Canticle of the Lamb

Use: Evening Prayer, General
Required Resources: 3-pt choir
Language: English

This is a liturgical setting of the New Testament canticle from Evening Prayer II (Second Vespers) for Sundays. This canticle is sung every Sunday outside of Lent.

The mystical text is from the Book of Revelation, with Alleluia acclamations inserted. Rev. John-Mark Missio, director of the Saint Michael Choir School in Toronto, used a short chant Alleluia from the Psalterium monasticum as the musical theme for this refrain.

Father Missio writes:

It was wonderful to stumble across this melody used in Sunday Vespers at the Duomo in Florence in 2001. That was one of the seminal moments in my appreciation of the universality of chant: here was something familiar leaping out of a totally unfamiliar environment, establishing a most unexpected and marvelous link between an historic basilica in Europe and a modern seminary chapel half a world away where I had been singing the same chant a few years before. Immediately I was able to participate in Vespers in a way I certainly had not expected.

The five verses of the canticle are set polyphonically (a la William Byrd) for three a cappella voices: alto, tenor, bass.

While obviously a perfect choice for Solemn Vespers, the Canticle of the Lamb can also make a fine entrance or communion processional, especially during Eastertide (C) when the Second Reading is from Revelation, or on the Solemnity of Christ the King.