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9th Sunday after Pentecost PDF Print E-mail

Summary of comments of this office by Dom Schuster, in his work L'année liturgique.


As we shall see, the series of Sundays after Pentecost used to be interrupted by the feast of St. Lawrence, in order to form around this solemnity (which, at Rome, from the fourth century, was celebrated with the greatest splendor), a liturgical cycle including several weeks of preparation and cloture.

As we have already had occasion to point out, the series of psalms used in the Introits after Pentecost now presents such wide gaps that one can well wonder if they ever really constituted an ordered group. Until the Ember Wednesday of fall, the Psalter is followed in this progressive order: Psalms 12, 17, 24, 26, 26, 27, 46, 47 53, 54, 67, 69, 73, 83, 85, 85, 118. With the Ember days the sequence is broken, and then come several antiphons of Introits taken from psalms, followed by others taken from the Books of Ecclesiastes, Jeremiah, Daniel, and Esther; in short, it constitutes a separate cycle of a distinct character.

It is difficult now to determine the cause of the lacunae that are observable in the first series, since, even supposing that the Masses of the fourth and sixth ferial days of each week in usage in Christian antiquity, and of which numerous traces have remained in the lectionaries of the Middle Ages, each had its own Introït, the gap is still not filled.

Be that as it may, the Antiphonarius Cento of St. Gregory must have undergone significant adjustments in the primitive Roman musical collection, and it is really something if, now, through the orderly appearance that the present Liber Gradualis presents, we can still discern traces of the series and cycles of chants absolutely distinct from each other in the beginning.

Today the Introït is taken from Psalm 53. "Behold, God is my helper, and the Lord is the protector of my soul: turn back the evils upon my enemies, and cut them off in Thy truth, O Lord, my protector."


The Gradual respond is taken from Psalm 8, which develops the theme of the famous Canticle of St. Francis of Assisi to frate sole. From the beauties of creation, the psalmist adduces a splendid argument to celebrate the glory of the Creator.


The versicle of the Alleluia is borrowed from Psalm 58, and, now placed in proximity to the preceding verse by the suppression of the second reading from the Bible, it produces an effect of contrast: the one chant uplifting and joyous, the other full of sadness: "Deliver me from my enemies, O my God: and defend me from them that rise up against me." This prayer of Christ to His Father while He is confronted by His adversaries is also the prayer of the faithful soul constantly exposed to Satan's ambushes.


The versicle ad offerendum, taken from Psalm 18, is also sung on the Third Sunday of Lent: "The justices of the Lord are right, rejoicing hearts, and His judgments sweeter than honey and the honey-comb: for Thy servant keepeth them."


The antiphon for the Communion is borrowed today, against the rule, from the Gospel according to St. John (6:57), and it is the same as the one of Thursday of the second week of Lent: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him, saith the Lord."

 

 
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