Chanting the Proper of the Mass

The proper of the Mass is the name given to all the antiphons of the Mass - the entrance antiphon, the responsorial psalm, the offertory antiphon and the communion antiphon.  The original idea is that these should be sung as part of the Mass.  Over the centuries that Mass was in Latin a huge collection of chants developed for these parts.  When we began to use English for Mass in the 1960s there was no music for the new English texts.  Often choirs would just skip them and sing hymns.

In recent years there has been a new interest in these antiphons.  They are a proper part of the Mass, usually drawn from scripture and have been used for centuries.  We're missing out on something important if we don't sing them.

Luckily a lot of work has been done to make them easy to sing in English.  In St Mary's on the Hill our 10am choir sing the entrance antiphon, offertory antiphon and communion antiphon to a simple psalm tone from the Gregorian chant tradition.