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Views from the Choir Loft

Chore wars and maintaining motivation

Veronica Brandt · November 7, 2015

chore wars ASHING DISHES, CLEANING the bathroom, folding clothes, all these things are small but important everyday tasks. There is a temptation to avoid them, begrudge the time and effort they take, but it is acts of service like these that are the real treasures in life.

Today has been busy. Saturday is the day when we catch up with the housework. Sometimes we get everything done by midday and have the rest of the day off. Sometimes it takes a bit longer. I have four sons aged 8 – 14 who do much of the work, which is great as they also generate much of the mess. Today they were particularly eager to complete their work.

You see, this is the first day we have tried out a game called Chore Wars. It is a very silly adventure game based around household chores where people you live and work with can keep track of the everyday tasks. For each adventure, like washing dishes, you get experience points and gold coins as well as the chance to fight monsters and gain treasures, not to mention the system of keeping track of your own balance of strength, dexterity, charisma, intelligence and wisdom.

And as I have been busy adding new adventures to their inventory and keeping an eye on who is doing what, I have been wondering what to write about for the world of liturgical music. Until it struck me.

This play acting actually has some correspondence to a deeper reality.

It is in mundane acts of service like this that we gain grace. We might feel over worked and under appreciated but we have an omniscient, omnipresent, benevolent God who sees all and rewards all in secret. And He is even smarter than the Chore Wars algorithms. And you don’t have to go and keep track of everything you do on a computer. Perhaps it is better if you don’t because those who get their praise in this life : “they have had their reward”.

But that’s not to say a little imaginative play can’t help us maintain political control over our human will.

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 Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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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

Random Quote

“The replies to this committee (of which Mgr Bugnini was the secretary) reveal a desire to reform the liturgy. In what sense? Out of 2,109 responses from bishops, just three expressed the desire to restore Communion under both kinds. There was a sizable demand for limited use of the vernacular, but only one French bishop wanted the entire Mass in French.”

— Fr. Dominic Allain (2019)

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