Maundy Thursday

For Maundy Thursday, here is the Ubi Caritas. This is one of my favourite plainchant melodies, possibly because it is one I learned very young. But I still think it very beautiful.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Congregavit nos in unum Christi amor.

Exsultemus, et in ipso jucundemur.

Timeamus, et amemus Deum vivum.

Et ex corde diligamus nos sincero.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Simul ergo cum in unum congregamur:

Ne nos mente dividamur, caveamus.

Cessent iurgia maligna, cessent lites.

Et in medio nostri sit Christus Deus.

Ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est.

Simul quoque cum beatis videamus,

Glorianter vultum tuum, Christe Deus:

Gaudium quod est immensum, atque probum,

Saecula per infinita saeculorum.

Where charity and love are, God is there.

Christ's love has gathered us into one.

Let us rejoice and be pleased in Him.

Let us fear, and let us love the living God.

And may we love each other with a sincere heart.

Where charity and love are, God is there.

As we are gathered into one body,

Beware, lest we be divided in mind.

Let evil impulses stop, let controversy cease,

And may Christ our God be in our midst.

Where charity and love are, God is there.

And may we with the saints also,

See Thy face in glory, O Christ our God:

The joy that is immense and good,

Unto the ages through infinite ages.

NB In the version sung on the video above, they sing Ubi caritas est vera, (where there is true love...) rather than ...et amor.  I gather this is the version in the new (1975) typical edition of the Roman Missal, and have heard that that is an older version of the text; I would be interested in any information on that.


And here is Duruflé's superb setting of it:

I love the way that Duruflé (in this and his other motets and Requiem Mass) takes plainchant themes, and then develops them in a way that is at once sympathetic, but also distinctly 20th Century French...

I was going to sign up to have my feet washed, but saw that the list was already half full of women, so decided I might do better to stay in my pew and meditate with my eyes closed, rather than distract myself with what might be, for me, an occasion of sin.

I suppose that goes with Father removing the Holy Water from the stoup. Well-intentioned, no doubt, but quite wrong.

Rather more enthusiastically, I was going to sign up to watch and pray at the Altar of Repose. However, the list was already full, which is excellent. We shall go along anyway.

Watch and pray!