Farewell to Alleluia (for a time)
January 26, 2012
In most Lutheran parishes, we bid “farewell” to Alleluia on Transfiguration Sunday, the last Lord’s Day before Septuagesima. Along with the ceremony of burying or removing the “Alleluia” is the hymn “Alleluia, Song of Gladness”, dating from the 11th century.
The Festival of the Transfiguration is full of Alleluias in stark contrast to the three preperatory weeks for Lent (Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima). We rejoice for a day and restrain our alleluias until the blessed feast of the resurrection of our Lord at Easter.
The Cantica Sacra of Magdeburg (1613) provides this beautiful antiphon to be sung after the lection at Matins. (In depositione ALLELUIA post lectionem capitis germanice cantatur sequens Antiphona.) It is comprised of portions of Psalm 137 (super flumina Babylonis) with Alleluias inserted between the phrases. The text is as follows:
Hymnum cantate nobis, Alleluia, de canticis Sion, Alleluia, Quomodo cantabimus canticum Domini in terra aliena? Alleluia, Septuaginta annos super flumina Babylonis sedimus et flevimus, dum recordaremur Sion, Alleluia, ibi suspendimus organa nostra, alleluia.
Sing us a hymn, alleluia, the songs of Zion, alleluia, How can we sing the Lord’s song in an alien land? alleluia, Seventy years by the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept, when we recalled Zion, alleluia, there we suspended our chanting [of] alleluia. (organum is a loaded term encompassing instruments, voices, and even as a term for chant itself. The English of the psalm is “harps”)
The inclusion of “Seventy years” shows the significance of the three Gesimas to Lent, namely the seventy years of exile recalled here in the Church year. As Septuagesima is the seventieth day, so Lent used to be called “Quadragesima” for the forty-days therein.
source: Farewell to Alleluia at historiclectionary.com
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