At Mass, I have as it were two manners of praying during the Canon, depending on whether or not the liturgy is sung.
If it is sung, then like as not I am in the choir: which means that I am busy well-nigh up until the Consecration and Elevation with chanting the Sanctus and Benedictus. Even if I'm not one of the singers, however, I still attend primarily to these solemn words.
It seems obvious to me that, rather than seeing this music as somehow an obstacle to be ignored so as to focus on what Father is secretly saying at the altar, the clear intent of the Church is for us to mark and think on these words, so holy and great, bespeaking the awe and wonder we ought feel at the power of the Divine Majesty and at the blessed advent of the Eucharistic Christ.
The Preface, sung or said, praises God through Christ, and ends with a magnificent vision of all the angelic hosts worshipping in adoration - a feature of the Mass that goes back to Jewish liturgical prayers, and beyond that to the ecstatic vision of Isaias. How then could we not be overwhelmed by those rolling phrases, the first of which I first give in their mediæval abbreviation:
+SCS+SCS+SCS+DÑS+DS+SBT+
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth:
Pleni sunt cæli et terra
gloria tua:
Hosanna in excelsis.
The Sanctus is an evocation of our supereminent and transcendent God, hidden, mysterious, tremendous, dread, and fascinating. He is the thrice-holy Lord God of Hosts; He is superlatively, exceedingly Holy, therefore utterly pure and wholly separated from all evil; His glory fills both heaven and earth - for as He says, "I live: and the glory of the Lord shall fill the universal world" (Num. xiv, 21); victory and power in the highest heaven is His for ever! The threefold Sanctus moreover alludes to the most extraordinary mystery of God: that He is One in Trinity. Were it not for Divine revelation, we could never have known or guessed this.
As does the priest, we ought best bow low as we kneel, bending down in bodily expression of humble adoration, and so hearken to the warning bell, three times ringing out in confirmation of the Sanctus, confessing that God is Holy and must be adored as the Terrible and Great, the Holy, full of power:
The Lord hath reigned, ... he that sitteth on the cherubims: let the earth be moved.The Lord is great in Sion, and high above all people.Let them give praise to thy great name: for it is terrible and holy:Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore his footstool, for it is holy.Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore at his holy mountain: for the Lord our God is holy.(Ps 98:1-3,5,9)
Has it been noted that the text falls naturally into five lines, the first four able to be grouped into two, so that the syllables number 6, 8, 8, 5, and 7, or if gathered together 14, 13 and 7? This parallels the structure of the ensuing Benedictus, which, to anticipate, has 7, 7, and 7, or rather again 14 and 7 syllables in its structure:
+Benedictus qui venit
in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Interestingly, the first Hosanna, though always sung and said as part of the Sanctus, in fact comes from the Benedictus - it is as it were a bridge between them. If it were licit (I know of one English Mass setting that does this, albeit a rather oddly-tuned one by Deiss), it would bring out the structure of the Sanctus and Benedictus more fully, I contend, if the Hosanna were also inserted after the initial phrase of the Sanctus, to make it a second threefold repetition:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus
Dominus Deus Sabaoth:
(Hosanna in excelsis.)
Pleni sunt cæli et terra
gloria tua:
Hosanna in excelsis.
+Benedictus qui venit
in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.
Here we see the argument and line of thought the Sanctus and Benedictus contains: firstly, that God is the Other, the utterly transcendent, supreme and Holy One; secondly, that, far from being haughtily withdrawn from His Creation, instead His power and majesty and glory fill all the heavens and the entire world (for in Him do we not live and move and have our being, and not otherwise? - Acts xvii, 28); thirdly, that to reunite His Creation most perfectly to Himself, He has sent His Son, the Holy, Blessed and Beloved One, to come in His Name and reconcile all things to God, by reconciling all in Himself by the instrumentality of His Cross. In this way, God's victory over all things is shouted aloud to the heights above - recall that Hosanna originally meant "give victory now".
+Benedictus qui venit
in nomine Domini.
Hosanna in excelsis.
The Benedictus, then, focusses our minds on the truth so amazing, so divine, that the same Tripersonal God has willed to send the Second Person of the Godhead to take on our human nature and live amongst us, to preach the everlasting truths whereby alone we may find salvation, to die for us sinners as the one all-reconciling Sacrifice upon the gibbet of the Cross, to rise again and be for us evermore our true life and hope, and to come even unto our earthly altars, to be our meat and drink lest we should faint on the way to heaven, to abide with us all days even until the end of time: Christ Jesus our Lord and King and Redeemer.
In a special manner, if the Mass be sung in polyphony or figured music rather than in plainchant, the Benedictus is usually sung separately from the Sanctus by reason of their greater length, and is placed after the Elevation. In such a case, the Church rejoices with festal praise and casts all her care upon the Lord, calling us to these words that sum up all worship of our God and Christ: Blessed, blessed, blessed is He Who comes in the Name of the Lord!
With the priest, then, it is most fitting to make the sign of the saving Cross over our person at the word Benedictus, acknowledging that it is in Christ Crucified, the Blessed One Who was made a curse for us, that we have salvation.
Especially at the Consecration and the Elevation, the above lines of Psalm 98 instruct us in our religious duty:
Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore his footstool, for it is holy.
Exalt ye the Lord our God, and adore at his holy mountain: for the Lord our God is holy.(Ps 98:5,9)
As St Augustine taught, these lines refer to the worship we must pay to God's Incarnate Eucharistic presence on our earth: not only is it not sinful to adore Him, we would sin if we did not adore Him.
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