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Views from the Choir Loft

Of Estate Sales, Prayers, and Mass Attendance

Dr. Alfred Calabrese · July 4, 2018

88359 precis ENJOY going to estate sales. You can find some amazing things at estate sales, everything from lamps to lawnmowers and furniture to fine art. But what I’m most interested in are books. Specifically, I’m on the lookout for Classic literature and books on the Catholic faith.

A book I found recently has become one of my favorites. Perhaps some of you know it. It’s called Blessed Be God: A Complete Catholic Prayer Book, published in 1925. This book has been reprinted and is available on line. I was thrilled that I found an original edition, complete with the leather cover still pretty much intact.

I’ll admit, I’d never heard of this book, and many of the prayers, novenas, and devotions were unknown to me. As I’ve read through this book, it has struck me how many of these prayers talk about death. By that I mean, they bring into focus that we’re all going to die, it’s probably not going to be fun, and there’s no guarantee we’ve got an express ticket to heaven. Things like mercy, release from Purgatory, relief from death’s agony, and the assistance of the angels and saints are ideas scattered all throughout this prayer book. Even the rubrics remind us of mortality. Here is an excerpt from the introduction to Evening Prayers:

Each night may be our last one here below.
We should think of this when saying our evening prayers.

Well that gets right to the point, doesn’t it? To be fair, the book isn’t only about death. It’s actually a primer on how to live as a Catholic Christian, with beautiful prayers and devotions for every aspect of life, from morning to night, and all throughout the year.

I started to realize how precious little time we spend thinking about these things any longer, and I began to wonder if this isn’t one of the reasons we have decades of declining Mass attendance, fewer priestly vocations, and plenty of nominal or cultural Catholics. It makes sense to me, at least, that if you quit thinking you need the Church and her rich prayer life to get to heaven, then why bother going to Mass?

When I was a kid in the 60’s and 70’s (which is probably why I never learned these prayers), we were told that people were leaving the Church because it focused too much on sin and death. So the Church became happy and clappy. Prayer books like these went into closets and bookshelves to gather dust and be forgotten. Maybe if we focused on what the Church really teaches about how to obtain eternal life, people would feel compelled to return to the Holy Mass. And I wonder how we can re-introduce our sisters and brothers to these rich and timeless verses. But I’m sure this book has a prayer for that.

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 Dr. Alfred Calabrese

Dr. Alfred Calabrese is Director of Music and Liturgy at St. Rita Catholic Church in Dallas, TX. He and his wife have two children.—(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

“I prefer to say nothing, or very little, about the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed—with no good reason—Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own devising!”

— ‘Fr. Bouyer, Consilium member appointed by Pope Paul VI’

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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