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Views from the Choir Loft

EWTN Broadcast • Mass of Ordination • First Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter

Richard J. Clark · February 1, 2016

HIS TUESDAY, February 2nd, on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord, EWTN will broadcast live from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. (Central Standard Time) the ordination of Bishop-Elect Steven J. Lopes as the first bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. This will take place at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston.

Maestro Edmund Murray will be directing for the ordination. He is the former Music Director of St. John’s Seminary in Boston and Our Lady of Atonement (Anglican Use Liturgy) in San Antonio, Texas. He is currently the Director of Music at Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, Texas.

Our Lady of Walsingham is the Principal Church of the Ordinariate serving Roman Catholics nurtured in the Anglican tradition. It was established in 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI. With only three such Principal Churches in the world, the elevation by Pope Francis of Bishop-Elect Steven J. Lopes is highly significant, as he is the First Bishop of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter. With his ordination, Our Lady of Walsingham will be elevated to a cathedral.

NDER THE DIRECTION OF EDMUND MURRAY, the music will be provided by a combined choir comprised of the Galveston-Houston Archdiocesan Choir (Dr. Rick Lopez, Director), Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart Schola Cantorum (Dr. Crista Miller, Director), and Our Lady of Walsingham Parish Choir. The organists will include M. Jackson Osborne, former Organist and Choirmaster at Our Lady of Walsingham, Dr. Crista Miller, and Dr. Kevin Clarke, Director of Music and Organist at St. Theresa Catholic Church in Sugar Land, TX.

This televised liturgy will be a rare opportunity to observe a liturgy in the Anglican tradition within the Roman Catholic Church. Also notable will be the presence of six cardinals and over thirty bishops. Be prepared for lengthy processions!

The music, which promises to be exquisite, will represent a distinct mix of Roman Catholic and Anglican traditions including a variety of Gregorian and Anglican Chant, works by William Byrd, Palestrina, Hans Leo Hassler, Healey Willan, and of course beautifully arranged hymnody. Unfortunately, the prelude will not be televised as it includes a sumptuous range of works by Hubert Parry, Jean Langlais, J. S. Bach, Charles Villiers Stanford, John Ireland, and Flor Peeters.

Finally, with a nod towards Murray’s Catholic roots in Boston, the Mass will also include an Alleluia by Theodore Marier, Michael Burgo’s beautiful Anima Christi, and a newly commissioned work for this occasion by yours truly.

DMUND MURRAY has done extraordinary work wherever he has gone. With his wife, Chalon, he built one of the finest music programs in the United States at Our Lady of Atonement—essentially a choir school in practice, if not in name. Named Director of Music in 2015 of Our Lady of Walsingham, I expect Murray will grow yet another extraordinary program as the years progress.

AM HONORED TO HAVE BEEN COMMISSIONED for a new work for this ordination, which will be sung during Communion. A setting of Psalm 111, Magna Opera Domini (“Great are the Works of the Lord”) is Bishop Lopes’ episcopal motto which appears on his Coat of Arms.

This piece, inspired by the works of Theodore Marier, utilizes a chant-based antiphon in Latin for the congregation. The verses, in English, alternate unison chant with various choral textures.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Anglican Ordinariate Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Richard J. Clark

About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(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

“Unfortunately, on the one hand a deadly error in judgment placed the official leadership of this committee into the hands of a man who—though generous and brave—was not very knowledgeable: Cardinal Lercaro. He was utterly incapable of resisting the maneuvers of the mealy-mouthed scoundrel that the Neapolitan Vincentian, Bugnini, a man as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty, soon revealed himself to be.”

— ‘Fr. Louis Bouyer, an important member of the Consilium’

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