Tomorrow we celebrate the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time. To celebrate this Sunday, we have chosen the Offertory chant, Immitet Angelus. The text from Psalm 33, verses 8-9 is a song of thanksgiving. In the Gospel of the day, Jesus tells us not to worry too much, but to seek first the Kingdom of God and to trust in the Providence of the Father for the rest. This divine advice is corroborated by this other inspired word: Do not be afraid, the angel of the Lord will be all around you who seek him. Rather, taste how sweet the Lord is.

As for the melody, this Offertory is composed in mode 8, G-C: from the very beginning its intonation gives it a character of sweetness, a delicacy that will never leave the piece and which happily keeps us in the peaceful and filial atmosphere in which the Gospel reading has placed us. From this first melodic turn around the G, the melody rises with fluidity and grace towards Angelus, gliding with a distropha and a tristropha on the C, then settling on the G and, in Domini, rising again towards the C, performing two graceful pirouettes in an identical chiasmatic movement and concluding with a third even more expressive than the previous ones with that ascent to the D, the melodic summit of the piece. The melodic movement then continues to depict the flight of the angel of the Lord: from the high register he descends delicately to the F at in circuitu, the lowest note of the piece; descends, unfurls and circles those who fear the Lord in his flight, following the orders he has received from the Lord himself. But it is not to be understood as a feeling of fear, but rather as a loving veneration. Initium sapientiae timor Domini: the beginning of true wisdom is to be found in the respect, the loving veneration we should have for our Creator. In timentium eum, let us observe the beautiful flight of the Angel around the faithful: it takes off strongly on the two A-G clivis to reach the C and glide again in a distropha and a tristropha on the dominant before coming to rest on the G of the cadenza that closes this first phrase. It is worth emphasising the B-flat in the cadential formula which invites so much of that loving veneration we mentioned earlier.

The second phrase, rather brief, begins at et eripiet with a strong melodic parallelism with Domini, a melodic ascent from G to C to descend again to G before returning to the high C range to remain there. And he will set them free... We are witnessing a veritable swing of the angel of the Lord between Heaven and Earth that ends up elevating all those who place their hope in the Creator of all things: thus, masterfully, this phrase settles on the dominant with two embellishments on the D that give it greater expressive force and concludes on the C, unlike the concluding B of Domini, clearing up all doubt, strengthening the certainty of this liberation and elevation.

Then, in the third phrase, comes the invitation to experience the divine flavour. It is all sweetness and grace: we continue in the high register with delicate melodic descents towards the fundamental of the mode. In the gustate accent the melody settles on the C of the virga with episema continues this tasting of the dominant in the tristropha, moving towards the porrectus, which lifts it towards the D before returning to the G in the clivis which closes the word. Immediately in videte the melody launches again from the G to the C where it moves in slight ornaments before finding expression in the balance of the bivirga, quilisma and punctum de te. Then, in quoniam, a nuance of intimate confidence emerges that will blossom in suavis est; the most graceful motif of the whole offertory without doubt, and perhaps the most expressive because of the character of delicate tenderness given by the cadenza in B, the same as in Domini in the first phrase. To conclude this piece, the soul sings its joy in Dominus, which takes up the delicate melodic descents already heard in the motives of circuitu and videte. The final cadenza is common, but the bivirga that crowns the scandicus of the last clause gives it an expression of fervour not found in other pieces.