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“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

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Views from the Choir Loft

Improve Your Parish’s Liturgy … Instantaneously!

Jeff Ostrowski · August 18, 2015

394 Donald Trump Hillary Clinton RAVELING BY CAR and bored, I turned on a popular radio talk show. The host kept screaming: “The Republican debate got 24 million viewers; who cares? Big deal. It wasn’t run correctly.” He insisted that debates shouldn’t have moderators, and I don’t disagree. The only “moderator” should be an hour glass, just like the Lincoln–Douglas debates of 1858. 1

But I soon switched off the radio, because his approach annoyed me. 2 It’s easy to scream into a microphone all day, but when it comes to forming a coalition to remove all moderators, he wouldn’t lift a finger. Provoking people and getting them riled up is one thing; bringing forth something positive is quite another.

Many liturgical “pundits” fall into the same category. They tell everyone else what to do, yet are unwilling to do the hard work in their own parish. Let’s be honest: working to improve liturgy at the local level—teaching real singers, educating real parishioners—is immensely challenging. Richard Clark and Aurelio Porfiri often share their stories about such difficulties, and I suspect anyone involved in Church music can relate. 3 However, a new publication has come along which should make this very tough job a little easier.

A SPECIAL TEAM OF CATHOLICS came together 4 to produce what I would suggest is the easiest way to instantly improve your parish liturgy. You’ve heard me talk about this pew book before. It’s called the JOGUES ILLUMINATED MISSAL, LECTIONARY, & GRADUAL.

996 Pentecost 995 Exterior 986 Creator Fulness


Even if your parish is nowhere near singing the Propers, this book will change lives. Rather than explain the Propers, it shows you the Propers each Sunday. Rather than explain how Catholics honor the Word of God, it shows you, by a unique & splendid formatting for the Readings. Complete keyboard accompaniments for the Gospel Acclamations & Responsorial Psalms are available online, and the book’s luscious artwork is a veritable catechism class. The formatting of the Order of Mass is unmatched, and includes ancient manuscripts demonstrating the astonishing antiquity of the Mass:

4494 Exsultet 985 4495 Petrus 001 992 Agnus 990 Per Ipsum 989 Therefore 987 Pange Lingua


The Jogues Missal avoids a “cut and paste” feel. Look at these images and see if you can understand what I’m getting at:

984 Cut And Paste 983 Cut And Paste 982 Cut And Paste


Congregations will simply ignore blobs of text like that. Moreover, such formatting is monotonous for the eye. On the contrary, the Jogues directs the eye:

997 Renovabis 993 Cease 988 For Seeing


Let me repeat: even if your parish doesn’t sing a single Mass Proper—and most do not—your congregation will still see the Propers each Sunday. Pastors can even make reference to the Entrance Chant or Offertory, e.g. during the homily. With the passage of time, your congregation will begin to wonder why the Propers are not being sung; and it’s all downhill from there!

Until we are blue in the face, we could repeat what Vatican II said about Gregorian chant. The Council declared that chant must be given “first place” in the liturgy 5 but five decades later, less than 1% of our parishes sing even 1% of the Propers. The Jogues Missal is the easiest way to begin fixing this situation.

P.S.

When discussing the sacred liturgy, always keep things on an adult level.



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   For the record, if this same radio host had been invited to ask the questions in front of 24 million viewers, he would have taken part (notwithstanding his objections). But that’s another story…involving sour grapes.

2   I’ve come to realize it’s unhealthy to spend time listening to those with unlimited energy to complain. Time is too precious a gift from God to spend it in such a way, in my humble opinion.

3   Learning to play an instrument is hard enough, but choirmasters must do so much more. Musicians are also very sensitive, so the smallest incidents cause us massive amounts of pain.

4   Our team included members of the Church Music Association of America, Corpus Christi Watershed, folks from Christendom College, experts in the Extraordinary Form, experts from the Anglican Ordinariate, and (of course) priests from the Ordinary Form.

5   Cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium, §116.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: ICEL New Translation of the Roman Missal Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

For the Upcoming Choir Season!

Last week, I posted an SATB choral setting of the SANCTUS in a ‘contemporary’ style. You might want to consider this piece for two reasons: (1) It’s extremely brief; (2) Free rehearsal videos are available for each individual part. The piece is by Father Lhoumeau.

—Jeff Ostrowski
PDF Download • “Sunday Vespers” (22 pages)

When an organist accompanies Vespers, there is no time to think. It’s one thing after another: Bam – Bam – Bam. And that’s what makes Vespers difficult to accompany; there’s hardly even time to check the key signature for each piece! Therefore, although it’s far from perfect, I’m releasing this 22-page booklet:

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As time goes on, I will explain why I believe this booklet is important, my hopes for it, and why I selected the official edition, directly from the Vesperale Romanum. In spite of its imperfections, creating this (draft) booklet required much more effort than I had anticipated.

—Jeff Ostrowski
11 July 2022 • FEEDBACK

Someone who heard the CCW plainsong recordings with NOH accompaniment says: “For years I have travelled the continents and crossed the oceans of Gregorian chant in search of a composition and interpretation as sublime as this. The text and the melody are interwoven in a game of mirrors with the interpreters, the singer and the instrumentalist, so as to confer delicacy on the jubilation. The organ is soft, humble. This is what we hear from the singer. These artists have come together to produce beauty. In 1903, Pope Pius X, by motu proprio, restored Gregorian chant in the Latin Church. In his words: Sacred music must possess, to an eminent degree, the qualities proper to the liturgy, and notably the sanctity and delicacy of form, whence another characteristic spontaneously results, universality. I stress: the holiness and delicacy of forms result in universality, time and place. That is to say, sometimes the beauty of human hands gently caresses the face of the Eternal.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Let us ponder the incontrovertible fact that Eucharistic Adoration in the Ordinary Form (“Novus Ordo”) is always and everywhere celebrated “ad orientem.” Why, then, is there such opposition to Mass being celebrated in that way, which is actually stipulated by the 1970 Missal rubrics?

— A Benedictine Monk (2013)

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