The Sequence of St Dominic

For the feast of St Dominic, here is a very nice recording of In caelesti hierarchia, the Sequence for his Mass in the Dominican Missal. Dominic was, of course, the very first Saint of his order to be canonized; this was done in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX (1227-41), who had known him personally, and declared that he no more doubted his sanctity than he did that of Saints Peter and Paul. The author of the Sequence is unknown; it is attested in Dominican liturgical sources that predate the codification of their Use which took place in the mid-1250s, and still forms the basis of it to this day. 

In caelesti hierarchia, nova sonet harmonia, novo ducta cantico: Cui concordet in hac via, nostri chori melodia, congaudens Dominico. Ex Aegypto vastitatis, virum suae voluntatis vocat Auctor saeculi, In fiscella paupertatis, flumen transit vanitatis, pro salute populi. In figura catuli, praedicator saeculi matri praemonstratur; Portans ore faculam, ad amoris regulam populos hortatur. Hic est novus legislator, hic Elias aemulator, et detestans crimina. Vulpes dissipat Samsonis, et in tuba Gedeonis, hostis fugat agmina. A defunctis revocatum, matri vivum reddit natum, vivens adhuc corpore: Signo crucis imber cedit; turba fratrum panem edit, missum Dei munere. Felix, per quem gaudia tota jam ecclesia sumens exaltatur. Orbem replet semine, in caelorum agmine tandem collocatur. Jacet granum occultatum, sidus latet obumbratum: sed Plasmator omnium, Ossa Joseph pullulare, sidus jubet radiare, in salutem gentium. O quam probat carnis florem, omnem superans odorem, tumuli fragrantia! Aegri currunt, et curantur, caeci, claudi reparantur, virtutum frequentia. Laudes ergo Dominico personemus mirifico, voce plena: Clama petens suffragia, ejus sequens vestigia plebs egena. Sed tu pater pie, bone, pastor gregis, et patrone, prece semper sedula, Apud curiam summi Regis, derelicti vices gregis commenda per saeculi. Amen.    Alleluia.

Now new canticles ascending, And new strains harmonious blending, ’Mid the hierarchies of heaven: With our earthly choirs according, Join this festival in lauding, To our holy father given. For the welfare of the nations, Called from Egypt’s desolations By their God and Maker, he Was the chosen one and glorious, Passing o’er the wave victorious, In the ark of poverty. Ere his birth, the preacher brother Is prefigured to his mother By a hound with torch of fire; So her son, his torch-light bearing, Midst the nations dark appearing, Leads them on with full desire. He, another Moses, teacheth, And Elias-like he preacheth, Sin denouncing with his might Samson-like his foxes sending, And the foe his trumpet rending, Gedeon-like he put to flight. From death’s sleep a child he waketh Whom alive his mother taketh: When the holy sign he makes, Cease the floods; and bread from heaven For his fainting sons is given Which into their hands he breaks. Happy he, whose elevation, Is our mother’s exa1tation, Is her joy and weal indeed. To his home by saints attended, Hath his soul for aye ascended, Having filled the earth with seed. Like the hidden grain he bideth Like the clouded star he hideth: But the Maker of the spheres, Joseph’s dry bones readorning, Will reveal the star of morning, Till earth’s darkness disappears. O surpassing fragrance, telling Of the virtues of that dwelling, Which within the tomb doth lie! Thither flock the sick for healing, Blind and lame the grace revealing That his body lives for aye. Wherefore now with jubilation Bless and praise him, every nation, Cry aloud, and crave his care: Sing Dominic the glorious, Sing Dominic victorious, Claim his help and promised prayer. And thou, father, kind and loving, Shepherd, patron, unreproving, Kneeling heaven’s high throne before, Lift for us thy voice prevailing, To our King with prayers availing Evermore and evermore. Amen.    Alleluia.

The Dominican Sequence for the Dedication of a Church

In the Dominican Rite, today is the collective feast of the dedication of all of the Order’s consecrated churches. This is a fairly new custom, instituted when the Dominican calendar was revised in the wake of St Pius X’s breviary reform; prior to that, each such church kept its own dedication feast. In the post-Conciliar rite, the Dominicans have reverted to the older custom, but the feast on October 22nd is retained for those churches whose real date of dedication is unknown; a rare example within the Novus Ordo of a return to an authentic historical custom.

Earlier this year, I addressed the persistent misunderstanding that the liturgical reform of St Pius V removed the great majority of sequences from the Mass. The reality is that the Roman Missal had always had very few sequences, and as various churches and orders adopted it, they adopted its sparse repertoire of them along with it. However, some churches and orders that did not adopt the Roman Missal nevertheless reformed their own missals in one way or another in imitation of it. One of the most common such reforms was to take out of most of the sequences, and in 1687, this was done to the Dominican Missal when the master general Antonin Cloche had a new edition published. (The Premonstratensians had done something similar in the 1620s.)

The Sequence Rex Salomon in the Codex of Humbert of Romans, the prototype manuscript of the medieval Dominican liturgy. (Rome: Santa Sabina MS XIV L1). This manuscript was compiled by the Master of the Order Humbert of Romans, in accord with the commission of the Dominican General Chapter held at Buda in 1254, and approved by the General Chapter of Paris in 1256. The sequence begins with the large blue R in the left column.

Prior to Cloche’s reform, the Dominicans sang the following sequence, Rex Salomon fecit templum, on the feast of a church’s dedication; it is attributed (with some uncertainty) to one of the most prolific authors in the genre, Adam of St Victor, who flourished in the first part of the 12th century. After serving as precentor of Notre-Dame de Paris, he entered the abbey of Augustinian Canons Regular dedicated to St Victor in Paris’ Rive Gauche, very close to the Sorbonne. This abbey was one of the major intellectual centers of the High Middle Ages, and literary works produced by its members were swiftly diffused throughout Europe. Dreves’ Analecta Hymnica (vol. 55) lists a very large number of sources for the piece, including several early manuscripts of the Dominican Use, several from the abbey, and various others from the British isles, the Low Countries, etc. The English translation is taken from The Liturgical Poetry of Adam of St Victor (vol. 1), by Digby Wrangham of St John’s College, Oxford. (Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., London, 1881.)

Rex Salomon fecit templum, Quorum instar et exemplum Christus et Ecclesia. Hujus hic est imperator, Fundamentum et fundator, Mediante gratia.	Solomon the king a temple Built, whose pattern and example Christ, with Holy Church, appears: He, its founder and foundation, Sway, through grace’s mediation, As the Church’s ruler bears.
Quadri templi fundamenta Marmora sunt, instrumenta Parietum paria. Candens flos est castitatis, Lapis quadrus in praelatis, Virtus et constantia.	Squarely built, this temple’s bases Are of marble; each wall’s space is Formed of stones cut evenly. Chastity’s fair flower there twineth; Each squared stone therein combineth, Prelates’ nerve and constancy.
Longitudo, Latitudo, Templique sublimitas. Intellecta Fide recta Sunt fides, spes, caritas.	Its far-reaching Length, and stretching Width, and height that tempts the sky, Faith explaining The true meaning, Are Faith, Hope, and Charity.
Sed tres partes sunt in templo Trinitatis sub exemplo: Ima, summa, media. Prima signat vivos cunctos, Et secunda jam defunctos, Redivivos tertia.	Tripartite is this fair Temple, After the Triune’s example, With first, third, and middle floor: First, the living signifying; Second, those in death now lying, Third, those raised to life once more.
Sexagenos quaeque per se Sed et partes universae Habent lati cubitos; Horum trium tres conventus Trinitati dant concentus Unitati debitos.	All the parts together rated, Or alone, are calculated Threescore cubits wide to be: Triply do these three, thus blending, Harmonize with the transcending Trinity in Unity.
Templi cultus Exstat multus: Cinnamomus Odor domus, Murra, stactis, cassia; Quae bonorum Decus morum Atque bonos Precum sonos Sunt significantia.	Gorgeous ritual And perpetual Scents, sweet smelling, Fill God’s dwelling, Cassia, myrrh, and cinnamon; Signifying Never-dying Christian graces, Prayers, and praises, Grateful offerings at His throne.
In hac casa Cuncta vasa Sunt ex auro De thesauro Praeelecto penitus; Nam magistros Et ministros Decet doctos Et excoctos Igne sancti spiritus.	In this palace Is each chalice A gold measure From the treasure Pre-elected secretly: For all teachers’ Minds, and preachers’, Throughly furnished, Purged, and burnished, By the Spirit’s fire should be.
Sic ex bonis Salomonis, Quae rex David Praeparavit, Fiunt aedificia; Nam in lignis Rex insignis Juvit Tyri, Cujus viri Tractant artificia.	Thus with treasure David’s pleasure Had collected Is erected Solomon’s great sanctuary; But the dwelling, All excelling, – Timber sending, Craftsmen lending, – Tyre’s art fashioned cunningly.
Jam ex gente Judaeisque, Sicut templum ab utrisque, Conditur Ecclesia. Christe, qui hanc et hos unis, Lapis huic et his communis, Tibi laus et gloria! Amen.	Formed of Jew and Gentile races, Builds the Church her holy places, As did both the Temple raise. Christ, Who both in one unitest! Corner-stone of each! the brightest Glory be to Thee and praise. Amen.

Medieval Dominican Chants for Christmas

The version of the Roman Rite used specifically at the Papal court in the High Middle Ages, which became the liturgy of the Tridentine reform, was in many respects very conservative, and did not take on many of the elaborations of the liturgy which were done nearly everywhere else. One of the best examples of this from the Christmas season is the singing of the Gospel of Our Lord’s Genealogy according to St Matthew, 1, 1-16, which was done between the ninth responsory of Christmas Matins and the Te Deum in basically every other Use of the Roman Rite. Because the text itself is very repetitive (“Abraham begot Isaac, Isaac begot Jacob, etc.”), it was generally set to an ornate tone to keep it interesting. The same was done at Matins of the Epiphany with the Genealogy according to St Luke, (3, 21 – 4, 1); the first three verses of this passage are Luke’s account of Christ’s Baptism, one of the three major events celebrated on Epiphany.

A friend who is a priest of the Fraternity of St Vincent Ferrer wrote to let me know that they have just lately posted a recording of this Gospel as it was sung at Christmas Matins in their church last year. Hopefully they will post the Epiphany one before long.

The Dominicans also preserved the use of the very popular Christmas Sequence Laetabundus, another thing which was never adopted into the Roman liturgical books. Here it is sung by the friars of the OP Chant YouTube channel; the text and translation are given in the notes under their original post.

An Update from OPChant

We first wrote last December, about OPChant, a YouTube channel founded last October by two young seminarians of the Dominican order living and studying in Fribourg, Switzerland, Brother Alexandre Frezzato, who is Swiss, and Brother Stefan Ansinger, who comes from the Netherlands. The mission of OPChant, as the brothers explain, is to use YouTube as a teaching tool to preserve and promote the rich Catholic heritage of Gregorian chant. Each video includes in the description a link to a PDF of the full musical score with the lyrics in Latin, as well as an English translation. In only 11 months, they have produced over 100 videos with appropriate works of music, recorded in high quality in beautiful Swiss monastic settings. Originally intended to reach other Dominicans or church music specialists, they now have 19,000 subscribers, and their videos have been viewed almost 450,000 times.

The brothers also run an ancillary website, OPChant.com, which gathers together all of their scores as an aid to learners, and which includes a Media section that presents links to press coverage of their project. The wide coverage is a phenomenon in itself, and a very encouraging one for those of us who love the chant tradition and wish to see it restored to more regular use in the sacred liturgy. To date, 54 media outlets in 17 countries and regions around the world have produced articles, short videos, or radio programs with and about the brothers. As the channel prepares to celebrate one year online, its success is also newsworthy. This project is the most widely-received public initiative of the Dominican order in Switzerland in over 50 years. The fact that it is a channel for teaching medieval sacred music in Latin makes that all the more remarkable.

Here is a message which Brothers Alexandre and Stefan recently recorded for their followers, and below, a few of their more recent recording. (This post is taken in part from a press-release.)

Per signum Crucis, the Communio of the Exaltation of the Cross.

O Sancta Mundi Domina, a hymn for the Nativity of the Virgin.

Gaude Mater Ecclesia, the Vesper hymn for the feast of St Dominic.