Views from the Choir Loft

Fides et Ratio

Fr. David Friel · November 15, 2015

ERE TODAY not Sunday, we would be celebrating the feast of St. Albert the Great. From the time I venerated his tomb during World Youth Day 2005 in Köln, Albertus Magnus, O.P. has been a saint I much admire for his learning and balance of life.

Noteworthy as a philosopher and theologian (indeed, a “Doctor of the Church”), St. Albert was also well trained in the physical sciences. It is for this reason that he is the patron saint of scientists, among other things.

St. Albert had a stalwart appreciation for the compatibility of faith and reason. So, too, did St. John Paul II, who wrote a magnificent encyclical on the subject. The sense that faith and reason are not contradictory, but mutually supportive, is fundamentally lacking in much of modern society, and it needs to be reclaimed.

The tension and collaboration of fides et ratio has long been an interest of mine. This interest has found expression in numerous blog posts over the years, which I would like to share with you again today:

The Dawkins Delusion: Faith as Evidence (11 August 2013)

Faith Seeking Understanding: Anselm of Canterbury (21 April 2013)

Catholic Education & the Epiphany: The Hidden Teacher (10 January 2012)

The Resurrected Christ: We Are Witnesses of These Things (24 April 2012)

In honor of the feast of St. Albert the Great, I invite you to delve into the richness of our faith, which can never be separated from right reason.

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.” (Pope St. John Paul II)

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