Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost 333
early Christians were wont to assemble at the close of the liturgical
celebration. It sighs after the future heavenly country and its present
guarantee, the holy Eucharist. (K. L.).
ALLELUIA VERSE (Ps. 107: 2)
1. Paratum cor meum, Deus, 1. My heart is ready, 0 Lord, my
paratum cor meum: 2. cantabo et heart is ready: 2. / will sing, and
psallam tibi gloria mea. will give praise to thee, my glory.
Here we have an echo of the Epistle: "singing and making melody
in your hearts to the Lord." The melody was explained on the fourth
Sunday of Advent. With the present text the second paratum, in its
repetition, receives a fine melodic augmentation. Sad to say, the number
of those whose hearts are really so prepared is small. Even among those
who have been called to sing in the house of God the heart often lags far
behind the voice.
This thought ought to spur us on to praise God with our whole
heart. With good reason we sing twice: "My heart is ready!" We do not
sufficiently realize the fact that God is our glory, that He, the infinitely
sublime God, lowers Himself to our level, lifts us out of the dust, and
makes us partakers of His divine life. This is so great an honor that no
one in the whole wide world could bestow the like upon us, a nobility
no one but God could confer. Thus He becomes our glory, our pride;
and the very thought should urge us to sing of Him and to praise His
goodness with all our heart.
OFFERTORY (Ps. 136: 1)
1. Super flumina Babylonis, 2. 1. Upon the rivers of Babylon, 2.
illic sedimus et flevimus, 3. dum there we sat and wept, 3. when we
recordaremur tui, Sion. remembered thee, O Sion.
Babylon and Sion—what a contrast! There heathenism with all its
abominations; here the site of the holy temple of God in all its glory,
with its many songs and festivities. There exile, a strange country,
poverty and want; here home with its loved ones. In that far country
homesickness was always gnawing at one's heart: how could one play
or sing the songs of the Lord?
But what is Babylon compared to the great Babylon of the Apocalypse,
and what is Sion compared to the heavenly City. The earthly
Babel with its coarseness, its filth, its passions, its seductions—and the
heavenly Sion with its luminous beauty and purity, its peace, and its
eternal Alleluia! He who is filled with a lively faith and has a deep un-