Views from the Choir Loft

An American Requiem

Andrew Leung · October 28, 2015

WO BIG DAYS are coming up. We will be celebrating the Feast of All Saints and the Commemoration for All Souls on Sunday and Monday. Both of these days are closely related to the Church, the body of Christ. On Sunday, we will celebrate the feast of the Church in Heaven with glorious and solemn music. And on Monday, we will pray for our brothers and sisters in purgatory by observing the extra sacred silence in the Liturgy. About a month ago, I uploaded a list of hymns for Catholic Funerals which you might find useful if you are planning a sung Mass on All Souls Day.

* * PDF • 32 HYMNS FOR CATHOLIC FUNERALS

WOULD LIKE TO share another great resource here. A very impressive booklet has been published online by my friends, Fr. Charles Byrd and Bridget Scott. The name of the booklet is An American Requiem. It is a guide that helps priests, musicians and the families of the deceased to plan the funeral. The booklet is not meant to be a “Church Document”, but a useful guide and explanation of the Catholic funeral. The booklet explains the spirituality of the Requiem Mass in light of the Tradition of the Church and it discusses some of the “special musical features” of the funeral. This table of content may interest you:

CTL An American Requiem Booklet 4

CTL An American Requiem Booklet 5

CTL An American Requiem Booklet 6

The PDF of the booklet is free for download:

* * PDF • AN AMERICAN REQUIEM

THINK this booklet is very well-done academically, theologically, pastorally and artistically. It is a great resource for priests and church musicians. Please feel free to email Bridget Scott if you have any feedback at: olmchoirs@gmail.com

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

About Andrew Leung

Andrew Leung currently serves the music director of Vox Antiqua, conductor of the Cecilian Singers, and music director at Our Lady of China Church.—(Read full biography).

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—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

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