Views from the Choir Loft

“Let’s Not” . . . a small moment of reverence

Veronica Moreno · March 11, 2020

T IS ALWAYS THE SAME RESPONSE: “The Reverence.” When asked why we started going to the Traditional Latin Mass, we have a hard time putting this idea of “reverence” into words.

When holy priests celebrate the Ordinary Form to the best of their abilities, it is often very difficult to describe the difference in “reverence” when comparing it to the Extraordinary Form. But I think it’s in the custody of the eyes. It is hard to explain the contrast in “reverence” when there are no liturgical abuses or extreme examples of silliness. To our curious friends, we explain further, concede, and then qualify by adding that there is “more reverence” at the Extraordinary Form. We double down for emphasis, “It’s hard to describe, but there is a different kind of reverence.”

Here is a small moment to highlight that difference. Cardinal Dolan celebrating without any liturgical abuse, a deacon making a tiny mistake, parishoners adjusting. Technically nothing “wrong” with any of this according to the Ordinary Form. But why does this short video stop me in my tracks and make me feel despondent?

As I wrote this brief note today, Fr. David Friel posted this quote about custodia occulorum:

“By the raising of the eyes,
the celebrant, following the example
of our divine Lord, more expressly
directs his prayer of offering,
thanks, or petition to God;
and so his eyes are to be raised…
to the image of the Crucified.”

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

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About Veronica Moreno

Veronica Moreno is married to a teacher and homeschools five children. She has been cantor at her local Catholic parish for over a decade.—(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

My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski