Free Liturgical Resources – Available Again
The Zelanti resources are back online! I imagine most folks reading this have no idea what I’m talking about, so perhaps a little background is in order.
For several years now, I’ve been involved with a group of like-minded liturgy geeks. We call ourselves the Society of Saint Odo of Cluny. Saint Odo was one of the early Abbots of Cluny and a major monastic and liturgical reformer. His memorial is coming up on November 18 (although some Benedictine congregations celebrate him on the 19th).
For several years, the major work of the Society was a schola. Now, I’m not likely to sing with a schola, so my job largely involved research, server training, and helping to plan liturgies.
Another part of my work was laying out liturgical and chant texts and maintaining the website with many of the resources we developed.
Unfortunately, the website – Zelanti.org – was not recoverable following a recent malware infestation. While we decide how best to carry on, we thought it was a good idea to make sure that the resources we developed continued to be publicly available.
It seemed easiest to put them on my own personal website. I don’t think that this is optimal, but at least they have a home now.
Here’s the link: https://www.thomryng.com/resources-for-the-sacred-liturgy/
And here’s what’s currently available on the site:
- Latin Chant for Ordinary Congregations
- Marian Antiphons
- Signs for the Sacristy
- The Stripping of the Altars (includes vesting prayers)
- Resources for Celebrating the Rorate Mass in the Ordinary Form
- Latin / English Workbook for the Order of Mass
- Miscellany (Devotions and the Divine Office)
As I was uploading the various files, I noticed that many of them had been developed during the pandemic lockdowns1.
Indeed, the little pamphlets we developed with various chant settings for the Mass were specifically designed so that parishes could inexpensively print them while social distancing (and the inability to use hymnals) were the norm.
I don’t know how useful they are now that the pandemic restrictions are long gone. There are plenty of good, modern hymnals and pew missals that have these settings printed in them.
Certainly, the stats (when I still had access to the stats) indicated that downloads dropped off precipitously once social distancing ended.
Of course, the other issue is that every single item has the website address on it. I have redirected the URL in the short term, but I’m not sure what the long-term answer is.
