The Gloria in Excelsis (Part 1)

Gloria in excelsis (Italy, 16th century)

Lost in Translation #99

In January of this year, we began a new “Lost in Translation” series on the Ordinary of the Mass and got as far as the Kyrie. Today, we resume the series by examining the Gloria in excelsis. But before we turn to some of the hymn’s linguistic oddities, let us consider its development and use, which can shape our understanding of its meaning.

Background

Also called the Angelic Hymn and the Greater Doxology (in contradistinction to the Lesser Doxology “Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit…”), the Gloria in excelsis is one of the most recognizable features of the Mass of the Roman Rite even though it was not composed for the Mass or in Latin. One of our earliest versions of the hymn is from the fourth-century Apostolic Constitutions, where it is recommended for use in the morning Office of Lauds. Here is a translation of the Greek:

Glory be to God in the highest, and upon earth peace, good will among men.

We praise You, we sing hymns to You, we bless You;

We glorify You, we worship You by Your great High Priest;

You who art the true God, who art the One Unbegotten, the only inaccessible Being:

For Your great glory, O Lord and heavenly King, O God the Father Almighty,

O Lord God, who takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayer.

You who sittest at the right hand of the Father, have mercy upon us, for You only art holy;

You only art the Christ, Jesus Christ, to the glory of God the Father. Amen. (VII.xlvii).

The Churches that use the Byzantine Rite or the Alexandrine Rite (e.g., the Coptic) continue to chant some version of this doxology in their morning Divine Office.

Changing Use

The Roman and Ambrosian Rites, on the other hand, incorporated the Gloria into the Mass. Beginning sometime in the sixth century, a bishop intoned the hymn during the Christmas Midnight Mass; later, the privilege was extended to Sunday and the feasts of the martyrs. A bishop was seen as the natural mouthpiece for the Angelic hymn for he was considered to be a messenger or “Angel of the Church.” (see Rev. 2, 1 - 3, 22) One vestige of this association is the rubric in place until 1960 that paired the Gloria with the Ite, missa est. If the Gloria was not said at Mass, then Benedicamus Domino would be said instead of the dismissal, for both were considered the purview of the bishop. Eventually, however, priests were given permission to say the Gloria. Beginning in the eleventh century, they could intone the hymn on Easter Sunday and later, other feasts.

Over time, the Gloria had more to do with the focus of the occasion than with the rank of the celebrant. Even though the Gloria contains petitions for mercy, the hymn’s content overall is more joyful than the Kyrie eleison which precedes it. For St. Thomas Aquinas, the Kyrie commemorates our present misery while the Gloria commemorates the heavenly glory towards which we strive. The Gloria thus fits naturally with feasts, since heavenly glory is a prominent theme during a feast, but it is out of place with “mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of our misery.” [1]

Consequently, in the 1962 Roman Missal the Gloria is also used for all feasts (first, second, and third class) and every day of the Church’s two most joyful seasons, Christmastide and Eastertide. During the “green” Times after Epiphany and Pentecost, the Gloria is used on Sundays but not on ferias. And during the “violet” seasons of Advent, Septuagesima, and Lent, the Gloria is not used at all. Adam Wood has rendered these rules into a clever poem:

If red or white, to sing it’s right.

(Excepting Palms or Friday night)

Pink, purple, black—you best cut back,

The rites a “glory” that day lack.

With green o’er rabbat, the usual habit

Is sing it only on the Sabbit.

And there are interesting exceptions. Prior to 1955, the Church could not bring herself to experience joy as her first reaction to mass infanticide. The feast of the Holy Innocents on December 28 was celebrated with violet vestments, the suppression of the Gloria, and a Tract instead of an Alleluia as the Church assumed the voice of Rachel and the mothers of Bethlehem, mourning and weeping over their children because they were no more. (see Matt 2,18) But once this grief had been expressed (and within the Christmas Octave no less), the Church could then rejoice in the heavenly glory that the Holy Innocents are enjoying by celebrating the same Mass on January 4 (the octave day of the feast) but with red vestments, the Gloria, and an Alleluia. This touching tradition was destroyed in two stages. When Pope Pius XII suppressed the Octave of the Holy Innocents in 1955, the “red Mass” on January 4 was dropped. And with the changes to the rubrics in 1960, the “red Mass” took the place of the “violet Mass” on December 28, which is the current configuration in the 1962 Missal.

The Massacre of the Innocents: Not a happy occasion

But with the death of a baptized person who has not reached the age of reason, the Church insists on joy from the start. When a baptized infant dies, a Votive Mass of the Angels is celebrated instead of a Requiem Mass, and the Gloria is used. It is as if the Church is inviting the child’s grieving family to picture their little loved one in Heaven singing the Gloria with the Angels. And it is an astonishing practice: the Church shows greater joy over the entrance of one infant into Heaven than she initially does over the same entrance of the Holy Innocents, who are canonized saints.

Votive Masses

Another peculiarity are the rules governing the use of the Gloria at Votive Masses. In the Tridentine Missal, if a pope or bishop ordered a Votive Mass to be said for a certain grave occasion (pro re gravi), the Gloria was to be used unless the color was violet. The Gloria also appears in Votive Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturday and the Votive Mass of a Saint on a day in which the Saint is named in the Martyrology or during his or her octave. And the Gloria is always said, as the Missal explicitly states, during a Votive Mass of the Angels.

As for a Nuptial Mass, which is a Votive Mass for the Bride and Groom, the Gloria was not said until the rubrics were changed in 1960, even though the liturgical color has long been white.[2] The official reason is that the Nuptial Mass is a private Votive Mass, and private Votive Masses do not have a Gloria. It also makes sense that even though a wedding is a celebration, it should also have a plaintive aspect (to which an omitted Gloria contributes) as a way of poignantly begging God for a successful, happy, and long marriage. Not inviting the Gloria to a wedding is therefore liturgically appropriate, so long as one does not go on to call weddings “mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of misery.” The bride might not like that.

Notes

[1] Summa Theologiae III.83.4, trans. mine.

The third part commemorates heavenly glory, which we are striving for after this present misery, by saying, "Glory to God in the highest." [The hymn] is sung during feasts, on which heavenly glory is commemorated, but it is omitted during mournful liturgies, which pertain to a commemoration of our misery.

Tertia autem pars commemorat caelestem gloriam, ad quam tendimus post praesentem miseriam, dicendo, gloria in excelsis Deo. Quae cantatur in festis, in quibus commemoratur caelestis gloria, intermittitur autem in officiis luctuosis, quae ad commemorationem miseriae pertinent.

[2] But apparently, exceptions to this rule were made, as when the daughter of General William Tecumseh Sherman was married in 1874.