Bryan’s Blog

Seeking music and design? Read this blog. Hiatus to end. (Thanks Seth Grodin!)

Holy Thursday services in the Catholic church include the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. This Mass is possibly the most solemn service Catholics have. A Mass will not be said again until the Easter Vigil on Saturday night. The Mass includes the service of the washing of the feet, said to duplicate one of Jesus’ last acts as laid out in the gospels before he celebrated the Passover supper with his apostles. During the Mass, all the hosts needed for that Mass and the service on Friday are consecrated. When the Mass is over, a processional of the entire congregation is assembled to leave the main church and process to wherever the Blessed Sacrament will be kept overnight (at my church a special area is constructed in the narthex for that purpose). This final processional is accompanied by the singing of the Pangue Lingua chant, typically unaccompanied. From this point until the Vigil, instruments are only supposed to be used for supporting voices, solemnity is to be kept at all times, and as stated before, no Mass will be held (because it is quite the faux pas to transubstantiate on the day of the Lord’s death).

The music for this service tends to be solemn, reserved and sparse. This was the second Holy Thursday service I had ever attended. Last year, the service really hit me when we were in the narthex, two to three hundred people kneeling before the Blessed Sacrament while my fellow choristers were singing prayers from the Taize community. That year I stayed over an hour after the service and still over 100 people were left praying. It was quite amazing. This year I had a prior engagement at 8:30 and so was rushing out the door with the first people to leave, but that still left 20 minutes of singing in the narthex after the service. It’s amazing to see.

I highly recommend the simple songs of the Taize community. They are designed to be chanted by a group of people in repetition, which provides a means for meditation and prayer. There are various solos that can be sung over the chants and they all add to that sense of meditation and prayer. They also would serve as a good way to introduce part-singing for choirs or congregations that may not have much experience with it. The continuous repetition provides opportunity for latching onto parts.