've been fussing about so haven't been able to identify them.
The monks did not sing Gaudeamus omnes, eh, so after my morning walk I shall have to listen again. Os iusti meditabitur sapientiam, probably, which is what is given in the Graduale triplex's Proprium de Sanctis (Gaudeamus omnes is from the Proper of the Benedictines, eh; why, O Lord...).
No, it is not Os iusti meditabitur, ha. 31:35.
Faciam te in gentem magnam it is, after all.
[Introitus. Gen. 2,2. Faciam te * in gentem magnam, et benedicam tibi, et magnificabo nomen tuum, erisque benedictus. V. Ps 102,1. Benedic, anima mea, Domino: et omnia quae intra me sunt nomini sancto ejus. V. Gloria Patri.
Kyrie, Gloria.
This didn't seem to be the collect at Terce, eh, although it is certainly the collect from the Farnborough Diurnale, 7th edition in 2011 (as well as from the Missale Monasticum, I mean):[Oratio. Deus, qui beatissimum Confessorem tuum Benedictum, omnium justorum spiritu replere dignatus es: concede nobis famulis tuis ejus Solemnitatem celebrantibus; ut ejusdem spiritu repleti, quod, te donante, promisimus, fideliter adimpleamus. Per Dominum.
At the end of Mass. Since all the other parts of the Mass are of Faciam te, I'm going to guess that I just wasn't able to catch the chanted text of the collect Deus qui beatissimum Confessorem due to the audio quality, or the celebrant's vocal peculiarities, or et cetera.
Lectio libri Sapientiae.
From Ecclesiasticus I believe but am not hunting about for it.
Graduale. Ps. 20, 4-5. Domine, praevenisti eum in benedictionibus dulcedinis : posuisti in capite ejus coronam de lapide pretioso. V. Vitam petiit a te, et tribuisti ei longitudinem dierum in saeculum saeculi.
Sequentia. 50:50. Neumz features the Sequence this morning (presumably since the Benedictines retain its use even after the Pauline deliramenta); I will add their commentary infra.
Laeta dies magni ducis,
Dona ferens novae lucis,
Hodie recolitur.
Charis datur piae menti,
Corde sonet in ardenti,
Quidquid foris promitur.
Hunc per callem Orientis
Admiremur ascendentis
Patriarchae speciem.
Amplum semen magnae prolis
Illum fecit instar solis
Abrahae persimilem.
Corvum cernis ministrantem,
Hinc Eliam latitantem
Specu nosce parvulo.
Elisaeus dignoscatur,
Cum securis revocatur
De torrentis alveo.
Illum Joseph candor morum,
Illum Jacob futurorum
Mens effecit conscia.
Ipse memor suae gentis,
Nos perducat in manentis.
Semper Christi gaudia.
Amen.
+ Sequentia sancti Evangelii secundum Matthaeum.
Credo.
The Tamquam lignum is not at Gregobase or at Cantus Index; from the latter it appears to be a responsorium that has been re-purposed as the Offertory antiphon.
This is the Secret that was sung.
[Secreta. Suscipe, omnipotens Deus, haec sacra munera, quae in beati Patris nostri Benedicti Abbatis festivitate tibi offerimus; ut sicut illi amorem tuum eximium tribuisti, ita et in nobis ejus patrocinio divinae caritatis flammas accendas. Per Dominum.
Sanctus, Agnus Dei.
The antiphon Benedictionem omnium gentium is not at Gregobase or at Cantus Index. Cantus Index gives Benedictionem omnium gentium dedit illi dominus et testamentum suum confirmavit super caput ejus as an Introit verse for the feasts of the Chair of Saint Peter, of Saint Martin, and of a couple of other feasts, and as an antiphon elsewhere but the Communion here isn't recorded (nor is the agnovit eum... recorded separately for any use).
[Postcommunio. Divini Sacramenti pasti deliciis, te, Domine, benedictionum fons et origo, supplices exoramus; ut per intercessionem beatissimi Patris nostri Benedicti, benedictionis tuae gratiam consequamur. Per Dominum.
The Neumz commentary on the Sequence, from the Abbaye Nôtre-Dame-de-Fidelité at Jouques.
The sequence Læta dies first appeared in the 16th century in the missals printed in Montecassino and was probably the work of a Benedictine monk from this great Italian monastery, which was founded by Saint Benedict himself. This sequence is a poetic formula in which St. Gregory the Great offers eulogies, here and there, in his biography of St. Benedict. This is what the Holy Father says in chapter 8 of his Dialogues: What you tell me here is admirable and astonishing! For, in the water drawn from the rock, I see Moses; in the iron that rises from the depths, Elisha; in walking on the water, Peter; and, finally, in weeping over the death of an enemy, David. Deep down, I truly believe that this man was filled with the spirit of all of the righteous! It is easy to recognize the source of our text.
Our sequence is not limited to presenting the story of St. Benedict, but it is rooted in the history of salvation, with the great characters of the Old Testament. From the beginning, Saint Benedict is evoked as a guide, who leads us through history to recognize in him the presence of the same Spirit who was present in Abraham, Elijah, Elisha, Joseph, and Jacob. It is a true journey of faith through which we discover in the great Patriarch Saint Benedict, little by little, the figure of the great figures of the Old Testament. The verbs that refer to 'discovering', 'recognizing' and 'realizing' are the constant and progressive call to deepen the gaze of faith and trust in the One who is always guiding his children to the eternal joys of Christ, as the great patriarchs guided the chosen people of God.
The sequence, by its nature, belongs to the Liturgy of the Word and follows a path, both in the development of the text (a story) and in the melody. This is why the melody is repeated in every two stanzas (same melody in stanzas 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 7 and 8), and in the following always takes a step forward, both in the melody and in the development of the story it presents.
The metrical scheme would be that of a tercet: composed in verses of minor art, the first two are octosyllabic and rhyme with each other and the third is heptasyllabic, whose rhyme associates it with the third of the following stanza. The included rhyme scheme would look like this: aab ccb dde ffe....
The mode chosen for this sequence is mode VI, referred to as devotus by the ancients. Indeed, this is the mode of piety, a very simple mode. Therefore, it is full of the spirit of childhood, in our case, the best mode to express the most tender devotion of children toward their Father, Saint Benedict. The semi-tone relationship of the notes La and Do with the B flat confers even greater strength to this tenderness, to this closeness of the Father to his children.
The same melody is attributed to two stanzas, with the particularity that the third verse in all of the stanzas receives the same melody: a melodic turn that is characteristic of the piece, the degrees Do-B flat-La-Sol-Fa. Thus, the melody for the first two stanzas is a gradual ascent from Fa, the fundamental of mode VI, to La, the dominant, and then from La to Do, and from there descends with great devotion in the last verse from Do to Fa.
The melody for the third and fourth stanzas is somewhat the exception in this piece, as it begins on the Fa and develops briefly in the low register until it reaches the Do. It then gradually rises to the Fa, from Fa to La in the second verse to conclude with great devotion in the last verse, from Do to Fa, as we have already stated.
The melody for the fifth and sixth stanzas is a variation of the melody of the first and second stanzas. In fact, the melodic movement of the first verse is slightly changed with a greater presence of the La, but the melody is identical in the second verse.
Finally, the melody of the seventh and eighth stanzas moves from a slight variation of the previous melody to a burst of joy. Starting from B flat, the melody descends with great fervor to the Fa and then rises with great impulse to the high Re, settling on the Do to once again return to the high Re. From there, it begins a descent full of devout reverence that passes through the La, the Fa, and returns to the La before returning to sing the melody of the third verse that gives unity to the entire composition.
LDVM
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