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The Introit (Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
: introitus, "entrance") is part of the opening of the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass
Mass (liturgy)

The Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The term is used also of similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and in some largely High Church Lutheranism Lutheranism regions, including the Scandinavian and Baltic states countries....
 and the Lutheran
Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century Germans Reformer Martin Luther....
 Divine Service
Divine Service

The Divine Service is the liturgy of the Lutheranism Church which is used during the celebration of the Eucharist. It has its roots in the medieval Latin mass as revised by Martin Luther in his Formula missae of 1523 and his Deutsche Messe of 1526....
. Specifically, it refers to the antiphon
Antiphon

An antiphon is a response, usually sung in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or some other part of a religious service, such as at Vespers or at a mass ....
 that is spoken or sung at the beginning of the celebration. It is part of the Proper
Proper (liturgy)

The Proper is a part of the Christian liturgy that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the Liturgical Year, or of a particular saint or significant event....
 of the Mass; that is, the part that changes over the liturgical year.

The Introit is best known in the Tridentine Mass
Tridentine Mass

The Tridentine Mass is a common name for the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962....
; however, it is part of other Catholic Mass liturgies, and even other Christian liturgies.






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The Introit (Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
: introitus, "entrance") is part of the opening of the celebration of the Roman Catholic Mass
Mass (liturgy)

The Mass is the Eucharistic celebration in the Latin liturgical rites of the Roman Catholic Church. The term is used also of similar celebrations in Old Catholic Churches, in the Anglo-Catholic tradition of Anglicanism, and in some largely High Church Lutheranism Lutheranism regions, including the Scandinavian and Baltic states countries....
 and the Lutheran
Lutheranism

Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the sixteenth-century Germans Reformer Martin Luther....
 Divine Service
Divine Service

The Divine Service is the liturgy of the Lutheranism Church which is used during the celebration of the Eucharist. It has its roots in the medieval Latin mass as revised by Martin Luther in his Formula missae of 1523 and his Deutsche Messe of 1526....
. Specifically, it refers to the antiphon
Antiphon

An antiphon is a response, usually sung in Gregorian chant, to a psalm or some other part of a religious service, such as at Vespers or at a mass ....
 that is spoken or sung at the beginning of the celebration. It is part of the Proper
Proper (liturgy)

The Proper is a part of the Christian liturgy that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the Liturgical Year, or of a particular saint or significant event....
 of the Mass; that is, the part that changes over the liturgical year.

The Introit is best known in the Tridentine Mass
Tridentine Mass

The Tridentine Mass is a common name for the form of the Roman Rite Mass contained in the typical editions of the Roman Missal that were published from 1570 to 1962....
; however, it is part of other Catholic Mass liturgies, and even other Christian liturgies. In Ambrosian chant
Ambrosian chant

Ambrosian chant is the liturgical plainsong repertory of the Ambrosian rite of the Roman Catholic Church, related to but distinct from Gregorian chant....
 and Beneventan chant
Beneventan chant

Beneventan chant is a liturgical plainsong repertory of the Roman Catholic Church, used primarily in the orbit of the Mezzogiorno ecclesiastical centers of Benevento and Montecassino, distinct from Gregorian chant and related to Ambrosian chant....
, the counterpart of the Introit is called the "ingressa." In the Sarum rite
Sarum Rite

The Sarum Rite was a variant of the Roman Rite widely used for the ordering of Christian public worship, including the Mass or Eucharist, in the British Isles before the English Reformation....
, it is called the "officium". Many Lutherans also have an introit in their service.

Text and liturgical use


Most Introits are taken from Psalms
Psalms

Psalms is a book of the Hebrew Bible , included in the collected works known as the "Writings" or Ketuvim....
, though many come from the rest of scripture
Bible

The Bible is the central religious text of Judaism and Christianity. The exact Books of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations....
. Generally they follow the same structure: two to four lines of scripture related to the theme of the feastday or celebration. Most often the choice of scripture passage has something in common with the liturgical readings that will be featured later in that Mass.

The Introit can be either sung or spoken, depending on the formality of the Mass as well as the preferences of the priest
Priest

A priest or priestess is a person having the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities....
 and his congregation. Not all Masses have Introits; traditionally the service of Holy Saturday
Holy Saturday

Holy Saturday is the day after Good Friday. It is the day before Easter and the last day of Holy Week, in which Christians prepare for Easter....
 in the Roman Catholic rite does not.

In many cases the Introit also serves another purpose: it gives a name to a particular Mass, based on the first word or phrase of the Introit. Since the Introit for a Mass is different for each day of the Liturgical Calendar
Liturgical year

The liturgical year, also known as the Christian year, consists of the cycle of liturgy seasons in Christianity churches which determines when Calendar of saints, Memorial s, Commemoration s, and Solemnity are to be observed and which portions of Scripture are to be read....
 (sometimes multiple Masses even exist for a single day, such as Christmas
Christmas

Christmas , also referred to as Christmas Day, is an annual holiday celebrated on December 25 that commemorates the birth of Jesus. The day marks the beginning of the larger season of Christmastide, which lasts Twelve Days of Christmas....
), and unique Masses exist for special functions, it provides a key for determining which order of the Mass is to be performed. This is why a funeral Mass is called a Requiem
Requiem

The Requiem or Requiem Mass , also known formally in Latin as the Missa pro defunctis or Missa defunctorum , is a liturgy of the Roman Catholic Church, Anglo-Catholic Anglicans, and certain Lutheran Church Churches in the United States....
 and the second Mass of the Feast of the Sacred Heart
Feast of the Sacred Heart

The Feast of the Sacred Heart is a holy day in the liturgical calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. It falls 19 days after Pentecost, on a Friday....
 is called the Exordium, for example. As an unusual example, the first Sunday after Easter Sunday, though having no official liturgical name, is colloquially labelled "Quasimodo Sunday" as the first phrase of the Introit is "Quasi modo geniti infantes..." taken from 1 Pet 2:2. Even though Latin
Latin

Latin is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Military history of the Roman Empire, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe....
 is no longer mandatory in the celebration of the Mass, the traditional names remain for purposes of organization of the calendar.

History


The practice evolved from the singing of a psalm as the priest and ministers approached the altar, sung verses having been part of the celebration of the Mass since earliest times. The Liber Pontificalis
Liber Pontificalis

The Liber Pontificalis is a book of biography of popes from Saint Peter until the 15th century. The original publication of the Liber Pontificalis stopped with Pope Adrian II or Pope Stephen V , but it was later supplemented in a different style until Pope Eugene IV and then Pope Pius II ....
 claims that the Introit originated by the request of Celestine I, but it was in the reign of Gregory I that the familiar form emerged, and Gregory is popularly believed to have composed many Introits himself; he is in fact not known to have composed any music.

Musical setting


In the musical idiom of Gregorian chant
Gregorian chant

Gregorian chant is the central tradition of Western plainsong, a form of monophony liturgy chant in Western Christianity that accompanied the celebration of Mass and other ritual services....
, Introits normally take the form antiphon-verse-antiphon-doxology
Doxology

A doxology is a short hymn of praises to God in various Christianity worship services, often added to the end of canticles, psalms, and hymns. The tradition derives from a similar practice in the Jewish synagogue....
-antiphon. Introits, like Offertories
Offertory

Offertory , the alms of a congregation collected in Church service, or at any Religion service.Offertory has also a special sense in the services of both the Anglicanism and Roman Catholic Church churches....
 and Communion
Communion (chant)

The Communion is the Gregorian chant sung during the distribution of the Eucharist in the Roman Rite Catholic Mass . It is one of the antiphonal chants of the Proper of the Mass, and the final chant in the proper....
s, are believed to have evolved from simpler reciting tone
Reciting tone

In chant, a reciting tone is a repeated Pitch around which the other pitches of the chant gravitate, or by extension, the entire melodic formula that centers on one or two such pitches....
s. Introit melodies show this musical parentage most clearly, and are often anchored around two reciting notes which may be repeated or percussed. The melodies are mostly neumatic, dominated by neume
Neume

Neumes are the basic elements of Western and Eastern systems of musical notation prior to the invention of five-line staff notation. The word neume is a Middle English corruption of the ultimately Greek language word for breath ....
s with two or three notes per syllable, although syllabic and melisma
Melisma

Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note....
tic passages also occur.

The Introits of Old Roman chant
Old Roman chant

Old Roman chant is the liturgical plainsong repertory of the Roman Rite of the Roman Catholic Church formerly performed in Rome, closely related to but distinct from the Gregorian chant which gradually supplanted between the 11th century and the 13th century....
 share many similarities with their Gregorian cousins, and often include a repeated extra verse that fell out of use in the Gregorian repertory.

So, for example, in the text used for the third/fourth Lord's Day of Advent, we have the antiphon Rorate Caeli from Isaiah 45:8a:

RORATE caeli desuper et nubes pluant iustum
aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.


The Verse and Antiphon from Psalm 18:2

Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei /
et opera manuum eius annuntiat firmamentum


Then the doxology.

V. Gloria Patri et filio et spirtui sancto,
R. Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in
saecula saeculorum. Amen.


Which is followed by the initial Antiphon (Rorate ... Salvatorem)

Appropriate to the season just before the Nativity, a translation:

Bedew us, heavens, from above; ye clouds, rain down the Just One.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament declares the work of His hands.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,
as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.


Footnotes