by Fred Moleck
Processions and Recessions
In the fall issue of Worship, the newsletter of the Worship Office of the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, there is a very thorough lead article on liturgical processions. It was extracted from the National Bulletin on Liturgy, No. 144, originating in the national office of the Canadian church.
The treatment the author provides for the entrance procession is ingenious. The writer comments on the nature of the rite and the music, which is vital to it. Rather than entrance procession, it is termed entrance song. This designation reflects the change from how the music functions during this entrance ritual.
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) lists several elements which can be described as functions of the music for this rite. The last one finally makes the admission of the presence of the presider and ministers: the music is seen as "accompanying the procession of priest and ministers." The other functions are "intensifying the unity of the gathered people" and "leading the people's thoughts to the ministry."
That should settle the forty-year argument about when the entrance hymn completes itself. "At the end of the last verse," many quizzically stated.
No. No. No. It must stop when the presider approaches the chair. The music fits the ritual. Yes, but . . . the music and text now have the mandate to "intensify the unity of the gathered people" and "to lead the people's thoughts to the mystery."
So far no device has been invented to see just exactly when the unity is achieved and how successfully the people's thoughts have been engaged in the mystery.
As soon as the device is perfected and appears in a Palm Pilot-size card, you can pretty well count on the presider checking it at various points doing the singing of the hymn.
Holding up both hands, he screams, "Stop the music! The faithful have sufficiently reached unity and have entered into the mystery. I am at the chair. The music is fulfilled! . . . In the name of the Father, and of the Son . . . .
Music is to pull us together, to express our unity, to lead us into the mystery, and, incidentally, something we do as the priest and ministers come whomping in.
Duh.
It's just what we've been doing for a very long time now. How did we know forty years ago when we were grafting hymns into the Mass schema that such lofty sentiments were being achieved?
Well, we didn't. We needed something to sing and needed it right away. How about hymns? We've been doing it ever since.
Hymns were never part of the Eucharist in the Roman liturgy. There were some instances in the sixteenth century right after the Reformation, and there were the central European eighteenth-century practices, but they were very regional.
Hymns were vital to the Office, but as for processional songs or recessional songs, they received no official recognition. A new direction has occurred, and we all have had a part in that change.
Many saw it as a concession on the part of the "el grando" church folks in Rome to permit this to happen-and it was to be done in the vernacular.
It was the "Vatican concession on procession and recession and all the stuff in between." (This was the title I used for a presentation at a Notre Dame June conference, eons ago.) Some saw it as the places where music would do the least amount of harm. It is an established practice, however, in our church today.
In the newly revised GIRM, much emphasis is given to the music choices at the entrance, the preparation, and the communion-all processional times. There is the to-be-expected nod to the chant collections of the Roman Gradual, but this time the concession goes to the alternate choices of song/hymns-which were approved by the bishops' conference committee? (Remember them? How could you? We were never introduced.)
There is, however, a scary alternative to the congregational song. The GIRM admits the possibility of the choir alone doing these pieces. It would be easy to have the choir on occasions sing an anthem or hymn concertato for the entrance song. It would be even easier seeing this develop into the practice of the choir singing an anthem or psalm or song all the time.
Hard to believe, but there are musicians ready to pounce on that shift.
Curiously, there is no mention of a recessional item. There never has been. The recessional hymn-sorry, recessional song-was never an officially recognized liturgical music item. It has achieved that status, but it has occurred by common practice, not by mandate.
Maybe we should phase the hymn out of that slot of recessional. But, if we would do that, when would we sing "Holy God, We Praise Thy Name"? On Holy Name Society Sundays?
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net