Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Saint Jerome should be the patron saint of grumpy old men. Born in the Roman province of Dalmatia in modern Slovenia, he studied in Rome starting in about the year 360. During a journey to Syria in 373, he fell ill and had a vision that caused him to devote the rest of his long life to the service of […]
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God is truly a poet to confound the mathematicians and a mathematician to confound the poets. Nine months after the solemnity of her Immaculate Conception, celebrated on 8 December, today we celebrate the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a feast so ancient that it is celebrated on the same day in both East and West. Scripture tells us very […]
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Chanted from the version given in the Codex Calixtinus. Neither Ordinary nor Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, but rather from the Mozarabic Rite.
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Here are some of the best articles I’ve seen on the ten-year anniversary of Summorum Pontificum: On the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, we can safely say the doomsayers are wrong by Dom Alcuin Reid (Catholic Herald) Pope Benedict’s Great Restoration by Michael Brendan Dougherty (National Review) The Glorious Revolution Overthrown: On the Tenth Anniversary of Summorum Pontificum by Peter […]
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TEN years ago today, Pope Benedict XVI caused to be published the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum. With the stroke of a pen, the ancient rites of the Mass (last edited in 1962) could suddenly be celebrated by any priest of the Roman Rite. Deo gratias! This ancient form of the Mass, the so-called Extraordinary Form, is a great gift to […]
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Today for the first time I served at low Mass in the Extraordinary Form. It was a private Mass, the regularly scheduled daily Mass having ended about twenty minutes before. It was beautiful. Father Insco has been training me for a while now. I did flub up a few things at the very end, and my memorization is terrible. I […]
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The following open letter can be found in various liturgical blogs, and it is well worth reading. Although I am not one of the signatories, I very much associate myself with the sentiments expressed here. A Statement on the Current Situation of Sacred Music We, the undersigned—musicians, pastors, teachers, scholars, and lovers of sacred music—humbly offer this statement to the […]
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O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the new-born Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the Virgin whose womb was worthy to bear Christ the Lord. Alleluia! O magnum mysterium, et admirabile sacramentum, ut animalia viderent Dominum natum, jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera meruerunt portare Dominum Christum. Alleluia.
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As I do every year, I shall end this Advent chant sequence with the hymn assembled from the O Antiphons. I’ve also posted one of my favourite carols, which is particularly appropriate in the deeps of Christmas Vigil. Come to Midnight Mass! For those of you in Tacoma and environs, I invite you to come to our parish of Our […]
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We come to the last of the O Antiphons, for tomorrow is Christmas Eve, the Vigil of the Nativity. I mentioned yesterday that the O Antiphons were arranged backward into the song Veni, Veni Emmanuel. This was by design, for the Antiphons themselves are a backward acrostic. The first letters of the Messianic titles — Emmanuel, Rex, Oriens, Clavis, Radix, […]
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With Christmas just days away now, we hear the penultimate O Antiphon this evening. I mentioned a couple of days ago that the antiphons might sound vaguely familiar to you. In the 12th Century, an unknown composer compiled versions of the O Antiphons into a single Advent hymn, called Veni, Veni Emmanuel. You know the English version as O Come, […]
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It is altogether right and proper that we should celebrate Christ as the bringer of light on this, the day of the winter solstice. This was an ancient holy day in many religions, as indeed it continues to be. On this, the shortest day of the year in the northern hemisphere, where people for eons have begged their divinity for […]
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Continuing on with our annual tradition, we come closer and closer to the birth of the Messiah, “the holy one, the true, who holds the key of David, who opens and no one shall close, who closes and no one shall open” (Revelation 3:7). The key is the symbol of authority. Christ is the Key of the House of David […]
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Today is the second “O” antiphon, O Adonai. If you are in Tacoma, you may hear this sung at Solemn Vespers this evening at Holy Rosary Church. Please join us for this beautiful and holy liturgy at 6:00 PM. These videos, which I will be embedding each day until Christmas, were recorded by the Dominican student brothers at Oxford in […]
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O Wisdom! Advent is drawing to its close, and it’s time again for our annual look at the O Antiphons. These antiphons are part of the prayers at the liturgical hour of Vespers for the 17th through the 23rd of December – the 24th is of course the Christmas Vigil itself. They are ancient prayers, possibly dating back to the […]
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Can we talk about Gregorian chant? Because today has some doozies. I confess that I was a fan of chant long before I was a Catholic. Indeed, God used the beauty of this music to draw me to Him. Specific chants are prescribed for each Mass in both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite. Each day’s […]
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