“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)
Mr. Albert Bloomfield kindly sent me “Vespers for the Dead”—which does not fulfill a priest’s obligation to pray the Divine Office, yet is often prayed when a loved one dies. Here is formatting A, and here it is again with formatting B.
My mother told me that my father used to stop at the rectory every Saturday afternoon to go to confession to the priest. He died when I was eight, leaving my mother with six children…
“Every diocese, almost every church, had its own customs. Our present rule dates from the revived missal of 1570.”
This travesty has been called “extensive restoration.”
I bet you never noticed this, but here’s the proof!
In many of His parables and teachings, Christ let us know that His Kingdom on earth was always what I am going to call “an unfinished product.”
These rehearsal videos were recorded by one person, and he apologizes for the poor singing quality…
Almighty God has given to us the example of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. Of course, along with those eight martyrs we honor their associates, e.g Father François Bressani. I can’t share with you the torments Father Bressani underwent at the hands of Iroquois: it is too brutal. […]
When the young priest saw the burnt and bleeding body of his superior, aghast and trembling he spoke the words of St. Paul: “We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men.”
For years, I couldn’t understand this business about “the eyes and the ears.” What did Pothier mean? Then it hit me.
The “Pre-NOH” editions have quite an idiosyncratic way of lengthening the neumes.
If only I could do a better job of making people aware of this!
My “pianist pedigree” goes from my teacher through Wiktor Łabuński through Felix Blumenfeld, who studied with Anton Rubinstein. I always considered myself part of the “Bach-Mozart-Chopin school” as opposed to the “Handel-Beethoven-Liszt school.” (Needless to say, there’s great overlap between these schools.) Before giving a concert, Frédéric Chopin would always shut himself up in a […]
Including a written tutorial on how to perform Chabanel Psalms correctly.
Before a Low Mass, the priest ascends the Altar to place the Chalice, check the altar Missal, and do other “preparing” tasks. The organist must be prepared to play here, and—depending upon the priest—this can be of surprising length! For certain priests, I can easily play all six verses of a hymn while he’s doing […]
I think we can learn something from this pagan official.
A picture is worth 1,000 words…
…praying the holy rosary with his office staff.
To give you an idea how this sounds, I recorded the piece on my toy organ.
The word “grace” means a gift given to us by God. Sanctifying grace is first given to us when we are baptized.
