Views from the Choir Loft

The Art of the Beautiful Lecture Series

Fr. David Friel · January 24, 2014

ENTION HAS BEEN MADE before on these pages of the Art of the Beautiful Lecture Series, sponsored by the Catholic Artists Society and the Thomistic Institute. Their next lecture is set for this weekend.

Professor Anthony Esolen of Providence College will present on Love and Artistic Genesis this Saturday, January 25th, at 7:30 PM. The setting for the lecture is the Catholic Center at NYU (238 Thompson Street). The professor will be familiar to readers of Magnificat, First Things, Touchstone, and Latin Mass. Furthermore, among his recent titles are Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization, and a Commentary on the Roman Missal.

If you live within traveling distance of New York City, consider attending this or another of the lectures in the series. More information concerning The Catholic Artists Society is available on their homepage.

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).

Surprising Popularity!

One of our most popular downloads has proven to be the organ accompaniment to “The Monastery Hymnal” (131 pages). This book was compiled, arranged, and edited by Achille P. Bragers, who studied at the Lemmensinstituut (Belgium) about thirty years before that school produced the NOH. Bragers might be considered an example of Belgium “Stile Antico” whereas Flor Peeters and Jules Van Nuffel represented Belgium “Prima Pratica.” You can download the hymnal by Bragers at this link.

—Jeff Ostrowski

15 February 2021 • To Capitalize…?

In the Introit for the 6th Sunday after Pentecost, there is a question regarding whether to capitalize the word “christi.” The Vulgata does not, because Psalm 27 is not specifically referring to Our Lord, but rather to God’s “anointed one.” However, Missals tend to capitalize it, such as the official 1962 Missal and also a book from 1777 called Missel de Paris. Something tells me Monsignor Knox would not capitalize it.

—Jeff Ostrowski

15 February 2021 • “Sung vs. Spoken”

We have spoken quite a bit about “sung vs. spoken” antiphons. We have also noted that the texts of the Graduale Romanum sometimes don’t match the Missal texts (in the Extraordinary Form) because the Mass Propers are older than Saint Jerome’s Vulgate, and sometimes came from the ITALA versions of Sacred Scripture. On occasion, the Missal itself doesn’t match the Vulgate—cf. the Introit “Esto Mihi.” The Vulgate has: “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in domum refúgii…” but the Missal and Graduale Romanum use “Esto mihi in Deum protectórem et in locum refúgii…” The 1970s “spoken propers” use the traditional version, as you can see.

—Jeff Ostrowski