Views from the Choir Loft

Liturgy For Children

Fr. David Friel · April 7, 2024

Summer Ward Method Courses • CUA 2024

Teaching Children the Fundamentals of Music

Fr. David Friel · March 20, 2023

Summer Ward Method Courses • CUA 2023

The Ward Method is a classical pedagogy designed for pre-K through eighth grade music classes in Catholic schools.

Fr. David Friel · May 2, 2021

Summer Course in the Ward Method

CUA is pleased to announce that this week-long intensive course will be offered in person this summer.

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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.

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Richard J. Clark · July 12, 2019

Our children must at the very least be exposed to the great music of the Church.

Traditional hymnody is often easier to sing: simpler melodically and rhythmically, and generally more substantive in theology.

Fr. David Friel · February 23, 2019

New Resource! • Chant Videos for Treble Voices

A new website seeks to record the full Gregorian propers each week using a treble voice.

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 · December 17, 2017

Gray Book for Baptism of Children Approved

How will the “confirmatio” and “regonitio” processes unfold in light of “Magnum principium”?

Guest Author · September 17, 2014

Weak-Kneed Prayers or Religious Patrimony?

“How do we answer a question posed 30 years ago about learning prayers?” — Fr. Alan Guanella

“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

“Music List” • 4th Sunday of Easter (Year C)

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 4th Sunday of Easter (11 May 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. I don’t know a more gorgeous ENTRANCE CHANT than the one given there: Misericórdia Dómini Plena Est Terra.

—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