1932 International Eucharistic Congress Hymn Book

click above to read in full (pdf)

I’m very grateful to Jaykay (whose mother attended the childrens’ Mass in the Pheonix Park) for sending me this Hymn Book from the 1932 International Eucharistic Congress, Dublin. Jaykay notes that:

My mother would have been 12-13 at the time of the Congress. She had just started secondary in a convent school where they had a very good choir. They used to take part in Gregorian chant competitions for children and regularly won (now who says that there was no “participatio actuosa” prior to the new springtime in 1965??). Anyway, they had been prepared for months beforehand to take part in the children’s Mass in the Phoenix Park where the “Missa de Angelis” was sung, which was easy peasy to them – she told me they had about 4 other of the chant settings of the Mass which they sang regularly as well as the Te Deum and of course all the well-known ones such as Adoro Te and Veni Creator Spiritus etc. – not to mention the Dies Irae for the requiem.

So they went to Dublin on the train, in their confirmation dresses, and processed solemnly out to the Park for the Mass. Just imagine, thousands of kids – all immaculately disciplined – singing the Missa de Angelis!

I’m sure next year’s event will have something similar… NOT!!! We’ve definitely sung a new church into being 😦

Online photographs:

UCC Gallery (takes a minute to load; click on the photo subtitles to enlarge)

NLI Gallery (click on the photos on the right to enlarge)

Newsreel:

THE PAPAL LEGATE’S GREAT WELCOME!

A MILLION PEOPLE KNEEL IN WORSHIP

FOR IRELAND’S GREAT EUCHARISTIC CONGRESS

See also:

Festival of Faith – Fr Matthew Record

De Valera’s speech to the Papal Legate, Cardinal Lauri (extract)

Cardinal Lauri’s address to the welcoming crowd (extract)

Religion: In Dublin – Time

Rory O’Dwyer, a young historian at UCC, recently wrote a very good book on the Congress — which you can purchase here. He has an interesting overview of the Congress in History Ireland here.