Introit

A priest prays the Introit in St Gabriel's Church, Pimlico.

The Introit (from Latin introitus 'entrance') is part of the opening of the liturgical celebration of the Eucharist for many Christian denominations. In its most complete version, it consists of an antiphon, psalm verse and Gloria Patri, which are spoken or sung at the beginning of the celebration. It is part of the proper of the liturgy: that is, the part that changes over the liturgical year.

In the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church it is known as the antiphona ad introitum (Entrance antiphon), as in the text for each day's Mass, or as the cantus ad introitum (Entrance chant) as in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 47 and the First Roman Ordo (sixth to seventh century). In pre-1970 editions of the Roman Missal, the word Introitus was used, distinguished from the normal meaning of the word (entrance) by being capitalized. In Ambrosian chant and Beneventan chant, the counterpart of the Introit is called the ingressa. The Lutheran rite uses the term Introit in the same fashion, marking the opening of the Mass. In the Mozarabic, Carthusian, Dominican, and Carmelite Rites, it is called the "officium".

History

Originally, the entrance of the priest who was to celebrate Mass was accompanied by the singing of a whole psalm, with Gloria Patri (doxology). While the psalm was at first sung responsorially, with an antiphon repeated by all at intervals, while a solo singer chanted the words of the psalm, it was soon sung directly by two groups of singers alternating with each other, and with the antiphon sung only at the beginning and the end, as is the usual way of chanting the psalms in the Liturgy of the Hours. The change to this manner of singing the psalm has been attributed to Pope Celestine I (422–432). Pope Gregory I (590–604), after whom Gregorian chant is named, composed several antiphons for singing with the Entrance psalm.

If singing of the psalm was not completed by the time the Entrance procession arrived at the altar, the singers moved directly to the Gloria Patri and the final repetition of the antiphon. In time only the opening verse of the psalm was kept, together with the Gloria Patri, preceded and followed by the antiphon, the form of the Introit in Tridentine Mass Roman Missals, which explicitly indicate this manner of singing the Introit.

The 1970 revision of the Roman Missal explicitly envisages singing the entire psalm associated with the antiphon, but does not make it obligatory. In contemporary Catholic usage, the introit corresponds to the Entrance Antiphon and is sung or recited audibly throughout by the faithful.

Text and liturgical use

The antiphons of most Introits are taken from Psalms, though many come from other parts of Scripture. In some rare cases the antiphon is not from Scripture: "Salve, sancta parens", from the Christian poet Sedulius, who was imitating a line from book V of Virgil's Aeneid, is the antiphon used in the Tridentine form of the Roman Rite for common Masses of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the 1970 revision kept a Mass formula of the Blessed Virgin with that antiphon, but provided several alternatives.

The words of the antiphons are related to the theme of the feastday or celebration and most frequently have something in common with the liturgical readings of the Mass.

In the Tridentine Mass the Introit is no longer the first text used in the Mass. In Low Mass, the priest reads it only after the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar. Until 1908, even in sung Mass the choir began the Introit only after the priest had begun those prayers, but Pope Pius X restored the old arrangement whereby the Introit accompanied the entrance procession of the priest with the ministers. The Tridentine Mass has the priest read the Introit in the Missal even when it is also sung by the choir. It also has him make the sign of the cross when reading it, as the Introit is when the Mass has properly begun, rather than the preparatory prayers made at the foot of the altar.

Since the 1970 revision of the Roman Missal, the Entrance chant begins as the priest enters. Its purpose is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, turn their thoughts to the mystery of the celebration, and accompany the procession. If there is no singing at the Entrance, the antiphon in the Missal is recited either by the faithful, or by some of them, or by a lector; otherwise, it is recited by the priest himself, who may even adapt it as an introductory explanation.

If another rite immediately precedes Mass, such as the Palm Sunday procession or the various ceremonies that precede Mass at the Easter Vigil, Mass begins with the collect; there is no Entrance at that point and so no Entrance chant.

Musical setting

In the musical idiom of Gregorian chant, Introits normally take the form antiphon-verse-antiphon-doxology-antiphon. In the Tridentine Missal, this form was, with very few exceptions, reduced to antiphon-verse-doxology-antiphon.

For example, the Tridentine Missal presents the Introit of the Fourth Sunday of Advent as follows:

First the antiphon Rorate caeli from Isaiah 45:8: Rorate, cæli, desuper, et nubes pluant iustum: aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem. (Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the Just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a Saviour.)

Then the verse from the beginning of the psalm, Psalm 18:2: Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei, et opera manuum eius annuntiat firmamentum. (The heavens shew forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the work of his hands.)

Then the doxology. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto, Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in sæcula sæculorum. Amen. (Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.)

Then, once again, the initial antiphon: Rorate... Salvatorem.

Introits, like Offertories and Communions, are believed to have evolved from simpler reciting tones. 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 neumes with two or three notes per syllable, although syllabic and melismatic passages also occur.

The Introits of Old Roman chant share many similarities with their Gregorian cousins, and often include a repeated extra verse that fell out of use in the Gregorian repertory.

Use of the incipit

In the same way as Church documents are referred to by their incipit (their first words in Latin), Mass formulas are known by the incipit of their Introit, which is the first text in the formula. Thus a Mass for the dead is referred to a Requiem Mass, and the three Christmas Day Masses have been called Dominus dixit, Lux fulgebit and Puer natus. So too, Gaudete Sunday is a name for the third Sunday in Advent, Laetare Sunday for the fourth Sunday in Lent, and Quasimodo Sunday for the Octave or Second Sunday of Easter, because of the incipit of the Entrance antiphons of those Sundays.

In Lutheran liturgy

The introit opens the Mass in the Lutheran Churches. It is at this point of the Mass that the priest (pastor) enters the chancel.

In Anglican liturgy

In the Anglican Communion, Introit is the name given to the hymn or metrical psalm which is sung at the start of a service when the priest enters the chancel, a tradition which dates back to the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, although omitted in the version of 1552 (though still used in services of the time) it was later restored to the Book of Common Prayer in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

The Introit (Introitus) of the Mass is the fragment of a psalm with its antiphon sung while the celebrant and ministers enter the church and approach the altar. In all Western rites the Mass began with such a processional psalm since the earliest times of which we have any record. As it was sung by the choir it is not, of course, to be found in sacramentaries; but introits are contained in the first antiphonaries known (the Gregorian Antiphonary at Montpellier, the St. Gall manuscript, that represent a seventh-century tradition, etc.; see Leclercq in "Dict. d'archéologie chrétienne", s. v. "Antiphonaire"). The First Roman Ordo (sixth to seventh century) says that as soon as the candles are lit and everything is ready, the singers come and stand before the altar on either side, "and presently the leader of the choir begins the antiphon for the entrance (antiphona ad introitum)". As soon as the deacons hear his voice they go to the pope, who rises and comes from the sacristy to the altar in procession ("Ordo Rom. I", ed. Atchley, London, 1905, p. 128). There is every reason to suppose that as soon as the Western liturgies were arranged in definite forms, the entrance was always accompanied by the chant of a psalm, which from that circumstance was called at Rome Introitus or Psalmus or Antiphona ad Introitum. The old Gallican Rite called it Antiphona ad Pr legendum; at Milan it is the Ingressa; in the Mozarabic, Carthusian, Dominican, and Carmelite books, Officium. The Introit was a whole psalm sung with the Gloria Patri and Sicut erat verses, preceded and followed by an antiphon in the usual way. No doubt originally it was sung as a solo while the choir repeated a response after each verse (the psalmus responsorius of which we still have an example in the Invitatorium at Matins), then the later way of singing psalms (psalmus antiphonarius) was adopted for the Introit too. The "Liber Pontificalis" ascribes this antiphonal chant at the Introit to Pope Celestine I (422-32): "He ordered that the psalms of David be sung antiphonally [antiphonatim, by two choirs alternately] by all before the Sacrifice, which was not done before; but only the epistle of St. Paul was read and the holy Gospel" (ed. Duchesne, I, Paris, 1886, 230). The text seems even to attribute the use of the Introit-psalm in any form to this pope. Medieval writers take this idea from the "Liber Pontificalis", e. g. Honorius of Autun, "Gemma animæ" (in P. L., CLXXII): "Pope Celestine ordered psalms to be sung at the entrance (ad introitum) of the Mass. Pope Gregory [I] afterwards composed antiphons in modulation for the entrance of the Mass" (I, lxxxvii). Probst thought that Gelasius I (492-96) invented the Introit (Die abendländische Messe vom 5 bis zum 8 Jahrhundert, Münster, 1896, 36). It is perhaps safest to account for our Introit merely as a development of the processional psalm sung during the entrance of the celebrant and his ministers, as psalms were sung in processions from very early times. But it soon began to be curtailed. Its object was only to accompany the entrance, so there was no reason for going on with it after the celebrant had arrived at the altar. Already in the First Roman Ordo as soon as the pope is ready to begin Mass he signs to the choir-master to leave out the rest of the psalm and go on at once to the Gloria Patri (ed. Atchley, p. 128). Since the early Middle Ages the psalm has been further shortened to one verse (Durandus, "Rationale", IV, 5). So it received the form it still has, namely: an antiphon, one verse of a psalm, Gloria Patri, Sicut erat, the antiphon repeated. In the Milanese Rite the antiphon of the Ingressa is not repeated except in Requiem Masses; on the other hand, in some medieval uses it was repeated several times (Durandus, loc. cit.). On great feasts the Carmelites still repeat it twice at the end. The antiphon is taken as a rule from the Psalter (Durandus calls such introits regulares); sometimes (e.g. second and third Christmas Mass, Ascension-Day, Whit-Sunday, etc.) from another part of the Bible; more rarely (Assumption, All Saints, many Masses of Our Lady — "Salve sancta parens", Requiems, etc.) it is a composition by some later writer. The verse of the psalm in the earlier introits is the first (obviously still a fragment of the whole), except that when the antiphon itself is the first verse the "psalm" is the next (twelfth and fifteenth Sundays after Pentecost, etc.). In later times it has become common to choose a suitable verse regardless of this rule (e. g. the Crown of Thorns Mass for Friday after Ash Wednesday, St. Ignatius Loyola on 31 July, etc.).

The text of the psalms used in the introits (as throughout the Missal) is not the Vulgate but the Itala. In Paschal time two Alleluias are added to the antiphon, sometimes (Easter Day, Low Sunday, the Third and Fourth Sundays after Easter, etc.) there are three. In Requiems and Masses de tempore in Passiontide, when the Psalm Judica is not said, there is no Gloria Patri at the Introit. On Holy Saturday and at the chief Mass on Whitsun Eve (when the prophecies are read) there is no Introit at all. The reason of this is obvious. The Introit accompanies the entrance; but on these occasions the celebrant has been at the altar for some time before Mass begins. We name Masses (that is the complex of changeable prayers that make up the Puerperium) from the first words of the Introit by which they begin. Thus the Mass for the first Sunday of Advent is called Ad te leva; the two Masses of the Sacred Heart are distinguished as Miserability and Exordium; a Mass for the dead is spoken of as a Requiem, and so on. There is nothing corresponding to our Introit in the Eastern rites. In all of them the liturgy begins quite differently. The preparation (vesting, preparation of the offerings) takes place in the sanctuary, so there is no procession to the altar.

Ritual of the Introit

At high (or sung) Mass till quite lately the rule had obtained that the choir did not begin the Introit till the celebrant began the first prayers at the foot of the altar. Now the new Vatican "Gradual" (1908) has restored the old principle, that it is to be sung while the procession moves from the sacristy to the altar. ("De redivivus servanda in cant miss" in the introduction.) It should therefore be begun as soon as the head of the procession appears in the church. One or more cantors sing to the sign*, all continue; the cantors alone sing the first half of the psalm and the V. Gloria Patri (ibid.). The celebrant, having finished the preparatory prayers at the altar-steps, goes up to the altar and kisses it (saying meanwhile the two short prayers, A ufer a nobis and Oranges te); then, going to the left (Epistle) side, he reads from the Missal the Introit, just as it is sung. This is one of the continual reactions of low Mass on high Mass. When the custom of low Mass began (in the early Middle Ages) the celebrant had to supply all the parts of deacon, subdeacon, and choir himself. Then, as he became used to saying these parts, he said them even at high Mass, too; they were, besides, chanted by others. So the rule has obtained that everything is said by the celebrant. The recital of the Introit should be considered as the real beginning of Mass, since what has gone before is rather of the nature of the celebrant's preparation. For this reason he makes the sign of the cross at its first words, according to the general rule of beginning all solemn functions (in this case the Mass) with that sign. At Requiem Masses he makes the cross not on himself but over the Missal, quasi aliquem benedicens says the rubric (Ritus cel., xiii, 1). This is understood as directing the blessing to the souls in purgatory. At low Mass there is no change here, save the omission of the chant by the choir.

Of the medieval commentators see especially DURANDUS, Rationale Divinorum Officiorum, IV, 5; BENEDICT XIV, De S. Miss Sacrificio, II 4; DuCHESNE, Origines du culte chrétien (Paris, 1898), 154-155; GIHR, Das heilige Messopfer (Freiburg im Br., 1897), 346-57.