Monday, August 13, 2007

1974 GR

someone posted this on a thread on NLM a bit ago:

"The Graduale Romanum (1974) identifies seven ad libitum antiphons for communion:
- Ego sum vitis
- Gustate et videte
- Hoc corpus
- Manducaverunt
- Panem de caelo
- Panis quem
- Qui manducat"

I do not have a 1974 GR, and if I did, I certainly don't have enough Latin skills to decipher it.* Nor do I even know what "ad libitum" means. Could anyone explain this, or give a citation in the GR for where I can find this? (If I were to have a schola, and not learn a different communion antiphon every week, would it be preferable to use the "ad libitum" antiphons, or to use some from the Graduale Simplex?)


*yes. I need to learn Latin. I took one semester of college latin, and will never forget my parents for forcing me to take spanish in high school instead of latin, even after I begged them...
but, there is SO often I pick up a book and it has many latin phrases scattered throughout, that a more educated person would understand, or even entire books that I ought to be able to understand, like the GR! (or am I really dumb and is there an English version of that? Isn't that what the Gregorian Missal is? just incomplete?) so anyhow, I just need to get motivated and sit down and force myself to learn this dead language...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I believe it means those seven can be used at any time for communion.

These are logical good places to start when/if one wants to start learning some Gregorian communion propers.

Check out http://lysy2.archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/words.exe for help with Latin.

Anonymous said...

Also, it’s on page 391 of my 1974 GR and #142 (p. 74) of the Ordo cantus Missæ.

I think it would be your call on the ad libitum vs. GS question. I would opt for the ad libitum ones, myself, since these are actual propers that do come up during the Church year and will be usable indefinitely.

The Gregorian Missal has translations of the Gregorian texts for the major days of the Church year. It may have some kind of translation of rubrics; I don’t recall.

Puff the Magic Dragon said...

"Ad Libitum" which is often shortened to "AD LIB" means

"at will" or "freely"