Views from the Choir Loft

Solemn Novena for Our Lady of Mt. Carmel

Fr. David Friel · July 8, 2020

MONG the great traditions of the Carmelite Monastery of St. Joseph and St. Anne in Philadelphia is an annual, public novena leading up to the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. This year marks the 117th iteration of this annual devotion.

The novena begins today, July 8th, and concludes on the feast, itself, July 16th. The rosary and litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary will be prayed at 6:30 PM daily, during which time confessions will also be available. Mass celebrated in the Extraordinary Form will be offered each evening at 7 PM.

Mass for the feast day will be a Solemn High Mass. This year’s preacher will be Fr. Joseph Lee, F.S.S.P. The novena is open to the public, and clergy & seminarians are welcome to attend in choir.

The historic Philadelphia Carmel was founded in 1902. In addition to its rich legacy of prayer for the local Church of Philadelphia, this Carmel is also noteworthy for its pivotal role in cultivating devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux in the United States (see more on this history).

If you are not able to participate in the novena in Philadelphia, another fitting way to prepare for the feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel would be to pray the beautiful sequence, Flos Carmeli from July 8th through July 16th. The text, in Latin and English, is available here.

Carmelite Side Altar at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception

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

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About Fr. David Friel

Ordained in 2011, Father Friel is a priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and serves as Director of Liturgy at Saint Charles Borromeo Seminary. —(Read full biography).

Music List • (2nd Sunday of Lent)

Readers have expressed interest in seeing the ORDER OF MUSIC I created for this coming Sunday—1 March 2026—the 2nd Sunday of Lent (Year A). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. As always, the Responsorial Psalm, Gospel Acclamation, and Mass Propers for this Sunday are available at the flourishing feasts website alongside the official texts in Latin.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Particularly Beautiful

The 2nd Sunday of Lent has magnificent propers. Its INTROIT is particularly striking—using a haunting tonality—but the COMMUNION with fauxbourdon verses is also quite remarkable. I encourage all the readers to visit the feasts website, where the Propria Missae may be downloaded completely free of charge.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Which Mass?

In 1905, when the Vatican Commission on Gregorian Chant began publishing the EDITIO VATICANA—still the Church’s official edition— they assigned different Masses to different types of feasts. However, they were careful to add a note (which began with the words “Qualislibet cantus hujus Ordinarii…”) making clear “chants from one Mass may be used together with those from others.” Sadly, I sometimes worked for TLM priests who weren’t fluent in Latin. As a result, they stubbornly insisted Mass settings were ‘assigned’ to different feasts and seasons (which is false). To understand the great variety, one should examine the 1904 KYRIALE of Dr. Peter Wagner. One should also look through Dom Mocquereau’s Liber Usualis (1904), in which the Masses are all mixed up. For instance, Gloria II in his book ended up being moved to the ‘ad libitum’ appendix in the EDITIO VATICANA.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Extreme Unction

Those who search Google for “CCCC MS 079” will discover high resolution images of a medieval Pontificale (“Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 079”). One of the pages contains this absolutely gorgeous depiction of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction.

—Corpus Christi Watershed

PDF Chart • “Plainsong Rhythm”

I will go to my grave without understanding the lack of curiosity so many people have about the rhythmic modifications made by Dom André Mocquereau. For example, how can someone examine this single sheet comparison chart and at a minimum not be curious about the differences? Dom Mocquereau basically creates a LONG-SHORT LONG-SHORT rhythmic pattern—in spite of enormous and overwhelming manuscript evidence to the contrary. That’s why some scholars referred to his method as “Neo-Mensuralist” or “Neo-Mensuralism.”

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF • “O Come All Ye Faithful” (Simplified)

I admire the harmonization of “Adeste Fideles” by David Willcocks (d. 2015), who served as director of the Royal College of Music (London, England). In 2025, I was challenged to create a simplified arrangement for organists incapable of playing the authentic version at tempo. The result was this simplified keyboard arrangement (PDF download) based on the David Willcocks version of “O Come All Ye Faithful.” Feel free to play through it and let me know what you think.

—Jeff Ostrowski