Views from the Choir Loft

Summer Chant Courses—Dunwoodie

Fr. David Friel · April 1, 2018

WO sacred music courses will be offered this summer at St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie) in Yonkers. These offerings are being presented through the St. Cecilia Academy for Pastoral Musicians, an initiative of the Archdiocese of New York (both the liturgy office and the seminary) that was featured on these pages a couple of years ago.

The instructor for these sessions will be Jennifer Donelson, DMA (bio). Dr. Donelson is director of sacred music at Dunwoodie, president of the Society for Catholic Liturgy, and managing editor of the CMAA’s Sacred Music journal.

The two course offering this summer will be:

Principles of Sacred Music — 7 weeks online (June 4-July 22); 2 days on campus (July 23-24)

Principles of Sacred Music — 4 day on campus (July 25-28)

Participants will have the option either to take these courses for credit or to audit them. For the on campus portions, very reasonable room & board is being offered at the seminary.

For more information on these summer courses, see the official flyer.

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

About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel served as Parochial Vicar at St. Anselm Parish in Northeast Philly. He is currently a doctoral candidate in liturgical theology at The Catholic University of America.—(Read full biography).

6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski

2 January 2021 • Temptation

When I see idiotic statements made on the internet, I go nuts. When I see heretics promoted by people who should know better, I get angry. Learning to ignore such items is difficult—very difficult. I try to remember the words of Fr. Valentine Young: “Do what God places in front of you each day.” When I am honest, I don’t believe God wants me to dwell on errors and idiocy; there’s nothing I can do about that. During 2021, I will strive to do a better job following the advice of Fr. Valentine.

—Jeff Ostrowski

31 December 2020 • “COMITES CHRISTI”

The feasts for Saint Stephen Proto-Martyr (26 December), Saint John the Evangelist The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved (27 December), and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December) seem untouched by any liturgical reforms. These are very powerful feasts—I believe they once possessed octaves—and I believe they could sometimes “overpower” a Sunday feast. The rules for octaves in the olden days are extremely complex. These feasts are sometimes referred to as a single entity as: Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). This is just a guess, but there seems to be a triple significance: STEPHEN martyred after Christ lived, JOHN was a martyr who knew Christ personally, and the HOLY INNOCENTS were martyred before Christ’s birth.

—Jeff Ostrowski