Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

310 Fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Quoniam—"for"—introduces the reasons for the glad Alleluia call.
Because God is so great, so sublime, we are impelled to glorify His greatness
in new ways. There is nothing we are more in need of than an everexpanding,
ever-widening and deepening concept of the Deity. This is
what we intend to impress upon the minds of the faithful by this song.
Over the word magnus, in both instances, the melody seems to hover
lovingly. In the Alleluia for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost we also
laud God's immensity. On that day the melody wishes rather to extol
His sublimity; today, however, the fullness and extent of His power. He
is Lord and King over the entire world. His power reaches even where
that of all men, be they the mightiest earthly rulers, is weak and ineffectual.
Death itself is not exempt. When He says Surge—"arise,"
Death must give up his victims. Now God uses His regal power in order
to render us happy; hence the joyful tone.
This Alleluia was formerly sung in the Easter procession. It has
the structure a b c (=a 1 ) d (=b 1 ) and the archaic form, which does not
round off the close of the verse with the melody developed by the jubilus.
The psalmodic construction of the seventh mode is still evident in
the verse. The two phrases composing it have like introductions: Quoniam
Deus and et Rex; a similar middle cadence, which in the first phrase
is on the fifth above the tonic (magnus), and in the second phrase, as
in many other Alleluias of the seventh mode (e.g., that of the fourth
Sunday after Pentecost), upon the third above the tonic (rex magnus);
finally, very similar closing cadences, Dominus and omnem. Terrain has
a melody by itself, which in its beginning harks back to magnus of the
first phrase, and in its cadences agrees with the close of the Alleluiaverse
on the feast of the Dedication of a Church. In its beginning, omnem
employs a melodic turn which is proper to the Alleluias of the
second mode (see, for example, that of the third Mass of Christmas).
OFFERTORY (Ps. 39: 2, 3, 4)
1. Expectans expectavi Dominum, 1. With expectation I have waited
et respexit me: 2. et exaudivit de- for the Lord, and he had regard to
precationem meam, 3. et immisit me: 2. and he heard my prayer, 3.
in os meum canticum novum, 4. and put a new canticle into my
hymnum Deo nostro. mouth, 4. a song to our God.
In the Gospel we heard the narrative of the miracle wrought at the
city gate of Nairn. We do not know if the youth's mother had a lively
faith in the omnipotence of Jesus, and if she was, perhaps, expecting
Him to come to her aid. But of this we are certain: the Lord looked upon