Views from the Choir Loft

Novus Ordo Lectionary

Fr. David Friel · March 11, 2018

A Literal Translation of the New Testament

David Bentley Hart’s experiment in recovering the conceptual vocabulary of a distant

Fr. David Friel · July 17, 2016

Are the Readings at Mass Meant to Be Didactic or Doxological?

Reflections from the Fota IX International Liturgy Conference

Fr. David Friel · April 5, 2015

All Nine Readings

Celebrating the Easter Vigil in Its Fullness

Jeff Ostrowski · March 17, 2015

Improve Your Parish Liturgy … Instantly!

Have you noticed the change in atmosphere when people dress fancy, as opposed to tank tops with jeans?

Fr. David Friel · January 4, 2015

Preparing Funeral Liturgies

Who Should Pick the Readings?

Jeff Ostrowski · July 14, 2014

The Real Trouble With Missalettes

Did you catch that last quotation? “Unless proper readings are given.” What does that passage mean?

Fr. David Friel · July 13, 2014

The “Children’s Liturgy of the Word”

Are We Past This Yet?

Jeff Ostrowski · June 2, 2014

Problematic Sequence Translations In Our Current Lectionary

Are you bothered by the VANDALISM done to Lectionary Sequence translations?

Jeff Ostrowski · May 5, 2014

PDF Download: Ordo Lectionum Missae & Ordo Cantus Missae

“…otherwise the entire Mass might be placed into the vernacular; whereupon the Council fathers burst into uproarious laughter.” — Cardinal Stickler speaking of Vatican II

Fr. David Friel · April 13, 2014

Who Should Proclaim the Passion?

The “Circular Letter Concerning the Preparation and Celebration of the Easter Feasts”

Fr. David Friel · November 28, 2013

Deo Gratias

The Liturgical Model of Gratitude

Corpus Christi Watershed · November 24, 2013

Official Lenten Acclamations In Latin & English

“Acclamationes pro tempore Quadragesimae”

PDF Download • Vespers for the Dead

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.

—Jeff Ostrowski

20 October 2020 • “What we can’t share”

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. It would tear your heart out. But I will share what Bressani’s Superior said, after receiving a letter from him: “The letter is soiled and ill-written; because the writer has only one finger left on his right hand, and cannot prevent the blood from his wounds—which are still open—from staining the paper. His ink is gunpowder mixed with water, and his table is the earth.” If you have the stomach for it, read what Father Bressani (d. 1672) underwent for Jesus Christ. Let his example help us never fall into sins of impurity, avarice, ingratitude, or envy.

—Jeff Ostrowski

13 October 2020 • Chopin talks Bach

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 room and play through Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The year Chopin died, he spent considerable time with the painter, Eugène Delacroix (d. 1863), who recounts hearing Chopin launch into a monologue on the transcendence of J.S. Bach, insisting that “the fugue is like pure logic in music,” and that “to know fugue deeply is to be acquainted with the element of all reason and all consistency in music.”

—Jeff Ostrowski