I’m not sure that my own eucharistic theology is quite that high, but I am in love with the idea the eucharistic table is something bigger than the food that’s on it and the people sitting around it – that’s an act that unites us with all Christians everywhere and everytime.

This is one reason why so many liturgical traditions sing a sanctus as part of the liturgy, and why it’s important that it’s sung by the congregation and not just by the minister or choir.  Isaiah had a vision of angles singing this song without ceasing, and so when the people sing it at communion they are singing along with the seraphim – when the minister says something like:

Therefore, with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, we laud and magnify Your glorious name, evermore praising You and saying…

Or, at Transmission sometimes:

With strangers, neighbors, saviors, ravers, saints and angels, raise a song
As one with some whose work is done and others here or yet to come

This is what’s being referred to.

Angels aside, it is pretty amazing that this song has been song so often, so consistently, and in so many many ways throughout the millenia.  Folks have never stopped singing it, but they’ve also never stopped coming up with new ways to sing it.  Here’s a playlist of this song through the ages for your listening pleasure:

A sephardic cantor singing it in perhaps the oldest version of it I know:

Deborah Van Dyke singing it as a meditative chant (kadosh):

In Dulci Jubilo singing it as Ambrosian Chant (santus):

Helen Shapiro singing as full-on gospel melodrama (kadosh – the Lord He reigns):

The Psalters singing it as only they can (hosannah):

Rachel Cole singing it as Christian pop (kadosh):

Adom9 singing it as trance electronica (sanctus):

All of the above are available on iTunes, so if any of them struck your fancy, go buy them!