Order of Mass

In the interest of time, we'll skip the fourth and fifth parts, the offertory and communion, usually sung while the celebrant prepares the gifts for communion and while the gifts are distributed to the congregation.

These five alternate with the five parts of the mass ordinary, the Kyrie, the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, all of which we'll hear today in Palestrina's Missa Confitebor Tibi, I Will Praise Thee, O Lord, with my whole heart, mostly from Psalm one-eighteen.

Our introit text is In voluntate tua.

All things are submitted to your will, O Lord.

[singing]

[singing][singing] We've heard the Introit for our Mass today sung by monks in France.

We'll start our Mass ordinary now, Palestrina's Missa Confitebor Tibi.

Here's the Schola Adventus, a San Francisco ensemble with the Kyrie of Palestrina's Mass.

And the answer is no, we have not always had this many options.

And it's interesting, I was just talking with Matthew about this, I guess, this morning or the other day, yesterday, how there's a traditional distinction, at least in the West, at least the terminology is Western, between what's called the mass proper and the mass ordinary.

So the mass ordinary is the part of the liturgy that you would say every Sunday, regardless of what season it was or if it was a special feast or not.

So like the salutation, the Lord be with you and with thy spirit, mass ordinary.

It's just what you say.

Or the Sursum Corda before the Eucharistic prayer.

Mass ordinary.

And then there was the mass proper, which are the things that you inserted in to observe the particular season or day, which is in the main for most of the history of the West, just what are the lessons being read, the collect of the day, and the proper preface at the Eucharistic prayer.

That was Orlando de Lasso's offertory motet, Si Ambulavero, sung by the group Pomerium under the direction of Alexander Blatchley.

We now come to the sanctus of the Mass Ordinary, the Holy, Holy, Holy.

And again, it's Andrew Carwood's group, the Cardinal's Music.

O come, let us pray.