Communio Project Completed

The communio is the music and texts appointed to be sung during the distribution of the Blessed Sacrament in the Roman Rite. The texts tend to be a combination of psalm texts and other parts of Scripture interwoven with one another. As such, they represent a classic form of interpretation through juxtaposition that is at the heart of the Western liturgical tradition of biblical interpretation. That is, the meaning of the biblical texts is neither declared nor forced upon the singers/hearers, but instead is coaxed forth by the apposition of two or more texts joined by context and experience.

NLM reports the final completion of a project of its mother organization, the Church Music Association of America, that I will reproduce in full:

The Communio Project of putting all communions with Psalms online is now finished. You can see them here. This the one place where you can find the music for the communion antiphon sung in the manner recommended by the General Instruction. They were typeset by chant master Richard Rice. At last, the full collection is available to the world for instant download and, we can hope, singing every Sunday forever more.

Do visit and check out these treasures. While they are listed for ease of convenience on the site in alphabetical order, the index file at the top shows their proper liturgical ordering. They are in Latin with the traditional square notation, but the scripture references are included and the second page contains an English translation of the text. I’ll offer one here in the spirit of the season.

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