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Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • Booklet for Congregation

Jeff Ostrowski · April 10, 2017

HAT WE REFER TO as “progress” is not always true progress. For example, the creation of television—where producers supply all the sights and sounds—has led to a society incapable of listening carefully. We no longer appreciate beautiful language or powerful sermons, and the fact that we don’t close our eyes and listen has harmed our imaginations. How sad we no longer make believe!

Many churches are installing “movie screens” into church, for people to follow the liturgy. This will fail, just as the “YouTube news” effort failed. People like to read (or skim) at their own pace, and that’s why missals and booklets are so wonderful for prayer.

Here’s a page from a booklet I produced ten years ago, for my wedding:

263 Latin Booklets


I think you’ll agree the booklet I created for last year’s Sacred Music Symposium is more professional, although far from perfect:

    * *  PDF Download • 2016 SYMPOSIUM BOOKLET (47 pages)

The wedding booklet I mentioned contained sketches of the Mass expertly drawn by my mother. Getting the Solemn Pontifical Mass just right required research:

260 Mother Sketch


Each person was sketched “true to life.” For example, the Deacon has a tonsure and hood, because he’s Franciscan. My father and uncle served as Acolytes, so one Acolyte (shown on the right) was drawn with a beard because my uncle has a beard in real life, as this photograph from the 2007 wedding shows. 1

I hope to improve when it comes to making Mass booklets, because I believe this is what Vatican II wanted: helping Catholics enter more deeply into the sacrifice of the Mass. May I share with you a secret? The best way to make booklets is to just start making them. With each booklet you create, you’ll get better and better.

P.S.

I scanned into PDF seven sketches I was able to locate.



NOTES FROM THIS ARTICLE:

1   Many have asked why I always wear the Filipino “Barong Tagalog” when I conduct. I do this because I was so impressed seeing all the members of my wife’s family dressed in the Barong. Here’s my wife’s brother at the wedding: very impressive, no?

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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Jeff Ostrowski

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 Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

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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

“Then, when the later great Germans arrived, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven—all secular composers—and tried their hands at sacred music, they set Roman Catholic words to music which in form and spirit is Protestant.”

— Sir Richard Runciman Terry (1912)

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