All the Music for All Souls

Today is officially “The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed”, but like most folks, I’ll stick with the simple version – All Souls’ Day. Given the day’s importance in the life of the Church, there’s a lot of history and liturgy – and Gregorian chant – to unpack.

First, let’s talk Purgatory. We have to, to make any sense at all out of today’s feast.

Over the years, I’ve heard numerous homilies and essays that mix this day up with yesterday, All Saints’ Day. Somebody once told me, “they’re basically the same feast”. No. False.

Yesterday, we celebrated the feast of all the saints – known and unknown – who participate in the heavenly liturgy, while gazing in Beatific Vision at the Eternal and undivided Trinity and basking in the mercy and love of Love itself.

Today, the Church calls us to pray for the dead. This is a venerable tradition, praised in the Second Book of Maccabees (2 Macc. 12:43–45), and continued on in the Christian scriptures (2 Tim 1:16-18) and right to the present day. This is the original meaning of the “Day of the Dead”.

And how do we pray? Most perfectly in the sacred liturgy. And over the centuries, the Church has developed many traditions around this day, including particularly the Gregorian chants of the day. It has some doozies. I confess that I was a fan of chant long before I was a Catholic. In part, God used the beauty of this kind of music to draw me to Him.

Specific chants are prescribed for each Mass in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite. Each day’s Mass has its own chants. Some of the texts are printed directly in the Roman Missal, but most are collected in a liturgical book called the Graduale Romanum. There are dozens of English versions of these available for the Ordinary Form if you don’t like the Latin.

Mind you, in the Ordinary Form, it’s common practice to replace them with hymns or other songs, even though it’s not entirely licit. I have had numerous discussions with folks who prefer the “five-hymn” sandwich approach to the Mass, using bouncy uptempo songs they say are more “joyful” than the antiphons.

Of course, it was exactly these sorts of songs that helped convince me in my teenage years that the Catholic Church offered nothing of weight or substance. In my head, I continue to associate these kinds of songs with sloppy, irreverent liturgy, and sloppier catechesis.

There are still songs I can’t hear without immediately thinking of the guitar-strumming Deacon Dieter from my high school. For those of us in my school seeking a deeper spirituality, this was all just saccharine and fluff.

The church asks us to sing these antiphons. They are printed directly in the Roman Missal. Skipping them or replacing them is just one step removed from replacing the responsorial Psalm… or the readings.

Again, others have different opinions, and there are certainly legitimate reasons for having those opinions. However, at least in the case of the antiphons, the instructions are very clear. They are meant to be as much part of the readings of the Mass as the responsorial Psalm.

Regardless of practice, it is clearly the preference to use the assigned chants.

Usually, these take the form of an antiphon (or chorus, really) with verses from the psalms or sometimes elsewhere in scripture.

They occur at the following places in the Mass:

• Introit (entrance chant: antiphon with verses),
• Gradual psalm (Extraordinary Form) or
  Responsorial psalm (Ordinary Form),
• Sequence (In the Ordinary Form there are now only a handful of days in the year that have sequences, though there are several more in the Extraordinary Form),
• Gospel acclamation (Alleluia or Tract),
• Offertory chant (usually an antiphon with verses), and
• Communion antiphon (antiphon with verses).

Sometimes they are rather ordinary sounding, but sometimes they rise to the heights of beauty that will take your breath away.

Here are some of the traditional chants for All Souls Day. Clearly, since this is a day specifically dedicated to the praying for the dead, none of them are particularly bouncy and light. And they shouldn’t be.

If you only listen to one, listen to the Dies Iræ. Enjoy!

Lyrics and translations may be found on Wikipedia, of course.

Introit: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine (Grant them eternal rest, O Lord)

Another version:

Sequence: Dies Iræ (Day of Wrath)

Gospel acclamation: Absolve Domine (Forgive, O Lord)

Offertory chant: Domine Jesu Christe, Rex gloriæ (Lord Jesus Christ, King of glory)

Communion antiphon: Lux æterna (Everlasting light)

If you got something out of these, I would like to take the opportunity to recommend this CD. It’s a beautiful recording of the entirety of the Requiem Mass, from which these chants are derived.