Views from the Choir Loft

Incredible Opportunity In Kansas City

Lucas Tappan · February 12, 2020

WOULD like to share information about an incredible sacred music position in Kansas City, Kansas, recently created by a good friend of mine, Fr. Nick Blaha, at Christ the King Catholic Church and School. Fr. Blaha, a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College in California, as well as a veteran FOCUS missionary, was made pastor of CTK last year and already is transitioning the parish’s school to begin providing a classical education beginning the fall of this year (2020), and music, especially sacred music, will play a central role in the school’s (and parish’s) daily life.

He is specifically looking for someone who understands “that a musically literate culture is foundational for the cultivation of beauty and the worship of God… Educators who seek to shape students in both wisdom and virtue, and who share the belief that music and aesthetics play an integral part in the content of a Catholic liberal arts education should apply.”

Whomever he hires will have reign over music both in the school and at the parish and I cannot stress enough what an immense blessing it would be to work for Fr. Blaha.

Full details about the position can be viewed here.

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

About Lucas Tappan

Dr. Lucas Tappan is a conductor and organist whose specialty is working with children. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children.—(Read full biography).

PDF Download • Vespers for the Dead

Mr. Albert Bloomfield kindly sent me “Vespers for the Dead”—which does not fulfill a priest’s obligation to pray the Divine Office, yet is often prayed when a loved one dies. Here is formatting A, and here it is again with formatting B.

—Jeff Ostrowski

20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

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—Jeff Ostrowski