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Views from the Choir Loft

Entrance Antiphons • “Transitioning from a Contemporary to Sacred Music Program”

Rebecca De La Torre · October 22, 2024

AVING WORKED with Jeff Ostrowski on several projects in the past, I’m so glad to be joining CORPUS CHRISTI WATERSHED as an author. I’ve long admired the excellent work done by the various contributors here, and I look forward to a beautiful and fruitful collaboration. Over the last few years I’ve been transitioning from a completely contemporary music program (at a church with a contemporary-music-loving congregation) into one that implements more and more sacred works. Though a slow process, it has been a complete success thus far. Our liturgies are more prayerful and the gentle approach has lost us ZERO parishioners. In fact, (at the time of this writing) our numbers have increased a little above Pre-COVID attendance.

Chanting The Propers • Mr. Ostrowski has encouraged me to share with our readers some of the techniques that have met with success here at my parish in Arizona. One way I’ve been introducing sacred music—besides using venerable hymn tunes with ancient texts—is chanting the propers. Below is one such ENTRANCE ANTIPHON for this coming Sunday in Gregorian Mode IV:

*  PDF Download • ENTRANCE ANTIPHON (Rebecca De La Torre)
—For the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

As with all of the (hundreds of) scores on my website, The Modern Psalmist, I record and provide rehearsal tracks free of charge:

*  Mp3 Download • ENTRANCE ANTIPHON (Rebecca De La Torre)

Transition Time! • For a choir accustomed to contemporary music, Gregorian chant was intimidating at first. But one method that’s worked well for me is to maintain a single mode for an extended period of time. That way, there’s a congruence from Sunday to Sunday, making the “new style” (though ancient) less intimidating—for both the choir *and* the congregation. For this purpose, I decided to compose Entrance Antiphons in Mode IV. These are simple propers, but not to the point of being monotone. To get a good intuitive feel for Mode IV, I studied the following ancient works from the GRADUALE ROMANUM: SANCTUS (from Mass III); AGNUS DEI (from Mass III), CREDO I (called the “authentic” or “cardinal” creed tone in the ancient manuscripts).

The Same In Spanish • Our congregation is predominantly Latino so I compose everything (!) in English and Spanish. You can download the Spanish version of the same ENTRANCE ANTIPHON for this Sunday here:

*  PDF Download • ENTRANCE ANTIPHON (Spanish)
—Antífona de Entrada • 30º Domingo del Tiempo Ordinario (Modo IV, De La Torre).

As I already mentioned, on my website I provide—free of charge—rehearsal tracks for absolutely everything. Click here to instantly hear that Spanish ENTRANCE ANTIPHON.

The Future • My website consists of many thousands of scores, rehearsal videos, and mp3 files. Almost all of them are completely free, but you need to create a login. Over the next few years, I look forward to (each week) making readers aware of what I offer—again, everything I will share here is 100% free once you create a login—because I realize it can be overwhelming. If you find my resources helpful, I hope you will take advantage of all of them! Regardless, I think it’s important for everyone to at least be aware of what I offer. (A new project I’m particularly excited about is pronunciation guides for Spanish.)

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

Filed Under: Articles, PDF Download Last Updated: October 23, 2024

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About Rebecca De La Torre

Rebecca holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Arizona State University. She resides with her husband and daughter in Phoenix, Arizona.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“The authority of the Pope is not unlimited. It is at the service of Sacred Tradition. Still less is any kind of general ‘freedom’ of manufacture, degenerating into spontaneous improvisation, compatible with the essence of faith and liturgy. The greatness of the liturgy depends—we shall have to repeat this frequently—on its lack of spontaneity.”

— Josef Cardinal Ratzinger (2000)

Recent Posts

  • PDF Download • “Text by Saint Francis of Assisi” (choral setting w/ organ: Soprano & Alto)
  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)

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Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

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