Views from the Choir Loft

I Am Moving Again!

Andrew Leung · August 25, 2016

N THE PAST TWO YEARS, I have moved twice: from Ohio to Georgia when I was appointed music director at St. Pius X, and then from Georgia back to Ohio when I decided to join the Diocese of Steubenville. And yes, I am moving again, but it’s a little further away this time. Due to some immigration complications, I won’t be returning to the USA for a few years. The Diocese of Steubenville has decided to send me to study at St. Joseph Seminary in Macau, China for the coming few years. I am very grateful for their support and allowing me to continue my seminarian formation.

I will be moving to Macau in less than a week. Please continue to pray for me and my discernment. I am very happy that I am sent to St. Joseph Seminary. It’s nice to live so close to home (Macau is only an hour away from Hong Kong). The seminary has a wonderful faculty and a very good formation team. Also, there are many historic Catholic churches in Macau, including the seminary and its church.

St. Joseph Seminary was founded by the Jesuits in 1728. The seminary building and the church was built and consecrated in 1758. The church was built in the Baroque style and it is the only church in Macau with a dome. A pipe organ was installed in the choir loft in 2009. On the St. Joseph side altar, an first class relic, a bone of the arm, of St. Francis Xavier is exposed for veneration. In contrast with the elaborate architecture of St. Joseph’s Church, the Seminary is a simple, neo-classical compound designed with an internal cloister garden. Here are some pictures of the seminary and the church:

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Next week, I will introduce more about the history and the churches of the Diocese of Macau.

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).

“Common” Responsorial Psalm?

I try to avoid arguing about liturgical legislation (even with Catholic priests) because it seems like many folks hold certain views—and nothing will persuade them to believe differently. You can show them 100 church documents, but it matters not. They won’t budge. Sometimes I’m confronted by people who insist that “there’s no such thing” as a COMMON RESPONSORIAL PSALM. When that happens, I show them a copy of the official legislation in Latin. I have occasionally prevailed by means of this method.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“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

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