Views from the Choir Loft

I Am Moving Again!

Andrew Leung · August 25, 2016

N THE PAST TWO YEARS, I have moved twice: from Ohio to Georgia when I was appointed music director at St. Pius X, and then from Georgia back to Ohio when I decided to join the Diocese of Steubenville. And yes, I am moving again, but it’s a little further away this time. Due to some immigration complications, I won’t be returning to the USA for a few years. The Diocese of Steubenville has decided to send me to study at St. Joseph Seminary in Macau, China for the coming few years. I am very grateful for their support and allowing me to continue my seminarian formation.

I will be moving to Macau in less than a week. Please continue to pray for me and my discernment. I am very happy that I am sent to St. Joseph Seminary. It’s nice to live so close to home (Macau is only an hour away from Hong Kong). The seminary has a wonderful faculty and a very good formation team. Also, there are many historic Catholic churches in Macau, including the seminary and its church.

St. Joseph Seminary was founded by the Jesuits in 1728. The seminary building and the church was built and consecrated in 1758. The church was built in the Baroque style and it is the only church in Macau with a dome. A pipe organ was installed in the choir loft in 2009. On the St. Joseph side altar, an first class relic, a bone of the arm, of St. Francis Xavier is exposed for veneration. In contrast with the elaborate architecture of St. Joseph’s Church, the Seminary is a simple, neo-classical compound designed with an internal cloister garden. Here are some pictures of the seminary and the church:

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Next week, I will introduce more about the history and the churches of the Diocese of Macau.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

About Andrew Leung

Andrew Leung currently serves the music director of Vox Antiqua, conductor of the Cecilian Singers, and music director at Our Lady of China Church.—(Read full biography).

Music List • (2nd Sunday of Lent)

Readers have expressed interest in seeing the ORDER OF MUSIC I created for this coming Sunday, which is the 2nd Sunday of Lent (1 March 2026). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. This feast has magnificent propers. Its somber INTROIT is particularly striking—using a haunting tonality—but the COMMUNION with its fauxbourdon verses is also quite remarkable. I encourage all the readers to visit the feasts website, where the Propria Missae may be downloaded completely free of charge.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Like! Like! Like!

You won’t believe who recently gave us a “like” on the Corpus Christi Watershed FACEBOOK PAGE. Click here (PDF) to see who it was. We were not only sincerely honored, we were utterly flabbergasted. This was truly a resounding endorsement and unmistakable stamp of approval.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Which Mass?

In 1905, when the Vatican Commission on Gregorian Chant began publishing the EDITIO VATICANA—still the Church’s official edition— they assigned different Masses to different types of feasts. However, they were careful to add a note (which began with the words “Qualislibet cantus hujus Ordinarii…”) making clear “chants from one Mass may be used together with those from others.” Sadly, I sometimes worked for TLM priests who weren’t fluent in Latin. As a result, they stubbornly insisted Mass settings were ‘assigned’ to different feasts and seasons (which is false). To understand the great variety, one should examine the 1904 KYRIALE of Dr. Peter Wagner. One should also look through Dom Mocquereau’s Liber Usualis (1904), in which the Masses are all mixed up. For instance, Gloria II in his book ended up being moved to the ‘ad libitum’ appendix in the EDITIO VATICANA.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Extreme Unction

Those who search Google for “CCCC MS 079” will discover high resolution images of a medieval Pontificale (“Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 079”). One of the pages contains this absolutely gorgeous depiction of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

—Corpus Christi Watershed

PDF Chart • “Plainsong Rhythm”

I will go to my grave without understanding the lack of curiosity so many people have about the rhythmic modifications made by Dom André Mocquereau. For example, how can someone examine this single sheet comparison chart and at a minimum not be curious about the differences? Dom Mocquereau basically creates a LONG-SHORT LONG-SHORT rhythmic pattern—in spite of enormous and overwhelming manuscript evidence to the contrary. That’s why some scholars referred to his method as “Neo-Mensuralist” or “Neo-Mensuralism.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF • “O Come All Ye Faithful” (Simplified)

I admire the harmonization of “Adeste Fideles” by David Willcocks (d. 2015), who served as director of the Royal College of Music (London, England). In 2025, I was challenged to create a simplified arrangement for organists incapable of playing the authentic version at tempo. The result was this simplified keyboard arrangement (PDF download) based on the David Willcocks version of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Feel free to play through it and let me know what you think.

—Jeff Ostrowski