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Views from the Choir Loft

The Domestic Church and the domestic schola

Christopher Mueller · February 29, 2016

MFS-kids the domestic church REMEMBER well the preparations for the baptism of my first child. My wife and I met with the pastor of our parish (and my boss at the time), a mild-mannered fellow who was quick to smile. We went through the questions on the form fairly quickly and arrived at the ones where we name the Godparents. At that moment, the good Father became unexpectedly stern, and said to us, “You must remember that the first role of parents is to teach their own children the faith. This is not something that can be outsourced to the Godparents. It is not their job to ‘pick up the slack’ if you fail in this area. This is your job, and their role is to assist and support you, but not to do it for you.”

We were not planning on having our Godparents teach our children the faith, of course, but Fr. Andrew’s gravity suggested that perhaps some parents have thought this way over the years.

We know that our role as parents is to build the domestic church, by praying together, teaching our kids in the faith, and taking them to regular Mass and confession.

We thought that one way to strengthen our domestic church would be to start up a family schola, so that we could pray together through singing. After all, St. Augustine tells us that “singing is a lover’s thing,” or “singing is for one who loves” (depending on your preferred translation), and what is the domestic church if not a school of love?

The other thing we hope to do with our family schola is to encourage other families to sing together. In my present work as both a “regular sub” with a children’s choir and a schola teacher at a Catholic school, I’m constantly surprised at how unwilling children are to sing, or how uncomfortable they seem using their voices in song. My own children love to sing—they sing around the house all the time, and make up songs together—and my feeling is that musical expression is a birthright. Children who don’t sing—who lack either the encouragement or the environment to do so—are missing something essential to the very joy of living.

And so I’d like to offer below videos of the Mueller Family Schola, singing polyphony and chant. My wife and I are both trained musicians, so the children have the advantage of musical parents, but contra some of the positive comments we’ve received, our musical success is not a product of talent. It’s a product of working together, of patience, of daily labor, and most of all, of love. Each of our children has different strengths when it comes to learning music, and different challenges. We try our best to nurture each soul during the rehearsal process, so that the result is not just growth in musical skill, but also growth in faith.

We’re singing for a Lenten Mass in a few days, and I was passing out some new music. My seven-year-old son picked up one of the sheets, which said “Gospel Acclamation” at the top, featuring an antiphon with the text, “Glory and praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.” He gave me a big smile and said, “Normally the Gospel Acclamation should have an ‘alleluia,’ but we can’t sing ‘alleluia’ here because it’s in Lent!”

Ah, the perfect reflection of the domestic church in the domestic schola.

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller is a conductor and composer who aims to write beautiful music out of gratitude to God, Author of all beauty.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “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

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

“By no means would I offer the counsel that Mass be celebrated in languages other than Latin.”

— Archbishop Dwyer (one of the Vatican II fathers)

Recent Posts

  • “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
  • 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

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