Today we celebrate All Saints' Day like we do every November 1st. This feast was instituted in the seventh century and spread throughout the Frankish Empire in 835 by Gregory IV at the request of King Louis the Pious, and eventually adopted by the whole Church.  On this day the Church honors those who have been living witnesses and light of Christ. It is the grand celebration of those who share in the triumph of Christ and his eternal glory, and in virtue aim to follow closely the Master, cooperating with His grace. The Church celebrates all those who enjoy seeing God face-to-face in Heaven: Christ, His Mother, and surrounding them the Angels, the Archangels, the Thrones, the Dominions, the Principalities, the Powers, the Virtues, the Cherubims, the Seraphims, the Patriarchs, the Prophets, and all the righteous of the Old Law; the Apostles, the Doctors, the Confessors, the Anchorites... All the elect, from every tribe, tongue, and nation. The life that springs forth in them from Christ fixes their minds and their wills on the same object: God contemplated, loved, and glorified. These myriads of spirits are one with Christ; they are His members, His complement, His culmination. They are of Christ, they are Christ-like, He, and they are what St. Augustine calls "the total Christ." The Feast of All Saints is the feast of the triumphant Church.

Holiness is not a path reserved for the elite. It concerns all those who choose to walk in the footsteps of Christ. This liturgical solemnity is therefore a great joy for all and a call from the Lord to become saints through the Holy Spirit received in Baptism. As St. Bernard would say: "The saints have no need of honor from us; neither does our devotion add the slightest thing to what is theirs. If we venerate their memory, it serves us, not them. But I tell you, when I think of them, I feel myself inflamed by a tremendous yearning. Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, [...] When we commemorate the saints we are inflamed with another yearning: that Christ our life may also appear to us as he appeared to them and that we may one day share in his glory.” 

To celebrate this solemnity, we at Neumz have chosen the gradual responsory Timete Dominum. The text is taken from Psalm 33:10-11. It resounds today as an invitation from the Church in Heaven, from all those who sing their gratitude and give us the last word based on their experience. This is to help us on our way. Timete Dominum omnes sancti ejus, fear the Lord all his saints... But it is not the fear of the slave who fears only punishment, but the filial fear of the children of God. In the words of Dom Guéranger: "the filial fear that fears above all things to displease Him from whom all good things come, whose goodness merits all love." Fear the Lord seek Him and you will lack nothing. Let us not envy those who seek only to accumulate material wealth, those who feed exclusively on the earthly, the perishable. Let us seek material poverty and set our eyes on the riches of the heart, the spiritual nourishment of our soul. Inquirentes autem Dominum, those who nonetheless seek the Lord, do not lack anything: their heart is full of precious stones, the virtues of justice, truth, charity, faith, patience, and tolerance. And the Saints sing to us in chorus: Love the Lord, try to love Him more and more, and you will have what we have: all good things in Him.... non deficient omni bono, you shall not lack any good thing.

As for the melody, it is composed in mode I, the gravis as the ancients called it. This mode is appropriate to announce seriousness and grandeur, a mode that possesses splendid majesty without being pompous, which therefore suits this gradual one, whose broad and solemn melody makes the text that accompanies it shine with great reverence and fervor.

The melodic movement starts with the fundamental of the mode, the Re, and develops in the low register, discreet and restrained: timete Dominum, fear the Lord. The Sol appears to make the accent of the word Dominum shine, but the melody remains in the low register, oscillating between the Fa-Re, singing with veneration, bowing with reverence before the Lord. This first incise ends like it began, with a clivis with episema, Re-Do, culminating in this atmosphere of profound reverence. 

The melody rises into the high range in the following incise. The prayerful one sings with great enthusiasm and fraternal joy. Omnes sancti ejus, all His saints: from the Do, the melodic movement rises to the Fa, with an enthusiastic leap of a fourth, and from there the dominant, the La, is reached for the first time in the accent of omnes, a warm accent of fraternal charity. The quilismatic movement amplifies and solemnizes all of this even more, and the B-flat confers with the semitonal interval that touch of closeness and tenderness in the family of eternity. Joy turns to jubilation, in the accent of the word Sancti the Do is interpreted for the first time, the climax of the piece, and all is adoration. From this adoration, we move on to a beautiful reverence with a porrectus flexus, Sol-Fa-Sol-Re, to close this word. In ejus, the pronoun referring to the Lord condenses this atmosphere of adoration and reverence that is characteristic of this gradual: the melody oscillates between the Fa and Sol to end up rising agilely, firmly, again to the Do, and then falls in a leap of a fourth, Do-Sol, with great reverence to the Fa and the Re. Observe that the composer uses the same cadence as in Dominum, the same loving reverence.

At the beginning of the second phrase, the melody rises with the same quilismatic movement as in omnes. From the La, the prayerful being sings again with jubilation, and in nihil, a bivirga in the high Do accentuates this joy. To this is added the semitonal relationship and that closeness, that tenderness that is given by the B-flat and the La of the torculus that closes this word. This is the same melodic turn as the nihil in the Introit of the third Sunday of Advent. The saints, from the depths of their beatitude, share with us with a conviction that penetrates their entire blessed experience, that nothing, absolutely nothing, lacks to those who know how to love. In deest with a movement very similar to that of the porrectus flexus of Sancti, the melody reverently returns in a gentle movement to the fundamental. 

In the last incise of this phrase, for the third time, the Lord is praised in timentibus eum, those who fear him. A determined impulse in the accent of timentibus makes the melody shine with enthusiasm from the fundamental to the dominant. Note the firmness of the neumatic cut in the Re, before the ascent to the La. In eum, the melodic movement moves with amplitude from the high La to the low La. In a sublime melodic formula typical of the Gregorian repertoire, the heart of the prayerful one bursts forth an admirable, serious, and solemn prayer, bathed in humble respect, veneration, and love. It is as if the soul, in singing it, is lost before the greatness of the merciful goodness of its Creator who has called it to the joy of life without end.

In the verse, inquirers, those who seek, it is all contemplation. In this passage, the Church evokes all the happiness that the search for God and his will has brought her. The melodic movement develops in the low register, around the Re, as if gathered within itself; but in the accent of the word, a masterful leap of a fifth, Re-La, begins to manifest that beatific contemplation, the melody revolves around the dominant this time. After a brief reverential descent to the low register, Fa-Sol-Fa-Re, the melody picks up a lively impulse, with great ardor, ascending progressively from the Re to the Fa, then to the La and, amplified by the quilismatic movement, reaches the Do where the jubilation of the prayerful one resounds again and settles on the La without losing its strength. 

In autem, however, all this overflowing jubilation is amplified, the high Do resounds with strength, adorning the dominant, the La. From the joy of adoration, we gradually move on to the peaceful veneration of the object of this quest: the Lord. The melody returns to the low register Fa-Re at the end of autem and, after a last joyful impulse in the salicus + pes that closes the word, Mi-Fa-Sol Sol-La, in Dominum the melody to the name of the Lord in delicate tenderness and devotion with a cadence in Mi.

Non deficient, they will not lack, prolongs the tenderness full of gratitude and devotion of Dominum. The melodic movement underlines the negating adverb non, with a pes quadratus, and in deficient we find the pes subbipunctis of the end of Dominum, Fa-Sol-Fa-Mi, but with a very beautiful variant that amplifies and solemnizes even more the reverent fervor in this piece. These two words are thus united, the message is forceful: you shall lack nothing (good), for everything comes from the Lord whom you seek (day and night). 

In the final part of this gradual responsory, in omni bono, of all that is good, the prayerful person sings with a gentle elevation from the Re to the Fa, and the unisonic development on the Fa, that serene contemplation within his being of all that he receives from the Lord. After this, the melodic movement rises to the La in the accent of the word bono, and from there begins the long cadential formula of which we have already had a broad echo in eum, at the end of the body of the gradual responsory. As we mentioned previously, it is one of the most beautiful melodic formulas in the Gregorian repertoire, the prayerful one remains speechless, sings the ineffable, contemplates the goodness of the Lord, reverently adores Him, lovingly prostrates himself before Him. The prayerful one finishes singing this piece, an oblation to God the Father, feeling His infinite goodness, that immense spiritual richness that He grants and promises to all of His children: we feel, in short, that communion of saints here on earth.