Somehow it is hard to think about Easter on Holy Thursday. They seem worlds part. Nonetheless, here is the sprinking rite chant for Easter: The Vidi Aquam. This beautiful song sounds (when sung a cappella) like what water looks like in glimmering stream in the Spring.

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Discovering the "Tenebrae," or liturgy of the shadows, has been quite an education for us. Information is not easy to come by. The most important resource we found only after having mined the books mentioned here: it is Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year by Msgr. Peter J. Elliott (Ignatius Press, 2002), pp. 208-214.

As the author explains, the preconciliar reform of the Triduum meant that the Tenebrae took on a new status as a "para-liturgy," and the postconciliar reform meant that further flexibility was added to this rite. In modern times, he recommends the evening of Good Friday for the liturgy, following the celebration of the Lord's Passion and the Veneration of the Cross.

Msgr. Elliott provides two broad options: the traditional rite or an adapted form of the Office. In either case, the clery do not wear stoles and copes but rather choir dress. He further confirms that the most notable aspect of the liturgy is the gradual extinguishing of the candles leading to total darkness followed by a loud sound to symbolize the earthquake at the time of our Lord's death. (Other sources makes mention of the symbolism of the closing tomb.)

The loud sound is called the "Strepitus" which this dictionary renders as "destruction." Msgr. Elliott says that the traditional method of hitting choir books on the rail is "less effective" to a more elaborate method, which would involve a hammer and wood.

Our own Tenebrae is adapted to parish needs, includes a brief Gospel and two Psalms, the first of which is read in ten parts and the second is read total, after which the final candle is extinguished. The entire congregation says the Lord's Prayer in darkness. This is followed by the Strepitus and a period of meditation. The lights again rise dimly and people leave.

This first parish Tenebrae we expect to last no more than twenty minutes. Next year and following we hope to add more traditional aspects as the congregation becomes more familiar with the liturgy.

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Lent is a special time for the St. Cecilia Schola. Over the years, we've come to appreciate the special contribution that an a cappella choir, specializing in chant and polyphony, makes to the solemnity of the liturgies.

For Good Friday, we have prepared the following pieces:

• Christus Factus Est (Felice Anerio)
  
• Adoramus Te (Att. Palestrina)
  
• Popule Meus (Victoria)
  
• Pange Lingua Gloriosi (Proelium)
  
• Ave Verum Corpus (Byrd)
  
• O Vos Omnes (Croce)
  
• Domine Non Sum Dignus (Victoria) (an oddly beautiful midi file) (We use mixed voices in the register written here)
  
• Tu solus Qui Facis Mirabilia (Josquin)
  

And for the Tenebrae  service that follows, we use this Tenebrae written by an anon. Spanish composer of the 16th century. It will be sung following the Good Friday recessional, and sung as the altar is prepared with the candles that are extinguished during the Tenebrae.

It the parish's first time to use this liturgy. Given the evident flexibility that is integral to the Tenebrae public liturgy in the new Rite, we used a variety of sources (Liturgy of the Hours, Liber Usualis, The Book of Occassional Services), in light of the pedogogical needs of the parish and time limitations, to achieve what we hope are very moving results.

When people speak of the Tenebrae service they have attended, they bring up the unusual striking sound that ends the service. The sound is made by choir books closing or some other sound, and is said to represent one or all of the following (from various sources): the tumult in Heaven at the death of our Lord, the closing of the tomb, or the earthquake that occurs at the time of death. Because our Tenebrae follows immediately from the Good Friday liturgies, the parish program emphasizes the second interpretation, and thus is included a Gospel passage from Matthew 27: 57-60:

When it was evening, there came a rich man from Arimathea named Joseph, who was himself a disciple of Jesus. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus; then Pilate ordered it to be handed over. Taking the body, Joseph wrapped in clean linen and laid it in his new tomb that he had hewn in the rock. Then he rolled a huge stone across the entrance to the tomb and departed.

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(Reprinted from CWNews.com, and a special thank you again for all who made this workshop such a success.)

Mar. 04 - Eighty enthusiastic singers from five states gathered in Auburn, Alabama, on February 19 for the second annual Sacred Music Workshop, sponsored by the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum, a chant and polyphony choir attached to St. Michael's Catholic Church. They came dedicated to discovering the sound and meaning of Gregorian chant and the music it inspired, and in the hope that it can again become part of Catholic parish life.

After a full day singing and instruction, and the experience of three separate liturgies that took place during the proceedings, the goal seemed more accessible and achievable than ever. Workshop attendees learned the style and technique of reading chant, sang through the basic chants of the faith, prepared the chants for the workshop liturgies, and discovered and rehearsed several polyphonic pieces from Renaissance that are based on chant themes.

The workshop was under the direction of Scott Turkington of the Stanford Schola Gregoriana in Stanford, Connecticut. A leading student of the late chant master Theodore Marier, Turkington is the organist and choirmaster at St. John the Evangelist church and a member of the faculty of the summer colloquium of the Church Music Association of America.

Most importantly for this event, Turkington is an experienced and skilled teacher who knows full well that that this tradition of music is largely unknown in Catholic parishes today. If chant and the liturgical solemnity that comes with it is to assume pride of place again, in accordance with the guidelines expressed in Vatican documents, it will have to first be reintroduced to the enthusiastic amateurs who volunteer their time and energy to parish music programs. This not only means instruction in technique and style, but a new and more authentic approach to the liturgy itself as well.

The workshop began with an 8:00 am liturgy assisted by the regular members of the St.Cecilia Schola. Singing for conventional daily Mass offers an unusual challenge: in addition to adhering to the time constraints imposed by a daily Mass, the congregation expects and appreciates the quiet and silence in contrast to Sunday liturgies-- and silence offers a beauty of its own. This setting permitted the Schola to demonstrate how the traditional voice of the faith can appear as an organic part of the prayer structure of the liturgy, not just as a musical imposition or decoration.

This kind of participation offered a different model than one which demands that the congregation always sing as much as possible. It showed that participation can also mean silent prayer, intense listening, or just being attentive to the spiritual import of the sights and sounds of the liturgical experience. Many attendees commented that this demonstration alone helped them understand new possibilities for their parishes.

Workshop sessions themselves began with a prayer and a blessing. The singing began with a Gregorian Ave Maria. This haunting and formerly familiar tune embodies so much of the glory of Gregorian chant. To rediscover that this well known prayer had been attached to a beautiful and soaring chant for most of Church history in musical form helped make the point that the music of the Church is not something external to our prayer but integral to it. Our prayers are not just words alone but are even more perfectly rendered in peaceful, timeless song.

Turkington taught participants how to read the medieval neumes, the authentic form in which chant is written, how to pronounce the Latin, how to sing with a smooth and relaxed manner, and how to manage the volume so as to find the solemnity and joy appropriate to the Mass and the chants themselves. These lessons in the foundations gave participants the tools to discover the whole range of repertoire following the workshop. The musical text for all sessions on Chant was the Jubilate Deo, the chant book published in 1974 by Pope Paul VI with the instruction that it serve as the foundation for liturgical life of parishes. In addition, the Schola distributed its own supplement of chants that it found useful in liturgy, particularly in inspiring people in the congregation to sing alongside the choir. The entire packet received by all registrants included 70 pages of music.

The noon hour included a question-and-answer session on practical matters of liturgy. The panel addressed issues of the best and most effective path toward involving whole parishes in the welcome rediscovery of chant, and undertaking the transition from commercial sounds to sacred sounds at Mass. Attendees discussed how charity must always be the first principle of any musical reform, and how to avoid certain pitfalls such as mixed-style liturgies or moving too slowly or too quickly toward the goal. Turkington and the other panelists emphasized the theme that "less is more" when trying to be part of a solemn structure that permits prayer rather than attracts attention as a "performance" might do.

The afternoon sessions picked up with an exploration of polyphony, a more elaborate form of composition based on chant melody but which included separate vocal parts. The workshop schola concentrated on polyphonic motets by G.A. Palestrina and Thomas Tallis. A final practice was held for that evening’s liturgy, the 5:00 pm Vigil Mass of the Second Sunday of Lent.

The workshop Mass began with a chant prelude and a simple unison processional, followed by a Kyrie, and a simple Psalm. The offertory was Palestrina's Sicut Cervus The "Communio" from the Roman Gradual was sung (Visionem) and the traditional communion hymn Panis Angelicus. Some members of the congregation had not expected to worship alongside such a vast choir but the response was enthusiastic.

Many participants told the organizers that they were setting out for home with the intention of contributing to the music ministry of their own parishes in a special way: with an informed and renewed sense of mission, and the desire to return to the Mass the very music that grew up along side it.

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