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Views from the Choir Loft

In This Little House of God

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · August 15, 2013

502 Latin Mass Mass in the Extraordinary Form T THE START of a High Mass one Sunday morning many months ago at Wyoming Catholic College, I heard a detail in the prayer after the Asperges that had never struck me before. The priest asks the Lord to send His holy angel to protect all who dwell in hoc habitaculo—literally, in this little house. And while it is true that our chapel is humble and small, the very same prayer would have been prayed in the mightiest and most majestic cathedral.

Lodged in my memory, later on this phrase got me thinking of several things. First, any house we can build for the Lord is trivial in comparison with the house that he is building out of us, namely, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the mystical body of Jesus Christ. Our efforts, our constructions, our works of art pale in comparison to what the Lord deserves in His infinite glory and beauty.

Second, however, it shows us that we must do all that we can do for the Lord, since our greatest is the least that is worthy of him. Quantum potes, tantum audes, Saint Thomas says in one of his Eucharistic hymns: “As much as you can do, that much dare to do.” And the work we put in every week is largely “detail work”—unseen by the faithful who attend Mass. In the finite details, we give something preciously human, a sacrifice that is all the more valuable for being hidden and humble.

The College choir was singing the Kyrie from Palestrina’s Missa Aeterna Christi Munera. That short piece, sung as if effortlessly, was the result of so many hours of practice, sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses rehearsing their lines. Practices in which we started together, fell apart, picked up the pieces, and tried again and again until we could do it well. For thirty students in a volunteer choir, over many weeks of practices, that adds up to hundreds of human hours of work on the little things.

The young men serving at the altar also had to be trained well, and had to practice their parts in a carefully choreographed sacred dance: coming out and going around at the right times and into the right places, genuflecting, standing together, handling incense and thurible, candles, bells, and paten. On this day they made it look second nature, and that, too, gives glory to God, for it anticipates the tranquility of order in the heavenly Jerusalem, where God is “all in all.”

And, amazingly, it was our chaplain’s first ever High Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Think of how much time and effort he put into preparing for this occasion! Workshops, studying, private practice, guidance from an expert acolyte… The humility, the persistence, the attention to detail, the love for the Church and all that is sacred to her and to her people—all of these things shone from his face, his voice, his manner and gestures.

As we have discovered together in our community over the years, the traditional Roman liturgy is like a mosaic or a tapestry, a grand design made up of countless little things: details in rubrics and ceremonial, details in music, details in prayers and postures—details that, taken all together, constitute a “little way” by which we ascend to the heights of heaven. All the threads of a tapestry, all the tiles of a mosaic, come together in just the right plan, just the right order, to produce something beautiful, and so too do the many people and many actions of the sacred liturgy. By means of His careful, patient, and detailed work in our lives, the Lord builds us into a temple where He can dwell—right here in this little house of God.

[This blog is a modified version of an article that first appeared in Wyoming Catholic College’s monthly newsletter Integritas.]

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

Agnes De Mille: “When I see my work, I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied.” — Martha Graham: “No artist is pleased.” ADM: “But then there is no satisfaction?” — MG: “No satisfaction whatever at any time,” she cried out passionately. “There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

— “Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity”

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  • “Yahweh” in church songs?

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