The Christmas Sequence: Laetabundus

Throughout the Middle Ages, the musical tradition of the Church accumulated hundreds of Sequences, Latin hymns that were chanted just before the Gospel reading and were proper to the particular liturgical day or season. With the liturgical reforms of Pope Pius V in 1570, though, the Church’s collection of Sequences in the Roman rite was reduced to just four…
One may wonder why the Feast of the Nativity of the Lord was left off of Pope Pius V’s list, given that major feasts of similar status, such as Easter and Pentecost, had their Sequences included. There is, in fact, a Sequence for Christmas which, although left out of the Roman rite, has been preserved in the Dominican rite. This Sequence, called Laetabundus (Joy abounding…), is sung by the Dominicans at Christmas, Epiphany, and Candlemas…Read more at Corpus Christi Watershed.