This is an ancient chant for Lent from the New Living Parish Hymn Book, sadly out of print but very much worth getting if you find one second hand. I think the accompaniment book of this hymnal − plus Together In Song for the chords− covers much traditional hymnody with tasty extras like improvements on the songs of the folk mass era.
This song goes before even the 1960s (!) and although it sounds older is only from the 1800s, although the lyrics were later reshuffled with much older texts. This may account for the very great variability in published texts.
John de Luca made his own arrangement and his own English translation and that is a great reason for posting this.
A less good reason is another failed attempt at chant by BIAB:
Just so more people know the breadth of John de Luca’s accomplishments in this hymnal here is his arrangement and translation/paraphrase to join all the other variants of this chant.
This is how it is meant to sound, shorn of metrical baggage:
Much as I am enjoying listening to chant, I am sick of seeing posts on YouTube and elsewhere suggesting there is a cabel of old people preventing the Catholic Church returning to the glory of Latin chant as the exclusive music of the Church.
There is the usual cherry picking of SC to support this, ignoring the instruction that we need to encourage above all conscious, active participation in the liturgy.
In every suburban and rural parish I have worked as a musician there have been a few volunteers who run themselves ragged doing their best to provide music for mass that is prayful, of the people (ie enculturated to the assembly) and absolutely suitable for mass. In the unlikely event that an assembly was moved to change to Latin chant and those suggesting it were going to take over the often thankless task of providing the music week in and week out there would be no stopping it, but I have never seen it around these parts.
I now live in Tasmania, where a few years ago a young priest full of zeal decided he would change most of the masses to Latin in a small rural town. This was in a parish where, without the benefit of clergy for many years, the assembly had provided there own sacred liturgy as they were able, and where, unsuprisingly, there was no tradition of chant. The poor boy was nearly tarred and feathered and had to be rescued, and while I do not condone violence against priests, nor do I condone violence of a liturgical nature against an assembly.
I hear the accusation that styles other than chant are for entertainment value and distracting and that there is an idolatry in using a musical style that is liked by the musicians who are only interested in drawing attention to themselves. I would contend that that sin is equally committed by those who make an idol of Latin or chant or any style of music for that matter. To serve a community in music liturgy, it has to involve music that has been sacred to that community and imposition of something that has become as unfamilar as Latin chant on an assembly that has no background in that mode of music is surely as distracting as a polka.
Certainly in Australia, all attempts to regulate what music is used in parishes has failed. It is shaped by what is available, by the volunteers who are available, and by the absence of funding and will from the heirarchy. This leads to a patchy, congregational picture but that is what we have…
… here endeth the rant.