The National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception will be presenting Vespers livestreamed each Sunday during Advent at 4pm. Below is last Sunday's service form their YouTube channel.
Solemn Vespers on the First Sunday of Advent – November 27, 2022
2.1K views / Streamed 19 hours ago; 3.4K views / Streamed 6 days ago
You can get this Sunday's service either, live from their website.
Mass from America's Catholic Church - National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception
or anytime from their YouTube Channel'
The Anglican Choral Evensong Model
The Book of Common Prayer, a child of the Reformation in England, gave to English speaking people in the vernacular a book of Hours that 1) affirmed the ancient primacy of Morning and Evening Prayer in Cathedrals over the monastic practice praying seven Hours, 2) spread the praying of the Psalter over a month rather than a week, and provided a rich diet of readings from the Old and New Testament at Morning and Evening Prayer.
In other words, they did centuries ago what the Roman Church did more timidly when it reformed the Liturgy of the Hours after Vatican II. We did emphasize Morning and Evening Prayer. However, we fully suppressed only one Hour (Prime) and collapsed Terce, Sext, and None into Day Time Prayer. We did spread the Psalter over Four Weeks.
The Book of Common Prayer can be used to support both High and Low Church worship. The high church Choral Evening Song is described as follows from Washington National Cathedral
The Tradition of Choral Evensong
Welcome to Washington National Cathedral. It is an ancient tradition for the people of God to offer praise and prayer as the day draws to a close. Choral Evensong is a service of sung evening prayer.
The text of the service is drawn almost entirely from the Bible. The main purpose is to proclaim the wonderful works of God in human history, and in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Sung psalms and canticles are interwoven with readings from the Old and New Testaments and the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed and Lord’s Prayer. Other prayers and hymns are drawn from the many centuries of the Christian Church.
The congregation is invited to listen reflectively and prayerfully as the choir offers prayer and praise on their behalf. Many find this frees them to offer to God their own thoughts and prayers.
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The last paragraph, of course is directly contrary to full active participation which would include verbally active participation in prayers and hymns.
What the National Shrine has done is provide a format that allows much participation. However, in fact what happens is that most of the participants likely process it much like what is describe above for Choral Evensong.
Here is the worship aid for today's service. Note that it is specifically designed for mobile devices.
2-Sunday-of-Advent-2022-Vespers-Leaflet.pdf (nationalshrine.org)
The opening hymn is there for the whole congregation to sing. It seems vaguely familiar to me. However, their excellent choir will do it well even if no one else joins in.
The psalms verses are alternated between the schola and the people. What really helps the people to sing the chant is the strong support given by the organ for the people. The organ backs off for the schola parts. On some of the schola verses they use enough polyphony to be interesting but not enough to obscure the basic chant.
What the choir does well are the antiphons. They make no attempt to have the people sing them, rather they give us very interesting mini-choral pieces much in the style of Choral Evensong.
Unfortunately, they use Latin for both the Magnificat and Lord's Prayer. The text and music are there for the people to sing. However, my experience in choir is that most choir people do not understand how to pronounce Latin. We spend a lot of time getting it right.
While the National Shrine celebrations intends to involve the people, it fails to attract them to active participation at the Shrine. However, it appears to attract a more passive contemplative audience on-line. Unless the audience on-line is mostly composed of the musically inclined like Betty and myself.
Try it out, it is only 30 minutes long; beware however that there is a fifteen-minute prelude composed of advertisements and some organ prelude music.
While the General Instruction on the Hours is very specific about not changing any of the Office on Sundays of Advent and on the O antiphon days at the end of Advent, it does allow the week day offices to be replaced by votive offices. I think we should encourage people to use these Sunday evening offices for the whole week.
These National Shrine Vespers services are of very high quality since they have a superb sound system, and camera system. All the artwork for the shrine helps greatly as background. I would however prefer that they put text and music at the bottom of screen. It is inconvenient to shift between text in one tab and visual in the other.
Jack, thanks for this. I will definitely be checking this out.
ReplyDeleteOne of the few times I am able to pray Morning Prayer communally each year (and perhaps not anymore, as the educational event which was the reason for my presence seems to be discontinued) was at an annual preaching conference at the Liturgical Institute, a conservative-ish program for liturgical formation at the Mundelein seminary (the Chicago Archdiocese's seminary). We attendees of the annual conference were invited to attend the Institute's Morning Prayer, whose regular attendance was Institute students and faculty - a pretty stable, regular community. The Institute has published its own Psalter, the Mundelein Psalter, with all of the appointed texts for Morning and Evening Prayer, a set of psalm tones, and a hymnal with modal, "churchy" sounding hymn tunes. The tones are pretty good, and I use them for my own prayer, and also occasionally have foisted them upon the diaconate community at our own gatherings. Anyway, this paragraph so far is to set up this comment: the Institute community also prays the Our Father in Latin at Morning Prayer (and presumably at Evening Prayer, although I've never stuck around for it after a full day of preaching conference). I've sung in various choirs since college, so I've sung a fair amount of Latin, but I never acquired the habit of praying the Pater Noster in Latin (as I missed the whole pre-VII Latin mass). I find it impossible to sight-read the Latin and the tune together. I find it off-putting and annoying for a variety of reasons, including that it's the opposite of welcoming the stranger (like me). Of course, for the stable community that gathers daily, they're used to it and into it.
I have a copy of the Mundelein Psalter. I liked the text and format. It also conveniently has the General Instruction at the beginning, so I often use it as a reference. It has the flavor of an inward-looking community which is not trying to make the Liturgy of the Hours relevant to the average Catholic.
DeleteAs one who is very familiar with the Latin text and tune, I can sing the Pater Noster without either. I suspect that is the case with most of the people at the Institute. Since they use it all the time, newcomers probably learn to do everything from memory, too. Seems a nice device for creating a separate community whose message to guests is that they have go through a "novitiate like experience" to become "one of us."
" It has the flavor of an inward-looking community which is not trying to make the Liturgy of the Hours relevant to the average Catholic."
DeleteI agree, although I suspect they (the Institute folks) would strenuously disagree. The Institute's reason for existence to form people in liturgy who should then be sent out to dioceses, parishes and religious communities to foster worship. So in theory, the Institute should be quite "outward looking", and one may wish that its liturgies would reflect that bias.
Having hung out there once a year for a number of years, I've had a taste of what they are about. I think their idea is to evangelize a set of liturgical principles which Pope Benedict would approve of, in which chant and Latin play an important part, but which, I suspect, wouldn't interest Pope Francis very much. The Institute itself was set up by Cardinal George, who was much in the Benedict vein of liturgical philosophy himself. Now with Cardinal Cupich, who is more of a Francis man (and a liturgical scholar in his own right), I sense the Institute doesn't have the enthusiastic support from the top that it used to have. I could be wrong.
That's interesting about the inwardness or outwardness of prayers in foreign languages.
DeleteThe Washington National Cathedral also streams Sunday Evensong most Sundays. However, the Cathedral is also a music venue and hosts non- music events as well. The next Sunday Evensong will be Dec 18 at 4 pm’as there are other Advent events scheduled for Sunday’s in December. During the school year they have Evensong every Monday-Thursday - not streamed. I often went to it when I was in the city for some reason. The two Cathedral schools (The National Cathedral School for Girls and St. Alban’s School for boys) award choral scholarships to talented children beginning in the 4th grade. The weekday Evensong liturgies feature the different choirs - boys, girls, adult, and combinations. My favorite was the boys choir ( anchored by a few adults too). The little boys look like Christmas card angels in their choral robes.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I want to scream - I just spent 11 minutes composing a comment, and then managed to hit a couple of wrong keys in quick succession, and now it's been sucked into the ether. No Undo function in the Comment section that I'm able to find. Oh well, I'll try again.
ReplyDeleteThat happens to me all the time on my iPad. Incredibly frustrating. Trying to remember to compose elsewhere and then copy/ paste.
DeleteLong ago in this and other blogs, I began to compose any lengthier comments in word then paste them into the comments section for a final scrutiny before publishing, e.g., paragraph separation. Helps in proofreading as well as protection against the gremlins of the internet.
DeleteWhen the Dean of Canterbury retired, I tried the National Cathedral for morning prayer, but it was very uneven.
ReplyDeleteOur old Episcopal parish has video morning prayer. The priest does it from his office. It's not great, but gets the job done.
I like the Congregation so minister's extended video sermons on Sundays. He goes into a lot of textual analysis and historical context. His live sermons are shorter. This strikes me as good way to accommodate those of us who like a longer treatment of the readings and those who don't
Jean I also find morning prayer at the cathedral to be “uneven”. It seems to depend on the priest. Would you share the name of the EC parish you watch? It sounds as though the priest’s Sunday homilies are a bit like those of our now retired EC rector.
DeleteWell, no, I won't share it here. I only offer the minister's m.o. as something any clergy could do--offer a short sermon/homily on Sunday with lengthier exploration on video.
DeleteThis blog is for Catholics and fellow travellers, and I realize am here on sufferance. I am no longer active in any denomination, but I value certain Catholic teachings and traditions.
My aim in maintaining a connection with Catholic groups is to try to find common ground with Catholics and to support Raber in his faith.
I don't want to be seen as touting some other denomination.
If you are here on sufferance, then maybe I shouldn’t be here at all! But I didn’t realize that this group was only for active Catholics. I thought it was for people interested in Catholicism . I tout the EC all the time, but don’t expect to “convert” anyone. Officially, according to the RCC anyway, I’m Catholic because I was baptized in the RCC. I am not an Episcopalian officially because when I left active participation in the RCC I did not want to affiliate officially with any denomination. I try to be a follower of Jesus, so I guess I can identify as a christian. Sort of anyway. I do have my doubts about Jesus being God, about the doctrine of the trinity.
DeleteBasically I am a seeker, so I read what I consider to be religious and spiritual wisdom literature from many traditions, including non christian traditions. But my religious understanding was formed in Christianity, specifically catholic Christianity, and I will be forever tied to Catholicism in indirect ways.
However I will disappear from this group if being an active Catholic is expected.
Yes, for people interested in Catholicism or the Catholic outlook on things. Just a line I don't want to cross. No criticism of yourself or your participation here implied.
DeleteThis blog was founded by those who were once interested in Commonweal, which while reflecting Catholic interests, has always regarded itself open to everyone who is interested in what Commonweal happens to be interested in at the moment.
DeleteAlthough we have not paid much attention to Commonweal weal for most of the time, I still think we have much the same approach as the old Commonweal blog had. Certainly, we have kept up here the sense of community that was evident in the old blog even when we often disagree.
We should always free to give links to materials that our colleagues might find useful whether or not those materials are "Catholic," or other people agree with them.
By the same token we should always be free to mention things without having to give documentation or links. We each have the responsibility for doing our own homework.
I don't think any of us who contribute here are here "on sufferance", but rather because we're all valued contributors and friends.
DeleteI think it's fine to talk about things we've liked, whether it's Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Evangelical or something else. We should be able to talk about things we like without lapsing into proselytism.
Again, I apologize to Ann, and I apologize if I seemed to be making participation rules for others. I don't consider myself Catholic any longer, so coming from me, a link to the Congregationalist or Anglicans might be seen as proselytizing. Sorry sorry sorry. My bad.
DeleteNo need to apologize Jean. If only Catholics in good standing were welcome I would have continued to read but would have kept my mouth shut. Metaphorically speaking. I like NewGathering because it has a diverse set of intelligent, spiritual people who provide lots of interesting insights and ideas. For example, Jack suggested that one reason for sécularisation in Western Europe is the existence of extensive social safety nets. That had never occurred to me before. Interesting possibility. I learn from each of you. I read this blog for the same reasons I read multiple other sites, and many different spiritual writers from many different backgrounds. I need others to challenge my thinking, and to provide different understandings. So thank younall
DeleteI like this youtube video of Rachmaninoff's solemn vespers, "Bless the Lord O My Soul". It is Church Slavonic, but has English subtitles:
ReplyDeletehttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XfDreatXYeU
[From the National Cathedral website]: "The congregation is invited to listen reflectively and prayerfully as the choir offers prayer and praise on their behalf. Many find this frees them to offer to God their own thoughts and prayers."
ReplyDelete[Jack's comment]: "The last paragraph, of course is directly contrary to full active participation which would include verbally active participation in prayers and hymns."
The question among liturgists: 'What actually constitutes "full, conscious and active participation"?' I guess, ideally, the "participation"
should be interior, i.e. of the heart and soul. But then, it seems reasonable for that interior participation to manifest itself in exterior participation, by singing, saying the responses, standing, kneeling, making signs of the cross and so on. But there are plenty of Catholics who don't make the leap from interior to exterior, and don't seem to see it as a spiritual problem.
Personally, I find that saying or singing the words gets me thinking about them - for me, the direction can run from exterior to interior.
As I was thinking about your earlier exchange with Jack, it struck me that listening to choirs and soloists just makes my mind wander to my grocery list. I am sure not everyone is wired that way.
DeleteOne of the many badly done aspects of Mass at the local parish is the Psalm. I never follow along in the book. I am very auditory, and I prefer to hear rather than see the word. But whatever the music person is saying is mush-mouthed, and the response of the people is always at dirge tempo.
I don't know much about the early history of the RCC liturgy, but I presume it was aimed at reaching a largely illiterate congregation who were more auditorially wired. Now that everyone is plugged into visual stimuli and never looks up from the missalette, it strikes me that the liturgy loses a lot of its punch.