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Views from the Choir Loft

“Communion Hymn For Lent” • (Rec. 3/4/2022)

Jeff Ostrowski · March 5, 2022

ULTON J. SHEEN used to point out something important: if you tell jokes to a horse, the horse “won’t even reply with a horselaugh.” That’s because the horse doesn’t understand human language. Question: Is music a human language? What exactly is music? Beethoven once said: “I don’t know what music is.” Even if we cannot define it, we know the Roman Catholic liturgy has required and elevated music for at least 1,500 years—and I trust the Church. Vatican II said: “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art” (SC §112).

How To Succeed: I probably sound like a broken record, since I always recommend “balance” in a Catholic music program. (Instead of “balance,” you could think of it as musical diversity.) I feel that choir members will stop coming back if the music is always the same. Even truly great composers—such as Father Francisco Guerrero or J.S. Bach—can be overdone. Whether one directs in the “Ordinary Form” (Pauline Mass) or the “Extraordinary Form” (Missale Vetustum), an essential part of your choir’s repertoire should be hymns from the Brébeuf hymnal. Something praiseworthy done by the editorial committee was setting Eucharistic hymns to seasonal melodies.

Here’s an example for Lent:

Rehearsal videos for each individual voice await you at #144.

Not A New Idea: The melody for “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” was originally a funeral procession—but once its associations fell away it was adopted for Advent. The pipe organ was originally a secular instrument, but its associations fell away and currently it’s held up by the Catholic Church as the sacred instrument par excellence. The quintessential Easter song (“Regina Cæli Lætare”) was originally a Christmas antiphon. So what the Brébeuf editors have done here with seasonal melodies is nothing new. Indeed, the idea came from the traditional practice of the Divine Office.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Ave Vivens Hostia, Latin Mass Musical Diversity Last Updated: March 7, 2022

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

    Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent
    The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)
    Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “The Times” mentions CCW
    We were mentioned in article in an article by “The Times” (United Kingdom), as you can see here.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

It was thought important that the song should actually accompany the distribution of Communion. A Carolingian explanation of the Mass remarks that during the Communion “soft melody should touch the ear [of the faithful] so that hearing this sound they would busy themselves less with distracting thoughts and … their hearts would be moved to humble love for that which they receive.”

— Father Josef Andreas Jungmann

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