Communion music
During Communion this week, we shall be listening to “O Magnum Mysterium” by Francis Poulenc (1899–1963)
Today, on the feast which marks the close of the Church’s Christmas season, we hear Poulenc’s 1952 setting of the traditional Christmas Matins Responsory. The text, loosely derived from the Biblical image of the animals present at the Nativity (Isaiah and Luke), is a reflection upon the mystery of the self-abasement of God in becoming man. Its exact origin is uncertain but may have found its way into the Church’s worship under the liturgical reforms of Pope St Gregory VII (d. 1085).