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Views from the Choir Loft

Feast of Life • Two Thomas Aquinas Texts for SATB • GIA Publications

Richard J. Clark · April 26, 2025

RECENT RELEASE from GIA Publications, Inc., Feast of Life features another of  my collaborations with hymn writer, composer, and organist, Alan. J. Hommerding. Feast of Life sets two Aquinas texts, both translated by Hommerding into in English: O Sacrum Convivium/O Great, Sacred Feast of Life and Ecce Panis Angelorum/Bread of Angels. With degrees in theology, theory, and music, Hommerding served as Senior Editor of World Library Publications. In 2019 he was awarded “Distinguished Catholic Music Composer of the Year” by the Association of Catholic Publishers.

** Feast of Life,  is available in print or PDF download here.

In the publication, Hommerding writes of his treatment of O Sacrum Convivium • O Great, Sacred Feast of Life: “…[T]he past (Christ’s Passion), present (our eucharistic celebration), and future (the heavenly banquet) dimensions of the sacrament are concisely presented. This translation is one I refer to as a ‘singing’ translation, in that its preservation of the syllable count/stress of the Latin text is an essential consideration, along with conveying the meaning of the text.”

Listen here to a recording conducted by Dr. Alfred Calabrese and sung by the Saint Rita Choir, Dallas Texas. (This was recorded during rehearsal. The St Rita Choir wears robes at Mass.)

 

Ecce Panis Angelorum • Bread of Angels: Of this text Hommerding writes: “Like many of the lengthier eucharistic texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, this one is a shorter excerpt from his Lauda, Sion Salvatorem, currently used as the Sequence on the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ…The words guide us to our “forever feasting,” when we will share this heavenly bread with the angels.

Listen here to a recording performed by the Boston Cathedral Singers, Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston

 

HERE IS another Hommerding / Clark collaboration, a concertato on Lift High the Cross, (also available with GIA here) Hommerding wrote two sets of verses for Triduum and Discipleship while retaining the original refrain by George W. Kitchin. This video s courtesy of The Catholic TV Network from the Chrism Mass (2024) at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston.

 

FINALLY, ENJOY THIS FREE download of Communion Antiphons for Ordinary Time  • 238 pages!

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: April 26, 2025

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About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(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

Re: Low Mass: “It is desirable that in read Masses on Sundays and feast-days, the Gospel and Epistle be read by a lector in the vernacular for the convenience of the faithful.”

— 1958 document, issued under Pope Pius XII

Recent Posts

  • “Yahweh” in church songs?
  • “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
  • “Participation” • Recovering its Receptive Dimension
  • “Breathtaking Photographs” • First Mass of Father Michael Caughey, FSSP (Muskegon, MI)
  • “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)

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