Msgr. John Edward Ronan’s Tenebrae

As we enter Holy Week, we remember this online presentation of Msgr. J.E. Ronan’s Tenebrae, a Church service that commemorates the sufferings and death of Christ (a St. Michael’s Choir School Alumni Association Production).

Msgr. Ronan was also the Director of Music at St. Augustine’s Seminary 1923-1956.

The ancient office of Tenebrae was part of the ceremonies of Holy Week until the revision of 1955. As sung for many years in St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica (Toronto, ON. Canada) by the schola of St. Augustine’s Seminary, it consisted of the first nocturn of Matins and the entirety of Lauds for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday, anticipated on the preceding evenings. This part of the Divine Office or Prayer of the Church was made up of psalms and Scripture readings. Each reading was followed by a responsory. In text, these responsories were mostly Scriptural and their musical settings in St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica were for a choir comprised of tenors and basses. These nine responsories are the main part of Msgr. Ronan’s Tenebrae Music. Numbers 1-3 belonged to the Holy Thursday Office, numbers 4-6 to the Good Friday Office, and numbers 7-9 to the Holy Saturday Office.

They were composed before 1930 by Msgr. John Edward Ronan, a priest of the Archdiocese of Toronto (1894 - 1962). At the time of their composition, he was Professor of Sacred Music at St. Augustine’s Seminary and later he became Founder and Director of St. Michael’s Choir School in Toronto.

Priests all across Canada who studied at that seminary over a period of a quarter of a century, as well as the people who attended Tenebrae at St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica found this music powerfully expressive of the Church at prayer in the week which commemorates the suffering and death of our Saviour.

A few years after the liturgical reforms of Vatican II, these musical compositions found their way back into the Holy Week of St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica, this time with vernacular readings from Scripture and sung by the Tenor and Bass Choir - assisted by the Senior men of St. Michael’s Choir School.

This (1979) edition is published by St. Michael’s Choir School in memory of its Founder and dedicated to the hundreds of alumni of St. Augustine’s Seminary and graduates of St. Michael’s Choir School who have so enriched Holy Week in Toronto’s St. Michael’s Cathedral Basilica.