please, don’t beat around the bush.....
http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2006/03/bishop-bruskewitz-kicks-ass.html
I mean, that’s just awesome. If only we could all get away with speaking our minds so clearly.
Two Catholic liturgical musicians musing on the state of affairs in contemporary Catholic church music, and/or whatever else comes to mind.
http://closedcafeteria.blogspot.com/2006/03/bishop-bruskewitz-kicks-ass.html
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/psalms/psalm1.htm:
> The URLs you forwarded are all familiar. Adoremus - I
Our pastor takes pains to make available his homilies so that I may plan music around them. This struck me as a little weird when I first encountered it; I’ve always just planned music according to the readings. Lately I’ve also started consulting the Propers of the Mass and treating them as models for texts to choose to be sung during the processionals (entrance, offertory, communion).
65. The homily is part of the Liturgy and is strongly recommended, for it is necessary for the nurturing of the Christian life. It should be an exposition of some aspect of the readings from Sacred Scripture or of another text from the Ordinary or from the Proper of the Mass of the day and should take into account both the mystery being celebrated and the particular needs of the listeners.So, the homily is an exposition of Scripture, the Ordinary, or the Proper. In other words, the homily is based off the sung texts, not vice-versa. Of course, this presumes that the sung texts are those from the Proper - which is not the norm nowadays.
Did anyone ever notice that the words “omnium fidelium” (all the faithful) are missing from Fauré’s offertory in the Requiem?
A few months ago, I noticed a couple of our EME's heading in the back to clean up before the recessional hymn had finished. It's happened a few more times and I took the opportunity of our parish's "Liturgical Ministry Day" to compose the following. I decided at the last minute against distributing it, and just asked our pastor to voice the concern to all assembled instead.
Taking the “solved problem” mentality that I brought up in my last post, it struck me that the Baltimore Catechism represents a sort of “solved problem”: a generally agreed-upon solution to the problem of “what words and methods will we use to teach the faith?”
This article is a classic example of awful catechesis.
114. They, therefore, err from the path of truth who do not want to have Masses celebrated unless the faithful communicate; and those are still more in error who, in holding that it is altogether necessary for the faithful to receive holy communion as well as the priest, put forward the captious argument that here there is question not of a sacrifice merely, but of a sacrifice and a supper of brotherly union, and consider the general communion of all present as the culminating point of the whole celebration.In typical style, P12 then proceeds to denounce the idea that a private Mass is invalid, based on the idea that it is sacrifice, not meal.
I’ve begun to have a bit of sympathy with those who decry Liturgiam authenticam as unfair.
In Latin:
64. Sequentia, quae praeter quam diebus Paschae et Pentecostes, est ad libitum, cantatur post Allelúia.
64. The Sequence, which is optional except on Easter Sunday and on Pentecost Day, is sung before the Alleluia.
Not exactly music or liturgy related, but definitely Church-related.
As I had mentioned in my previous post, I have recently accepted a new job, to begin in July. Before I give the details on the new place, I'd like to give you some background on my current position.
My apologies for not blogging more regularly, though Cantor is making up for me quite admirably, I must say. I just recently accepted a job offer to take another position starting in the summer, and now I need to: 1) sell my house 2) buy a new house 3) help find another person to take my current job 4) get ready to start a new job and 5) have a baby, among a gazillion other things. So, yes, my blogging will be light to say the least.
I think it’s high time we start taking stances like this. We’ve done more than our share of breast-beating in the past 50 years as the academic establishment has tried to portray the world’s oldest, largest, and greatest institution as an agent of evil.
In all the hubbub in the past 100 years about encouraging congregational singing at Mass, I have yet to run across a serious investigation into a fairly obvious question: If it did used to be the norm for the congregation to sing everything, then why did someone think it was a good idea to move away from that practice?
22,000 priests, nuns, and religious brothers.......there can’t be that many more in Canada, so maybe this makes official the dissolution of the Catholic Church in Canada?
Although the new Roman Missal is not in force yet (due to the absence of an official English translation), I thought it interesting to peruse the USCCB’s summary of changes to the Easter Triduum in this document. Here are some highlights (heh, of the highlights):
Now, I have no problem with Islam or Muslims. But this kind of thing makes me wonder how much of the “peaceful religion” business to accept.
So I played a Memorial Mass this morning, wherein our pastor once again implicitly asserted that the deceased lady for whom the Mass was offered is with God.
Someone in SSPX says "heck no, we won't go along with B16!":
I just finished a book entitled "Whose Bible Is It?" by Jaroslav Pelikan. Near the end I came across this passage:
Before the 20th century, the (Roman Rite) intercession on Good Friday read thus (source: Wikipedia):
Let us pray also for the faithless Jews: that our God and Lord may remove the veil from their hearts; that they also may acknowledge Our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray. (Here the congregation does not kneel) Almighty and Eternal God, Who dost not exclude from Thy mercy even the faithless Jews: hear our prayers, which we offer for the blindness of that people; that acknowledging the light of Thy Truth, which is Christ, they may be delivered from their darkness. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, through all endless ages. Amen.The word "faithless" (Latin "perfidis") caused a lot of misunderstanding, so John XXIII removed it in 1962. The kneeling was suspended (according to Wikipedia) to avoid imitating the Jews' mockery of the crucified Christ. Pius XII put that aside in 1955. I can't say I disagree with either of these changes; they're both grounds for quite a bit of misunderstanding.
Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. (Silent prayer) Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your Church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.I just like how explicit the older prayer is: the Jews are wrong, and we hope they come around. The current prayer, while there's nothing wrong with it, seems to contain less emphasis on the conversion of Jews for their salvation. ISTM that praying for the conversion of Jews (and schismatics et al), especially in the context of mention that the grace of salvation can extend to those outside the faith, is more inclusive of the fullness of faith. ATST, I can also see virtue in a focus on salvation, since that is the end goal of conversion. It's just that the latter also includes the possibility of the erroneous thinking that we shouldn't work to convert Jews (or worse, that the Jewish religion is itself as valid as the Catholic), while the former explicitly deals with what we should be doing.
You have to know what 12-tone music is:
As most readers here will know, the term "inclusive language" is often used to indicate the purging of gender-specific references to God or people from texts. For example:
http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/liturgy/Newsletter/Feb06.html
Greetings to all our new readers (both of you) who have joined us in our foray into the world of blogging. I shall attempt to make this initial post concise, yet informative, erudite, yet lighthearted.
There seems to exist a certain tension one can observe these days between the prayers of the funeral rite and the execution of funerals themselves. In short, we pray words that acknowledge the reality of hell and judgement and the uncertainty of the fate of the deceased, while in action we typically deny these dogmatic truths.