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Views from the Choir Loft

Laws of life

Andrew R. Motyka · October 9, 2013

hings have been quite hectic for the last couple of weeks, leading to my missing my scheduled post last week. Apologies all around. This week I would briefly like to focus on a brief prayer that my choir prays prior to each rehearsal and Mass. It is the RSCM Choristers’ Prayer, and I learned it while working with Charles Cole at the 2011 CMAA Colloquium in Pittsburgh:

Bless, O Lord, us Thy servants who minister in Thy temple. Grant that what we sing with our lips, we may believe in our hearts, and what we believe in our hearts, we may show forth in our lives. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.

According to the site linked above, the prayer has been almost unchanged since its origins as a blessing for cantors from the Fourth Council of Carthage (ca. 398). What I find particularly interesting about this prayer, though, is its simple articulation of an important concept in liturgical theology: lex orandi, lex credendi.

Lex orandi, lex credendi is a mnemonic for the idea that “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” Our liturgical prayer, in form and execution, bears heavily on our faith. This is why careful ars celebrandi (i.e., the style and reverence of sacramental celebration) is to be fostered. Irreverent treatment of the matters of liturgy will, over time, damage the faithful’s understanding and attitude toward sacred matter. As one of my graduate professors, Leo Nestor, used to say of careless and vapid musical choices: “That kind of music will rot your teeth and erode your faith.”

Likewise, a reverent ars celebrandi fosters a more healthy faith. When serious things are treated seriously by the priest, servers, choir, and other ministers, it has an influence on the way those things are treated by the faithful. What I also love about this prayer is continuation into the next part of the traditional principle: lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. Our law of prayer forms our law of belief, which forms our lives. Remember that the liturgy is not educational, but it is formative, so serious celebration and good musical choices will assist in the forming of the very lives of the faithful.

Again, as Dr. Nestor used to say, “Always be careful what words you put into the mouths of the people of God.” We should take that advice seriously.

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 Andrew R. Motyka

Andrew Motyka is the Archdiocesan Director of Liturgical Music and Cathedral Music for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “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
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —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

“Worse, composers are now setting the introits of the missal [instead of the Graduale] to music, even to chant, though these texts were explicitly for spoken recitation only.”

— ‘Dr. William Mahrt (Fall, 2015)’

Recent Posts

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  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
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  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)

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