Foundations: Gregorian Chant and Theology As part of a series of talks in preparation for Advent, Br. Innocent Smith, OP, presented a paper examining the link between theology and Gregorian Chant, using the Christmas masses as an example. Below is an excerpt from his talk. The repertoire of Gregorian chant offers what Yves Congar described as the Church’s “living commentary” on the scriptures. By selecting specific texts of the scripture and assigning them to particular feasts of the liturgical year, the Church helps us to read scripture in light of the mystery of salvation by drawing out the connections between the Old and New Testaments and the life of the Church. The Gregorian chants for the feast of Christmas, which were already stable and widespread by the year 800, have served through the ages as a touchstone for devotional and theological reflections on the meaning of Christmas. A thousand years before Handel wrote his famous setting of the prophecy of Isaiah that “unto us a child is born,” Christians throughout Europe were singing the same text every year on Christmas morning: Puer natus est. While the liturgy in general has had a tremendous influence on popular piety and theology through its transmission of Tradition and its formation of Catholic sensibility, the chants of Christmas in particular have had a great influence that may be easily discerned in the writings of theologians and spiritual writers. Since the time of Gregory the Great, three Masses have been celebrated on Christmas, (midnight, dawn, or at the cock’s crow, as some manuscripts indicated, and in the day). Most days of the year only have one set of Mass readings and chants, but these three Masses each have their own formulae. In the Summa Theologiae, St. Thomas Aquinas offers a beautifully illuminating exposition of the reason for the three Masses of Christmas: the three masses are said on Christmas day
13th Century Dominican “Stabat Mater”
“on account of Christ’s threefold nativity.” St. Thomas is here referring to Jesus’ eternal birth as Son of the Father, his birth in a human body, and a third birth, which may seem less obvious: the spiritual birth of Christ in our hearts. The introit (the first words of the liturgy that we hear in a Mass sung with Gregorian chant) of the Midnight Mass is Dominus dixit (Psalm 2): “The Lord said to me: ‘You are my Son, I have begotten you today.’ Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?” St. Thomas associates this chant with the eternal birth of the Word of God, which is hidden in our regard because it takes place eternally, before the creation of men or angels, and thus, he explains, this chant is fittingly sung in the night. It brings to mind the dignity of the Son of God, and reminds us that the child whose human birth we celebrate on Christmas is truly God from all eternity. The introit of the Dawn Mass is Lux fulgebit (Isaiah 9): “Radiant light will shine upon us today, for the Lord is born unto us. He shall be called Wonderful, God, Prince of Peace, Father of the world to come. His reign shall have no
end. The Lord reigns, he is enrobed with majesty; the Lord is clothed with strength, he has girded himself.” The scriptural text has been adapted here to connect the shining of the light with the birth of the child, who in this chant is not called a boy or infant, but is rather “Dominus,” Lord. The chant explains that the light will shine upon us today because the Lord is born for us. Jesus is the “true light that enlightens every man.” St. Thomas associates this chant with the spiritual nativity of Christ in the hearts of men and women: “The second [nativity of Christ] is his spiritual nativity in time, whereby Christ rises as the day-star in our hearts, and on this account the mass is sung at dawn.” The Roman Catechism takes up the theme of spiritual birth and advises that all Christians should “take care lest …He should find no room in our hearts in which to be born spiritually.” The Mass of the Day has the introit Puer natus est: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. Dominion is on his shoulder and his name shall be called the Angel of Great Counsel. Sing unto the Lord a new song, for he has accomplished wondrous deeds.” St. Thomas writes that “the third [Nativity of Christ is his] temporal and bodily birth, according as He went forth from the virginal womb, becoming visible to us through being clothed with flesh: and on that account the third mass is sung in broad daylight.” Although this chant is taken from the same section of Isaiah as the previous one, here we find more of a focus on the human nature of Christ. The Mass at Dawn introit speaks of the Lord being given to us: now we hear that a child is born unto us, and a son is given to us. These reflections are an example of the way in which the study of the liturgy of the Church may be enriching for theological study. The liturgy provided St. Thomas with an opportunity to articulate the manifold ways in which we can speak of Christ’s nativity, and his reflections in turn have aided the practice of liturgical catechesis.
Br. Innocent Vincent Smith, OP is in his second year of studies for the priesthood at the PFIC. Before joining the Dominican Order, Br. Innocent graduated from the University of Notre Dame with a double major in philosophy and music, focusing on the Dominican chant tradition. The image is used with permission from the Dominican Liturgy Blog: dominican-liturgy.blogspot.com “Foundations” is the student column of The 487 Correspondent, in which one of our students shares an aspect of his or her life at the PFIC. For previous “Foundations” columns please visit our website, www.dhs.edu
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