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Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • “Latin in the New Liturgy” (1976)

Jeff Ostrowski · February 22, 2016

730 Latin in the New Liturgy NE OF OUR longtime readers sent in a book from 1976 I’d never seen before by Dr. Richard Richens, who helped found the Association for Latin Liturgy 1 in Great Britain:

    * *  PDF Download • R. H. Richens (16 pages)

It’s quite short, but powerful and—even better—it’s fun to read. The section about Hebrew at the Last Supper explains a point I’ve tried to make for a long time, but does so with eloquence (not my strong suit).

Some excerpts:

HE BISHOPS OF ENGLAND AND WALES have put forward their views on Latin on several occasions. In 1966 they said that “every encouragement should be given to reciting or saying of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, on those occasions when it is possible, fitting and convenient. Definite steps must be taken to see that knowledge of the Latin Mass is not lost.” Later, in 1969—after the new order of Mass had been introduced—they said: “the use of Latin in celebrating the new Mass Rite will be encouraged as it has been in the old; Latin expresses the nature of the Church as international and timeless.”

The musical settings of the Latin text of the Roman rite are—by common consent of all musical critics, and confirmed by any issue of the Radio Times—one of the supreme creative achievements of mankind. They constitute the largest body of high-quality music in existence. […] Though plainchant has suffered many vicissitudes—including its re-styling by the Franks and the corruption of the tradition in the post-Tridentine period—it remains a supreme expression of worship and fully deserving the special place the Second Vatican Council accorded to it.

The Latin liturgy is the birth place of all our modern music. The art of combining voices, pioneered by the English composer Dunstable, is one of the outstanding permanent legacies of the Middle Ages. By the sixteenth century, musical settings for the Latin liturgy had been composed that still rank amongst the major musical works of the world. Palestrina and Victoria, whose Latin Church music is their major contribution, would be included in any list of the greatest musical composers. English writers were also notable, and one of these, William Byrd, could arguably be regarded as the greatest writer of liturgical music of all time and the greatest English composer in any form. His five-part Mass was sung in St. Peter’s, Rome, at the canonization of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales. […] In the last century, when composers tended to forsake religious music, Liszt and Bruckner produced Latin Church music of the highest quality. The present century has not been behind the others, and the music of Poulenc in France and Berkeley in England compares with the best that has gone before.

Here’s a section that jumped out at me:

Yet how can a congregation today participate in a Latin Mass to the extent that the Council clearly requires? There are some practical difficulties, mainly because publishers—preoccupied with vernacular texts—have failed so far to provide adequate aids, bilingual Sunday Mass books, Latin-English Mass leaflets, and the like. Time and demand will solve these.

Dr. Richens would have been pleased to discover the Jogues Illuminated Missal:

728 St. Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, & Gradual


The JOGUES is a book for the pews—i.e. the congregation—which allows any priest to use as much or as little Latin as may be desired for Masses in the Ordinary Form. The special layout helps the “average” Catholic feel at home.



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   To learn more about the “Association for Latin Liturgy,” click here.

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

Filed Under: Articles, PDF Download 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 Michigan. —(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Music List” • 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Easter (18 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The Communion Antiphon was ‘restored’ the 1970 Missale Romanum (a.k.a. MISSALE RECENS) from an obscure martyr’s feast. Our choir is on break this Sunday, so the selections are relatively simple in nature.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Communion Chant (5th Sunday of Easter)
    This coming Sunday—18 May 2025—is the 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (MISSALE RECENS). The COMMUNION ANTIPHON “Ego Sum Vitis Vera” assigned by the Church is rather interesting, because it comes from a rare martyr’s feast: viz. Saint Vitalis of Milan. It was never part of the EDITIO VATICANA, which is the still the Church’s official edition. As a result, the musical notation had to be printed in the Ordo Cantus Missae, which appeared in 1970.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • 4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 4th Sunday of Easter (11 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. I don’t know a more gorgeous ENTRANCE CHANT than the one given there: Misericórdia Dómini Plena Est Terra.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    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

Random Quote

“Is it not true that prohibiting or suspecting the extraordinary form can only be inspired by the demon who desires our suffocation and spiritual death?”

— The Vatican’s chief liturgist from 2014-2021, Interview with Edw. Pentin (23-Sep-2019)

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