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Jesus said to them: “I have come into this world so that a sentence may fall upon it, that those who are blind should see, and those who see should become blind. If you were blind, you would not be guilty. It is because you protest, ‘We can see clearly,’ that you cannot be rid of your guilt.”

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Views from the Choir Loft

PDF Download • “O Esca Viatorum”

Jeff Ostrowski · August 18, 2017

VEN AFTER ALL these years, some readers still don’t know how to download the individual rehearsal videos and PDF files. Click on the blue link called #4687.

Pardon my squeaky high notes, but I wanted to demonstrate how it sounds—so I recorded all the voice parts:

REHEARSAL VIDEOS for each individual voice await you at #4687.
The full PDF score can be downloaded there.


The complete score (English and Latin) is also there. I am deeply saddened that some people still don’t know where these items are located.



IT IS QUITE A POPULAR Eucharistic hymn. Indeed, it’s hard to find a single Catholic hymnal not containing it. A few examples, from the Brébeuf hymn website:

Cantate Omnes (1952)
Cantiones Sacrae (1878)
Laudate Hymnal (1942)
New Westminster Hymnal (1939)
De La Salle Hymnal (1913)
St. Rose Hymnal (1938) … combines it with “Tantum Ergo”
New Saint Basil Hymnal (1958)
Pius X Hymnal (1953)
St. Gregory Hymnal (1920)

Here’s how the melody appears in the 1912 hymn book created by Sir Richard Terry:

4632 Sir Richard Terry HYMNAL


British editors tend not to place the words under the notes. As someone who works with amateur choirs, I feel there are some disadvantages to this approach, along with certain undeniable positive aspects.

Here’s a translation by Msgr. Hugh Thomas Henry (d. 1946), who taught Gregorian chant at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Overbrook, Pennsylvania:

1. O Food to pilgrims given,
Bread of the hosts of heaven,
Thou Manna of the sky!
Feed with the blessed sweetness
Of Thy divine completeness
The hearts that for Thee sigh.

2. O Fountain ruby-glowing,
O Stream of love outflowing
From Jesus’ piercèd side!
This thought alone shall bless us,
This one desire possess us,
To drink of Thy sweet tide.

3. We love Thee, Jesus tender,
Who hid’st Thine awful splendor
Beneath these veils of grace:
Oh, let the veils be riven,
And our clear eye in heaven
Behold Thee face to face!

TAGS:

“Amazing Eucharistic Hymn”

“O Esca Viatorum”

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

    “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

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

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.

— ‘His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)’

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