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Views from the Choir Loft

“Do not let anyone make you feel discouraged.”

Richard J. Clark · June 24, 2017

OMETIMES IT IS not the words themselves, but the source that matters. Usually, words are cheap. Actions speak loudest. But sometimes, I hear words that move me to move my heart.

Recently, such words came from my mother. Simple. True. Words from a lifetime of living in faith. Words that bore the weight of authority:

“Do not let anyone make you feel discouraged.”

Working in a professional capacity for the Church, it is sometimes just as easy to become discouraged as it is to feel uplifted. Apparently, I’ve discovered that the Church is filled with people just like me: Flawed. Imperfect. Human. (Made in God’s image? Really?) That’s debatable from my all too human eyes. By the way, I’ve got huge planks in both of them.

My mother’s advice echo verse one of the African American Spiritual, There is a Balm in Gilead: “Sometimes I feel discouraged And think my work’s in vain, But then the Holy Spirit Revives my Soul again.”

Clearly my mother received the Gift of Wisdom from the Holy Spirit and tried passing it on to me. Maybe a tiny bit got through.

UT HERE’S WISDOM: Gratitude. When I feel discouraged about making a living for my family in this profession—and doing so with a modicum of ever-elusive peace, another thing happens.

It seems I can suddenly rattle off a list a ridiculously amazing blessings in my life:

All your children are healthy? Hmmm. Yeah. God is watching over you. In fact, He made all that possible.

You have friends who might drive you crazy, but stick by you year after year even when you screw up? Um. Yeah.

You had trouble paying bills, but your wife and kids love you? Unconditionally? OK. Stop.

Wait…you got to make music in praise of God with some seriously amazing musicians? You got to do this and this with these beautiful people?

This is not to discount the struggles. There are real problems in the Church and real problems in society that must be addressed. But do not discount that God knows every hair on your head, and knows how to take care of you better than you do. (I’m proof of this.)

And here’s the final lesson: Trust in God alone. While sometimes the Church is on fire (sometimes with the Holy Spirit and sometimes not), God is the only one to trust. I.e., Psalm 23: “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall want for nothing.”

Soli Deo gloria

P.S. Thanks, Mom.

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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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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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
    EVIN ALLEN was commissioned by Sacred Music Symposium 2025 to compose a polyphonic ‘middle section’ for the GLORIA from Mass III, often denoted by its trope name: Missa Kyrie Deus sempiterne. This year, I’m traveling from Singapore to serve on the symposium faculty. I will be conducting Palestrina’s ‘Ave Maria’ as well as teaching plainsong to the men. A few days ago, I was asked to record rehearsal videos for this beautiful polyphonic extension. (See below.) This polyphonic composition fits ‘inside’ GLORIA III. That is, the congregation sings for the beginning and end, but the choir alone adds polyphony to the middle. The easiest way to understand how everything fits together is by examining this congregational insert. You may download the score, generously made available to the whole world—free of charge—by CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED:
    *  PDF Download • Gloria III ‘Middle Section’ (Kevin Allen)
    Free rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #24366. Related News • My colleague, Jeff Ostrowski, composed an organ accompaniment for this same GLORIA a few months ago. Obviously, the organist should drop out when the polyphony is being sung.
    —Corrinne May
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —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

“The authority of the Pope is not unlimited. It is at the service of Sacred Tradition. Still less is any kind of general ‘freedom’ of manufacture, degenerating into spontaneous improvisation, compatible with the essence of faith and liturgy. The greatness of the liturgy depends—we shall have to repeat this frequently—on its lack of spontaneity.”

— Josef Cardinal Ratzinger (2000)

Recent Posts

  • PDF Download • “Polyphonic Extension” (Kevin Allen) for Gloria III
  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday

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