This hymn is inspired by the Latin text attributed to Pope Innocent VI. It is to be added to Breaking Bread for 2027.
The music is by Ricky Manalo who also did the English text and Rudolfo Lopez did the Spanish words.
The refrain starts in Latin then splits off into either Spanish or English. There are eight verses in English and eight in Spanish. Verse five also has French, German, Filipino and Vietnamese versions. It is certainly a singable song for Eucharist especially if you need a multilingual hymn, but it may be that we need to decide between Mozart and Manalo for this text.
I noticed that like most of the upcoming hymns, this one has obvious smoothly ascending or descending note sequences, so that is clearly what OCP are looking for. It may be hymn writing 101 but if everything is using the same melodic idea it might get a bit samey.
The sheet music can be purchased at OCP, where the text is in their preview.
OCP’s “Heritage Missal” has three settings of “Ave verum Corpus”, none of them being this one. All use Chant Mode VI from “Liber Cantualis”, which is much more accessible than Mozart’s rendition!
The original Latin is a bit short for the communion procession as it’s only about two minutes in length, and may be better used as a meditation after the procession. I believe this is also in “Breaking Bread”.
There are two settings which bookend and add an English refrain between each section of the chant: “Come, Receive This Mystery” by Luke Mayernik and “In Memory of You” by Alexander Peloquin. Somewhat surprisingly, the latter is a GIA copyright.
I think its a good thing that we’re reclaiming the best of our heritage, and all of these hymns inspiried by “Ave verum Corpus” are very doable. While my preference would be one of the refrain settings in “Heritage Missal” as the entire text is used rather than just the first line, Manalo’s hymn is quite nice, and a gentle use of the Latin that shouldn’t frighten or offend anyone!
Chris
Two minutes is just about right for our Vigil mass some weeks. Thanks for the suggestions, I’m not sure if the roof would fall in here if some Latin was sung – we’d probably survive.
I should applaud their efforts to cover many languages, too.
cheers
Geoff