compositions. The descriptions of the musical designs that follow illustrate the way that chant fosters silence for hearing, whereas the modern compositions, which date from after the seventeenth century, seem to be governed by some other psychological principle.

Christmas

In the introit for Christmas Midnight Mass, the Church sings: "Dominus dixit ad me: Filius meus es tu, ego hodie genui te."This simple arrangement in Mode II prepares the Church to welcome the birth of her Savior. We are caught up in the eternal generation of the Son: "The Lord said to me: You are my Son, today I have begotten you" (Ps 2:7). Written in an uncomplicated style, this introit belongs to the neumatic class of Gregorian chant.26 Mode II, akin to the minor in modern music, creates a hushed environment.27 This modality ranks among the most commonly employed modes within the entire body of Gregorian chants. In midnight darkness, the Church celebrates the mystery of God-made-man by turning us toward the hidden life of the Blessed Trinity.

At first look, the chant appears to suggest a playful movement between the interval Re-Fa. This ascending and descending design between the Final and the Dominant of the mode hints of a rocking motion. Visibly one can see this in the neumatic notation above the words "Dominus

26 There are diverse styles of ornamentation throughout the corpus of Gregorian melodies. In addition to the neumatic style of chant, there exist also the syllabic and melismatic styles. The syllabic style represents those chants in which each syllable of the text usually receives one note of the melodic line. In the melismatic style the text is suspended while long lines of musical interpretation are devoted to single syllables, as occurs in the solemn alleluias sung at the Easter Vigil. The authors acknowledge the kind help of Edmund and Chalon Murray in writing this section of the paper.27 Unlike western music, which only uses two modes, the major and minor, the medieval system employs four pairs of modes. Each of the eight modes possesses a characteristic sound as well as short melodic patterns that identify the chants of that mode.

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"Worthy of the Temple": Liturgical Music and Theological Faith

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