Views from the Choir Loft

Is Chant Just for Old-Heads?

Fr. David Friel · January 10, 2014

O WE NEED MORE EVIDENCE that young people are interested in Gregorian chant? So much of the movement towards reform in the world of sacred music has come at the grassroots level, very often involving younger generations than one might first expect. The present and ongoing renewal of chant is decidedly not an arcane niche being propped up by nostalgic octogenarians. It is, rather, a very youthful enterprise.

Here is one small proof. The NY Frassati Fellowship of Catholic Young Adults is hosting a chant workshop this weekend for young adults in the 20’s and 30’s. Led by Br. Vincent Ferrer Baghan, O.P., the event aims to teach attendees about the role of chant in liturgy and the basics of singing chant.

The workshop will be held Saturday, January 11th from 1:30 PM to 4 PM at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (869 Lexington Avenue). There is no registration cost, but a $5 donation is requested. Talk about grassroots!

Click here to register online.

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

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America.—(Read full biography).

Father Adrian Fortescue on the “Agnus Dei”

Speaking about the AGNUS DEI, Father Fortescue wrote: “Agnus as a vocative is curious, evidently in order to reproduce the original text (John 1:29) exactly.” [Altera die vidit Joannes Jesum venientem ad se, et ait: Ecce agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccatum mundi.] Father Fortescue, as usual, is correct; but in some medieval manuscripts you can find “Agne Dei.” Here’s an an example of that.

—Jeff Ostrowski

List • Responses by each bishop!

This incredible website gives each bishop’s response to the recent MOTU PROPRIO Traditionis Custodes, a decree by Pope Francis which seeks to reduce the number of celebrations of the “Extraordinary Form” (Traditional Latin Mass): traditioniscustodes.info

—Jeff Ostrowski

Tomorrow is Sunday…

When you were in school, you would have gotten in trouble if you wrote the Roman Numeral “9” as viiii. You were supposed to write: IX. But look how an ancient manuscript writes “9” as a Roman Numeral. That’s the Introit Ecce Deus for tomorrow’s feast in the Extraordinary Form: The 9th Sunday after Pentecost.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“From six in the evening, his martyrdom had continued through the ghastly night until nine o’clock in the morning. After fifteen hours of torture rarely if ever surpassed in the bloody annals of the Iroquois, the soul of Gabriel Lalemant was freed from its charred and mutilated prison and summoned to join his comrade Jean de Brébeuf in the radiant splendor of God. March 17th, 1649, was the date; for Brébeuf it had been the sixteenth.”

— ‘Fr. John A. O’Brien, speaking of St. Gabriel Lalemant’