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The Humble Singer of Emmanuel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2024

Vincent McNabb O.P.
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Extract

The Eucharistic hymns of St. Thomas are a cycle—indeed the only cycle—of liturgical song. They form such a unity and fulness of Eucharistic truth and worship that a greater than Elgar or Bach would be needed to express them as an oratorio.

But there is one spiritual quality throughout them which the greatest master of music would confess to be beyond the power of his craft. Every line of these Eucharistic hymns, though unmistakably wrought by genius, is yet dyed by a subtle rosential humility which has escaped notice only by the semblance of a miracle. Yet if none but the prayer of the humble pierces the clouds, this twice-hidden humility of the Eucharistic hymns has given them a place apart in the great throng and song of liturgical prayer.

Let us draw attention to this quality (i) in the Hymns of the Divine Office and (2) in the Sequence of the Mass.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 17 , Issue 190 , January 1936, pp. 30 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © 1936 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Part III, Q. 83. Art. 4.

2 I.e., the Lessons and the Epistles.

3 Theology and Prosody had always demanded ORO instead of ADORO. It is a consolation that in these latter days the documents have justified the demands of Theology and Prosody. Yet the argument against the authenticity of the hymn from the silence of the documents is at least inconclusive. Of the writer of this incomparable lyric all that can be said is: Aut angelicus aut angelus.