Psalms at the Eucharist

[sbarber49]

I have always understood that there should be no Gloria after the psalm at a Eucharist service. However when I confidently announced this at choir practice last week, one of the singers - a new member and one of the ministry team - told me I was wrong. "I've never, ever, sung a psalm without the Gloria". Over the years I have played in many cathedrals and I can't remember ever playing a Gloria after a Eucharist psalm but I have failed to find anything on the internet to back this up.

It's not an issue for many parish churches, I shouldn't think, as we mostly use responsorial psalms which, as far as I'm aware, never have a Gloria attached. I don't think there ever was a psalm, or Old Testament reading for that matter, at a communion service before Series 2, was there?

Can anyone confirm if I'm right - or not? If Glorias are not usually sung at this point, why not? Is there a liturgical reason? Is there anything on the internet about it?

In our case it isn't an issue anyway as the psalm we were practising will be sung during the communion, as an "anthem", so I presume there are no liturgical considerations which cover that. 

Piddling post, I know - but shows I'm still interested in the forum!

Stephen

[Rowland Wateridge]

I’m not sure that there is a hard and fast rule in the C of E in the context of Communion.  A quick look at ‘Common Worship’ did not provide any answer.  It is certainly not specified as obligatory.  But The Episcopal Church (i.e., the Anglican Church in America) agrees with you: “Gloria Patri is seldom used after the gradual psalm at the eucharist”. Accordingly its use there is certainly not invariable.  TEC is quite clear that, as with the BCP, it always follows recitation of the psalm(s) at Morning and Evening Prayer.

Inclusion of a psalm in the Communion service by the C of E was a relatively ‘recent’ innovation and largely follows modern Roman Catholic liturgy.  I have never heard Gloria Patri sung after a responsorial psalm in any RC service. 

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

Gloria Patri is not sung after the Gradual psalm (properly before the Gospel, but nowadays often between the Old Testament reading and the Epistle), but it is sung after a psalm sung at the Eucharist as an Introit.

The reason is interesting.

The Gradual is such a very ancient part of the liturgy (sung to cover the action whilst the deacon climbed the steps (Latin gradus - hence the name “Gradual”) to the platform from which he would sing the Gospel) that it predates the custom of singing Gloria Patri at the end of a psalm.

The Introit is not so ancient, post-dating the introduction of Gloria Patri, so the new custom applies (as it does of course in the office).

What might seem an arbitrary and meaningless distinction preserves something of the history of how the liturgy has evolved.

[innate]

It’s a long time ago now but I’m fairy sure that we always sang a psalm as the Gradual at our weekly Holy Communion service and we always sang a Gloria Patri after it. This was at a post-war church on a post-war council estate on the edge of Derby in the years before the introduction of Series 2. We used a small green book for the Order of Holy Communion which had the rubrics in red. We were above half way up the candle; some of the congregation left when the vicar introduced incense but private confession was always available. My father, the organist, had been a chorister at St Michael’s, Tenbury.

[sbarber49]

I thought that the psalm was introduced in Series 2 (it wasn't in Series one).

I don't think there has ever been a formal instruction about the Doxology after the psalm at the Eucharist but as the RSCM puts it (in its Music for Common Worship 1) "It is customary to omit the doxology at the end of the psalm after the first reading at Holy Communion".

Thanks, all, for your responses. 

[innate]

1 hour ago, sbarber49 said:

I thought that the psalm was introduced in Series 2 (it wasn't in Series one).

I don't think there has ever been a formal instruction about the Doxology after the psalm at the Eucharist but as the RSCM puts it (in its Music for Common Worship 1) "It is customary to omit the doxology at the end of the psalm after the first reading at Holy Communion".

Thanks, all, for your responses. 

Were there hymns in Series one?

If it is customary to omit something the implication is that it’s something that would otherwise be there. Not sure how that changes anything!

[sbarber49]

3 hours ago, innate said:

Were there hymns in Series one?

If it is customary to omit something the implication is that it’s something that would otherwise be there. Not sure how that changes anything!

Hymns weren't mentioned in Series one, however if they had added a psalm as part of the liturgy, I think the booklet would have said so. I could be wrong, though. I don't think Series One lasted long.

I think the point about omitting the Gloria is that it is always sung or said) at the end of the psalm at Morning and Evening Prayer, as part of the cycle of psalms. As it says in the BCP 1662:  "And at the end of every Psalm throughout the year, and likewise in the end of Benedicite, Benedictus, Magnificat, and Nunc dimittis, shall be repeated: Glory be to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.).

However this is not normally the case with the psalm between the Old Testament reading and the Epistle at the communion service, hence the the RSCM instruction - i.e.at all other services the Gloria is added but not at the communion service.

[DaveHarries]

Bristol Cathedral do sing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalms and Canticles used at Evensong.

Dave

[sbarber49]

31 minutes ago, DaveHarries said:

Bristol Cathedral do sing the Gloria Patri at the end of the psalms and Canticles used at Evensong.

Dave

What about the Eucharist, though?

[Paul Walton]

55 minutes ago, sbarber49 said:

What about the Eucharist, though?

No Gloria

[DaveHarries]

6 hours ago, sbarber49 said:

What about the Eucharist, though?

Sorry - I misread the topic and thought it was Evensong not Eucharist.