Singing for the Dead: the Music of All Souls

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

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”.

But how, logically, can we pray for the dead? Surely their reward is known to them who have already submitted to their judgment? They’re either in heaven or hell, and no amount of prayer is going to change that. And how do we reconcile that with scripture and tradition, which teach us that it is laudable to pray for the dead?

Let us turn to our old friend, the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.

1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned. … The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:

“As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.” (St. Gregory the Great, Dialogues 4,39:PL 77,396; cf. Mt 12:31.)

We pray for the souls in Purgatory, who are undergoing this cleansing that they might worthily dwell in paradise: their place is assured, but they are not yet ready to assume it. This is known as the Church Suffering, as opposed to the Church Triumphant (the saints in heaven), and the Church Militant (that’s us).

Light a candle and say a prayer for your beloved dead, that they may soon see the face of God.

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 legal. 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. To this day, some of them are downright triggering for me.

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),
• Responsorial psalm (Ordinary Form) or Gradual psalm (Extraordinary Form; an option in the 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 and many more historically),
• 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.