From our "glorious traditions our parent's generation pissed away" department we bring you the 'O' Antiphons. The last eight nights before Christmas Eve were called "The Golden Nights" and the antiphons all begin with 'O' e.g. O Wisdom, O Lord of Israel, O Root of Jesse, O Key of David, O Radiant Dawn, O King of Nations, O God With Us.

In latin that reads: O Sapientia, O Adonai, O Radix Jesse, O Clavis David, O Oriens, O Radix Gentium, O Emmanuel. The first letter of each title (not including the 'O' of course) spells "SARC ORE" which is Ero Cras backwards which means "tomorrow I will come" in latin.

Fortunately, somebody wonderful has pub together a web page on the subject of the 'O' antiphons resplendent with mp3 files and jpg scans of gregorian chant notation - click here for that.

114. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care. Choirs must be diligently promoted, especially in cathedral churches; but bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs, as laid down in Art. 28 and 30.

116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.

118. Religious singing by the people is to be intelligently fostered so that in devotions and sacred exercises, as also during liturgical services, the voices of the faithful may ring out according to the norms and requirements of the rubrics.

[Sacrosanctum Concillium]

Are Choirs diligently promoted? Are our pastors of souls at pains to ensure that the whole body of the faithful are able to contribute when we celebrate with song? Is chant given pride of place? Is religious singing intelligently fostered?

It must be the lack of demand from young families...

Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement blog (a fine blog) put together a list of ten unknown truths about Sacred Music.

Are they true? Because if they are then somebody should let people know...

The music of the Mass is not of our choosing; it is not a matter of taste; it is not a glossy layer on top of a liturgy. Liturgical music is embedded within the structure of the liturgy itself: theologically, melodically, and historically.

Hymns are not part of the structure of Mass. Nothing in the Mass says: it is now time to sing a hymn of your choice. Hymns are permitted as replacements for what should be sung but only with reservations.

The sung parts of the Mass can be divided into three parts: the ordinary chants (which are stable from week to week), the proper chants (which change according the day), and the priests parts that include sung dialogues with the people.

The music of for the Mass is found in three books: the Kyriale (for the people), the Graduale (for the schola), and the Missale (for the priest).

To advocate Gregorian chant is not merely to favor Latin hymns over English ones, because chant hymns make up only a small portion of chant repertoire. It is to favor a sung Mass over a spoken one, and to favor the music of the Mass itself against substitutes.

Cognitive pedagogy is not the primary purpose of music, so, no, it is not important that all people gathered always and immediately "understand the words."

The music of Mass does not require an organist, pianist, guitar player, bongos, or microphones. It requires only the human voice, which is the primary liturgical instrument.

The Second Vatican Council was the first ecumenical council to decisively declare that chant has primacy of place: "Ecclesia cantum gregorianum agnoscit ut liturgiae romanae proprium: qui ideo in actionibus liturgicis, ceteris paribus, principem locum obtineat." (And ceteris paribus does not mean: unless you don't like it. It means even if chant cannot be sung because of poor skills or lack of resources, or whatever, it still remains an ideal.)

There is no contradiction between chant and participation. Vatican II hoped to see that vernacular hymnody would decrease and the sung Mass would increase. Full, conscience, active participation in the Mass means: it is up to the people to do their part to sing the parts of the Mass that belong to the people.

The first piece of papal legislation concerning music appeared in 95AD, by Pope St. Clement. It forbid profane music in liturgy and emphasized that Church is the place for holy music. All successive legislation has been a variation on that theme.

It's probably fair to say I was a bit harsh about Fr Massie and his digital ways. Tonight he did good. Firstly, we had a new rite latin mass. Later, he continued to teach us Gregorian Chant.

We are working through the Missa de Angelis in the plainsong for schools book. It's quite challenging when you don't know any of it but after several runs through we are getting somewhere. Fr Massie's friend Fr Augustine from Pluscarden was down for the night on his way to a meeting of novice masters (he's a monk and a novice master) and he was able to give us tips as well.

All in all, it's great to see that progress is possible and that Fr Massie is serious about getting this stuff in to some proper masses.

Here's a resource for all you liturgical music arranging types. If you want to sing the psalm each week but don't have the l337 skills to read gregorian or what have you. Despair not. The Chabanel Psalm Project has all the psalms set to simple melodies based on traditional gregorian chant tones.

Check out this sunday (this sunday (24th Sunday of Ordinary Time) for example.

Now if only someone would do the same for the antiphons.