Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

First Sunday in Lent 119
bo eum. Ps. Qui habitat in adjuto- with length of days. Ps. He that
rio Altissimi, * in protectione Dei dwelleth in the aid of the Most
caeli commorabitur. High, * shall abide under the protection
of the God of heaven.
We have now entered the serious season of Lent, the season of penance.
Much is expected of us during this time. But the prospect should
not dismay us; sadness or weariness are entirely out of place. For we are
not to carry on the fight alone. Now more than ever the Lord will be
our help. We may call upon Him, and He promises to hear us (first
phrase). He will remove all obstacles, all ground for complaint; He will
"deliver us;" He will even—Oh, the wonder of it!—glorify us (second
phrase). And that which He now promises us is, moreover, to be our
lasting possession, is to fill the yearning of our hearts for all eternity
(third phrase).
The words of the Introit found their fulfillment in the Saviour Himself.
His long and fervent prayer was answered by reason of the piety
with which He prayed. He was freed from all pain and from all His
enemies; He was glorified, and both the fullness of days and the fullness
of joy overflowed into His sacred humanity. That is the wonderful panorama
which Mother Church unfolds for us on this very first Sunday in
Lent.
We must also pray this Introit as if it were coming from the hearts
of the catechumens. The station today is at St. John Lateran, the mother-church
of all Christendom, dedicated to St. John the Baptist.
There, on the night preceding Easter, the catechumens will find the
dearest wish of their heart granted; there the Sacrament of Baptism will
remove from them the power of their enemies and free them from the
vicious world and from the darkness of sin. There they will be received
into the Communion of Saints, obtaining thereby a claim to the glory
of heaven.
These thoughts are of themselves sufficient to prevent us from giving
a somber interpretation to the present Introit. The fact that it belongs
here, to the first Lenten Sunday, will not hinder us from singing
it as a joyous, sunny song, transfigured by the goodness of God.
The first phrase twice touches the note /, but only in passing; in the
main it restricts itself to the tetrachord g-c. The word-accents are well
defined and usually occur on the dominant c. The second phrase is built
around the magnificent glorificdbo, which truly sings of glory. Its closing
word is like the first eum, but a bit more restricted. Glo-(ria) is like
e-(go) of the first phrase, and eripiam resembles invocdbit. The third phrase
begins on the dominant, and assigns to dierum and eum the same notation
that eum of the second phrase has. Adimplebo is the counterpart