[Magdalen] Temporarily Lutheran

[Scott Knitter]

On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 10:43 AM, Joseph Cirou <romanos at mindspring.com> wrote:
> The Higher church Episcopalians sometimes sing the responses after the
> Gospel, but not the Epistle. In the old times some of these were recited
> with the Rc's and some chanted.

When I serve as subdeacon, I have to chant the Epistle on one note
(except for questions, which have their own traditional question
tone).

We've just recently begun chanting "The Word of the Lord" and the
people chanting the response, dropping a third on the last note of
each.

For many years we've chanted the Epistle and then spoken "The Word of
the Lord" and response. I believe that was a holdover from the 1928
BCP days, when "Here endeth the Epistle" was said, not chanted. The
rule for this was given in The Choral Service, a book that provided
chants and guidelines for 1928 BCP services.

But "The Word of the Lord" and response are a different sort of
ending, not just marking the end but proclaiming something about the
text we've just heard. So our newly chanted ending is more in line
with the RC Latin Mass' chanting of Verbum Domini: Deo gratias and
uses the same drop of a third.


-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA