Views from the Choir Loft

Children at Mass

Fr. David Friel · April 7, 2024

Summer Ward Method Courses • CUA 2024

Teaching Children the Fundamentals of Music

Veronica Brandt · July 4, 2020

EF Gospel Illustrations

An Illustrated Book of Gospel Meditations from 1593! Print one for this Sunday to explore and color.

Follow the Discussion on Facebook

Fr. David Friel · June 16, 2018

Sacred Music Camp in Allentown, NJ

New Opportunity for Children Grades 3–12

Fr. David Friel · June 10, 2018

Sacred Music Camp for Children in Philadelphia

The Inaugural “Cantate Domino” Festival

Fr. David Friel · September 24, 2017

Album: Sacred Treasures of England

Reflections on a recently released album of English choral music

Fr. David Friel · March 15, 2017

Dunwoodie Chant Conference • Review of a Successful Event

I was renewed in spirit for a future filled with hope for liturgical music.

Fr. David Friel · November 23, 2015

An Extraordinary Event: NCYC 2015

Traditional Mass offered at National Catholic Youth Conference

Veronica Brandt · September 12, 2015

Coming to Church on Time

Sunday is not exactly a day of rest—I’m sure many people working in Sacred Music would heartily agree!

Veronica Brandt · July 4, 2015

Don’t compare your kids

It may feel like forever, but children do grow up. The days are long but the years are short. Today’s toddlers are tomorrow’s altar servers and choir members. Then we can look back and whisper a “Thanks be to God.”

Veronica Brandt · May 4, 2013

Does music keep kids quiet at Mass?

Maybe music is not the instant solution, but definitely a help.

“Common” Responsorial Psalm?

I try to avoid arguing about liturgical legislation (even with Catholic priests) because it seems like many folks hold certain views—and nothing will persuade them to believe differently. You can show them 100 church documents, but it matters not. They won’t budge. Sometimes I’m confronted by people who insist that “there’s no such thing” as a COMMON RESPONSORIAL PSALM. When that happens, I show them a copy of the official legislation in Latin. I have occasionally prevailed by means of this method.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • 5th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Easter (18 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The Communion Antiphon was ‘restored’ the 1970 Missale Romanum (a.k.a. MISSALE RECENS) from an obscure martyr’s feast. Our choir is on break this Sunday, so the selections are relatively simple in nature.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Communion Chant (5th Sunday of Easter)

This coming Sunday—18 May 2025—is the 5th Sunday of Easter, Year C (MISSALE RECENS). The COMMUNION ANTIPHON “Ego Sum Vitis Vera” assigned by the Church is rather interesting, because it comes from a rare martyr’s feast: viz. Saint Vitalis of Milan. It was never part of the EDITIO VATICANA, which is the still the Church’s official edition. As a result, the musical notation had to be printed in the Ordo Cantus Missae, which appeared in 1970.

—Jeff Ostrowski

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

“I am now old but I was young when I was received into the Church. I was not at all attracted by the splendour of her great ceremonies—which the Protestants could well counterfeit. Of the extraneous attractions of the Church which most drew me was the spectacle of the priest and his server at Low Mass, stumping up to the altar without a glance to discover how many or how few he had in his congregation; a craftsman and his apprentice; a man with a job which he alone was qualified to do.”

— Evelyn Waugh (7 August 1964)