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Views from the Choir Loft

Andrea Leal • Biography

Andrea Leal · January 3, 2013

NDREA LEAL is a wife and homeschooling mother of 6 children. She has had a lifelong love for music, beauty and the arts. She has played the violin since childhood and first began singing in college with a secular choir. While studying for her Peace and Conflict Studies degree at UC Berkeley, a chance encounter with some Dominican seminarians led to an invitation to attend Mass. There, she heard Gregorian chant sung for the first time, and this led to her conversion to Catholicism. She was received into the Catholic church in 2006 and immediately began singing in a Schola for the Latin Novus Ordo. In 2014, she was asked to form and lead a choir of children to serve the Mass. The Schola Cantorum Gloriae Dei, under the umbrella of the Latin Mass Society of Las Vegas, continues to serve the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.

*  ANDREA LEAL • Publicity Photo (A)

*  ANDREA LEAL • Publicity Photo (B)

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

Filed Under: Biographies Last Updated: November 16, 2020

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Andrea Leal

About Andrea Leal

Andrea Leal is a wife and homeschooling mother of 6 children. She serves as choir director for the Traditional Latin Mass in Las Vegas.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski
2 January 2021 • Temptation

When I see idiotic statements made on the internet, I go nuts. When I see heretics promoted by people who should know better, I get angry. Learning to ignore such items is difficult—very difficult. I try to remember the words of Fr. Valentine Young: “Do what God places in front of you each day.” When I am honest, I don’t believe God wants me to dwell on errors and idiocy; there’s nothing I can do about that. During 2021, I will strive to do a better job following the advice of Fr. Valentine.

—Jeff Ostrowski
31 December 2020 • “COMITES CHRISTI”

The feasts for Saint Stephen Proto-Martyr (26 December), Saint John the Evangelist The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved (27 December), and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December) seem untouched by any liturgical reforms. These are very powerful feasts—I believe they once possessed octaves—and I believe they could sometimes “overpower” a Sunday feast. The rules for octaves in the olden days are extremely complex. These feasts are sometimes referred to as a single entity as: Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). This is just a guess, but there seems to be a triple significance: STEPHEN martyred after Christ lived, JOHN was a martyr who knew Christ personally, and the HOLY INNOCENTS were martyred before Christ’s birth.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

A hymn verse need not be a complete sentence, but it must have completed sense as a recognisable part of the complete sentence, and at each major pause there would be at least a “sense-pause.” Saint Ambrose and the early writers and centonists always kept to this rule. This indicates one of the differences between a poem and a hymn, and by this standard most of the modern hymns and the revisions of old hymns in the Breviary stand condemned.

— Fr. Joseph Connelly

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