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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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Dr. Alfred Calabrese

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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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

We cannot exaggerate our indebtedness to Dr. Julian’s “Dictionary of Hymnology,” a monumental work, without which we could not have reached the high standard of accuracy, as to both texts and authorship, which we set before us when entering upon our labours.

— Committee for “New English Hymnal” (1906)

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