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Views from the Choir Loft

Sacred Music US • Website for Fr. Weber’s Resources

Fr. David Friel · March 31, 2019

ProperOfTheMassCover OUGHLY four years ago, a revolutionary resource came out on the sacred music market through Ignatius Press. This resource, The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities, is the handiwork of Fr. Samuel Weber, OSB. At the time, the contributors to this Views from the Choir Loft blog published a seven-part series reflecting on the content and impact of this book (the first part of the series is available here, with links to the subsequent posts).

This important volume continues to be sold online (available here).

Only recently did I discover that there is also a very useful website dedicated to Fr. Weber’s music. This webpage is stuffed with great resources, categorized according to season and other criteria (e.g., Spanish, Divine Office, Carmelite, etc.).

Given the present time of year, I would draw our readers’ particular attention to the music for Holy Week and for Easter.

In my own contribution to our seven-part series on Fr. Weber’s book back in 2015, I wrote this:

With the publication of The Proper of the Mass, parish priests & musicians are running out of excuses for not singing the music of the Mass, including the appointed propers. Immediately after the Second Vatican Council, there was a legitimate lack of resources, so parishes could reasonably be excused for falling into a bit of a tailspin. But now the resources are available in the Anglophone world, and there is no longer any legitimate excuse for avoiding them, apart from an entrenched desire to “stay at rest” or to hold on to “what is old in us” or to resist “newness of life.”

What I said then I believe still stands. We are fortunate to be laboring during a time in which resources for authentic sacred music are abundant.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Authentic Liturgical Renewal Reform, Hymns Replacing Propers, Mass Propers Proprium Missae, Proper of the Mass in English, Propers, Propers Ignatius Press by Fr Samuel Weber, Simple Steps To Improve Parish Music, Singing the Mass Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Fr. David Friel

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).

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Quick Thoughts

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

“Like all other liturgical functions, like offices and ranks in the Church, indeed like everything else in the world, the religious service that we call the Mass existed long before it had a special technical name.”

— ‘Rev. Adrian Fortescue (THE MASS, page 397)’

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