Chants of the Vatican Graduale - MusicaSacra

334 Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost
derstanding of all that Babel signifies, is seized with insatiable longing
for the heavenly Sion. And especially now in late autumn, when the
fading leaves fall from the trees, and when so much in nature is dying
off, there wells up in the heart of the true child of God an intense yearning
for the home beyond, where all is different, where there is eternal
spring, eternal life, eternal love.
It is of this homesickness that our piece is singing. How beautifully
have the two thoughts flumina Babylonis and Sion at the beginning
and at the end of the song been drawn out! And then this recurrent rise
and fall of the melody, stretching out, as it were, toward eternal life,
only to sink back again! Each of the three phrases reaches high c, but
only in passing; it occurs only once in the middle phrase. The average
pitch is a. No violence, no impassioned or explosive grief is expressed;
only a very subdued wailing and weeping. Care must be taken that the
tempo be not too slow. Babylonis sounds a bit like restrained rage. Over
illic both neums must be prolonged. As if pressed down by pain, the motive
over sedimus and flevimus sinks ever lower—a b c a, g a b\?a, f g a g.
The closing cadence of flevimus continues that of flumina. Over recordaremur
(surely the appropriate spot!) the only high pressus occurs, testifying
to the unemotional character of the piece in general. One might
wish that tui were more pregnant with meaning. In its very simplicity,
however, with the repetition of the same motive, this song succeeds in
telling us much. It was in Sion, above all places, that the singer wished
to pour forth his grief and his yearning. He repeats the neums of dum
recordaremur and, proceeding in almost dreamlike fashion, his voice dies
away as if it were stifled in tears. We who are now singing are still in a
strange land, but we are allowed these songs of home, these echoes of
the heavenly songs, for they are to us a source of consolation. We know
that through Christ we have become citizens of heaven and that He will
come again into our hearts as a new pledge of future glory. In a few
moments He will appear before our eyes in the mystery of the Mass;
and in the sacrificial banquet we are united with Him and with all
heaven.
Babel sings and plays and shouts and dances, entirely oblivious of
the heavenly Sion. But we want to belong to those who, homesick yet
optimistic, are ever striving to reach the fatherland beyond.
COMMUNION (Ps. 118: 49, 50)
1. Memento verbi tui servo tuo, 1. Be thou mindful of thy word to
Domine, in quo mihi spem dedisti; thy servant, O Lord, in which thou
2. haec me consolata est in humili- hast given me hope: 2. this hath
tate mea. comforted me in my humiliation.