DON’T CARE anymore. Examining the veracity of this statement, it is both true and untrue. I feel more deeply, but my desire to specify or articulate what I believe one must do at every moment within the sacred liturgy is greatly diminished. Admittedly, such abatement has much to do with age. But this is not to be confused with disregard for liturgical legislation, Roman Catholic theology, or the Magisterium. Nor does this negate preferences, opinions, and understandings (that no one may care about) developed through decades of personal and professional experience, study, and prayer. Such views, hopefully as seen through the eyes of love and compassion, may further evolve and grow throughout life. What I do care about is leading by example to the best of my ability. Often, I fail. But I will specify this: it is incumbent upon me to pray each day that I serve as God intends and not as I prefer. I need this reminder desperately as I frequently forget God is in charge. I am not. Such hubris. My opinions, alleged contributions, and perceived accomplishments are less than a grain of sand in the vastness of God’s design. But love can fill all of God’s creation; that is why we serve God and each other. For some of us, this is through music which is ultimately filled with personal encounter with God and each other.
FRIENDSHIP AND THE beautiful people with whom we are blessed to pray and make music with are supremely important. Perhaps this is why we care deeply about what we do in service to God and each other.
Pope Benedict XVI often spoke of teaching us better how to pray not by edict or decree but through loving example. There are many servant leaders in our Church who offer such example, and among them an endless ocean of musicians serving the liturgy quite frequently in humbling circumstances: inadequate pay, support, and gratitude. Yet they persist for years. Why? I think we may gain tremendous wisdom to ask each and every person who persists despite adversity that question.
ONE SUCH SERVANT LEADER, Jeff Ostrowski has been a dear friend over the years. We first connected over email around 2009. I admired his work and unparalleled enthusiasm. We met at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City at the CMAA Colloquium in 2012. We both got stuck at the airport when a connecting flight to Houston was delayed for three hours. He showed me his drafts of the Saint Edmund Campion Missal on his laptop. We talked for those hours. God made sure I made a friend in Jeff.
He can be controversial, and we don’t always agree on approach or tone. But we are in different situations with disparate responsibilities and pressures. Behind the strong public voice is a man who deeply loves the sacred liturgy, God, his family, and is fiercely committed to service.
TRULY EXCEPTIONAL is that during each part of his career he’s developed new monumental resources that serve the Church differently. This includes contributing to hymnals for the Novus Ordo, (Vatican II Hymnal, The Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal) the Extraordinary Form (Saint Edmund Campion Missal), and both (Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal). He has also created Responsorial Psalms, countless arrangements, editions, accompaniments, and an endless sea of useful liturgical resources. As if that weren’t enough, he is currently working on a very large project for resources in Spanish, and hopefully will come to fruition with needed support. Despite an already towering intellect, he won’t quit studying and learning. His idea of relaxing is spending hours in a university music library. And he does all this while working as a full-time liturgical musician and caring for his family.
Our Cathedral music program would have great difficulty functioning without Corpus Christi Watershed. Most rare is a Sunday without some Ostrowski produced resource that is free. A typical example is a recent Sunday with an Ostrowski edition of the Introit chant, a Responsorial Psalm, and his adaptation of a Fr. Francisco Guerrero Magnificat into an Alleluia choral extension, and an Ostrowski edition of a three-voice motet by Kevin Allen from Allen’s Matri Divinae Gratiae collection.
Here’s a recording of his Psalm 138 at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross:
DO I STILL CARE? Yes, but hopefully only about what is truly important. Each other is all we have. Let us support and pray for one other. Please pray for me as I will pray for all of you.
“[T]he goal of worship and the goal of creation as a whole are one and the same—divinization, a world of freedom and love.”
— Pope Benedict XVI, (The Spirit of the Liturgy, pg. 28)
“Sacred music, being a complementary part of the solemn liturgy, participates in the general scope of the liturgy, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful. It contributes to the decorum and the splendor of the ecclesiastical ceremonies, and since its principal office is to clothe with suitable melody the liturgical text proposed for the understanding of the faithful, its proper aim is to add greater efficacy to the text, in order that through it the faithful may be the more easily moved to devotion and better disposed for the reception of the fruits of grace belonging to the celebration of the most holy mysteries.”
— Pope Saint Pius X (Tra le sollecitudini, 1903, General Principals, I)
