Composer Andrew Dittman Releases New Collection of Sacred Music

Noble and Accessible, Ever Ancient, Ever New

I am delighted to announce the release of new sacred music by American composer Andrew Dittman called The Kyrial. The settings are generally familiar melodies from Latin chants of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Agnus Dei, Pater noster etc), adapted to the English language, and given an Anglican flavour through four-part harmonies that are evocative of traditional Anglican chant.

Andrew has been choirmaster at The Chapel of the Cross Reformed Episcopal Church since 2013, and composes sacred music for weekly liturgical performance. His work is rooted in traditional forms and sung in English and Latin. He draws on a range of influences, including plainchant, Renaissance and Baroque counterpoint, creating compositions that are both timeless and approachable. Like Paul Jernberg, who composes for the Roman Rite and Roman Hurko, who composes for the Byzantine Rite, Dittman represents a new generation restoring sacred music to its proper place.

Historically, high culture and popular culture were not divided – composers like Mozart and Beethoven drew from a shared cultural font rooted in the sacred, resonating with both aristocracy and ordinary people. To restore this unity, we need fresh creativity in traditional forms of music that is both timeless and speaks to the current age, with sacred music within the liturgy reclaiming its role as the pinnacle of artistic expression. Andrew exemplifies a return to this ideal.

The collection is called The Kyrial and is available on Spotify, Amazon or Pandora. You can also listen to his work on YouTube at youtube.com/@aldittman

A New Resource for Lent from Paraclete Press

Christ in Our Midst: Daily Lenten Reflections Through Scripture and Gregorian Chant

Paraclete Press has recently released a new devotional resource for Lent and Easter called Christ in Our Midst: Daily Lenten Reflections Through Scripture & Gregorian Chant. Each day from Ash Wednesday to Low Saturday, the book provides a reflection based on readings from the Scripture and a piece of Gregorian chant used in the liturgy (following the post-Conciliar Rite; some of the chants are repeated through the whole week, others are specific to the day). The chant is given in Latin with its musical notation, and an English translation; for each piece, a QR code is printed in the book which gives access to a recording of it by the Gloria Dei Cantores Schola. There also space given to write down one’s personal reflections in response to questions that based on the reflection. One can access an excerpt of the book, the pages for Palm Sunday, here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/supadu-imgix/paracletepress-us/pdfs/excerpts/9798893480283.pdf

Quinquagesima Sunday 2026

Truly it is worthy and just, right and profitable to salvation, that we give Thee thanks always and in every place, Lord, Holy Father, almighty and eternal God, and bowing down, beseech Thy majesty with devotion, that looking upon the small measure of our earthly fragility, Thou may not reprove us in Thine anger for our wickedness, but in Thy boundless clemency purify, instruct and console us. For since without Thee we can do nothing that may please Thee, Thy grace alone shall grant to us, that we live in a salutary manner. Through Christ our Lord, through whom the angels praise Thy majesty... (An ancient preface for Quinquagesima Sunday)

The Virgin Mary suckling the Baby Jesus, surrounded by the Cardinal Virtues (to either side) and the Theological Virtues (above.) Fresco made in 1393 by the Florentine painter Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni, in the city hall of the town of San Miniato. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Sailko, CC BY-SA 3.0.)

Vere dignum et justum est, aequum et salutáre, nobis tibi semper et ubíque gratias ágere, Dómine, sancte Pater, omnípotens aeterne Deus, et majestátem tuam cernua devotióne exoráre, ut módulum terrénae fragilitátis aspiciens, non in ira tua pro nostra pravitáte nos arguas, sed immensa clementia purífices, erudias, consoléris. Quia, cum sine te nihil póssumus fácere, quod tibi sit plácitum, tua nobis gratia sola praestábit, ut salúbri conversatióne vivámus. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Per quem majestatem tuam laudant Angeli...

Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 2)

This is the second post in our series of Nicola’s photographs of an exhibition recently held at the Musée de Cluny in Paris, titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. Here we have an interesting mix of vestments, textiles, reliquaries, and vessels, but we begin with two paintings which include medieval liturgical objects in them. 

A still-life by the French painter Blaise Alexandre Desgoffe (1830 – 1901), ca. 1890, titled “Still Life with a Reliquary of St Henry and various medieval artworks.” Desgoffes was a highly regarded specialist in the still-life genre, and very interested in medieval art: the objects represented here are all in the medieval collection of the Louvre.

“Ornaments from the Musée de Cluny”, by Joseph Bail, 1886

A chalice originally made perhaps in Catalonia, sometime from roughly 1325-50, restored in the 19th century in Paris.

A reliquary with part of the arm bone of the Apostle St James the Less, made for the church dedicated to him in Liège, Belgium, in 1889. The firm that produced this, Joseph and Georges Wilmotte, working on a design by the architect Jean-Baptiste Bethune, won a silver medal for it at the Paris Exposition that same year.

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“Those Who Shone Forth in the Ascetic Life”

Rejoice, faithful Egypt; rejoice, holy Libya; rejoice, o chosen Thebaid; rejoice, every place, and city, and land that nourished the citizens of the kingdom of heaven, and raised them in self-discipline and toil, and showed them forth to God as men perfect in their desires. They were revealed as those who give light to our souls; these very same, by the glory of their miracles, and the wonders of their deeds, shone forth to our minds, unto every corner of the world. Let us cry out to them, “All-blessed fathers, pray that we may be saved!”

Scenes from the Lives of the Desert Fathers, or “Thebaid”, by Blessed Fra Angelico, 1420; now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest.

Χαῖρε Αἴγυπτε πιστή, χαῖρε Λιβύη ὁσία, χαῖρε Θηβαῒς ἐκλεκτή, χαῖρε πᾶς τόπος, καὶ πόλις, καὶ χώρα, ἡ τοὺς πολίτας θρέψασα τῆς Βασιλείας τῶν οὐρανῶν, καὶ τούτους ἐν ἐγκρατείᾳ καὶ πόνοις αὐξήσασα, καὶ τῶν ἐπιθυμιῶν τελείους ἄνδρας τῷ Θεῷ ἀναδείξασα. οὗτοι φωστῆρες τῶν ψυχῶν ἡμῶν ἀνεφάνησαν, οἱ αὐτοὶ τῶν θαυμάτων τῇ αἴγλῃ, καὶ τῶν ἔργων τοῖς τέρασιν, ἐξέλαμψαν νοητῶς, εἰς τὰ πέρατα ἅπαντα. Αὐτοῖς βοήσωμεν· Πατέρες παμμακάριστοι, πρεσβεύσατε τοῦ σωθῆναι ἡμᾶς.

On the Saturday before Great Lent begins, the Byzantine Rite commemorates “All of the God-bearing Fathers and Mothers Who Shone Forth in the Ascetic Life.” This text, from Vespers of the preceding day, beautifully recalls the origins of monasticism and the ascetic life in the deserts of Egypt and north Africa. The “Thebaid” to which it refers is one of the provinces into which Egypt was divided by the reforms of the Emperor Diocletian in the later 3rd century; this province had its capital at Thebes, the impressive ruins of which are now within the city of Luxor, including some of the most famous ancient temples. Likewise, the first Ode of Matins for this day begins with the words “Let us all sing together in spiritual songs, of those who shone forth in asceticism, our godly Fathers, whom Egypt, Libya and the Thebaid bore, and every place and city and land.”

One of the most influential writings on Western monasticism is John Cassian’s Institutes, which refer very frequently to the Egyptians as the models of monastic life, as, for example, at the beginning of the third book, in which he speaks of “the perfection and inimitable rigor of the discipline of the Egyptians.” Likewise, when St Benedict’s Rule commands that the entire Psalter should be said in the Office within a week, since “we read that our holy forefathers promptly fulfilled (this recitation) in one day,” he is referring to the common practice of the early ascetics. As the Fra Angelico painting above, and various others like it show, the Western Church never forgot the origin of the ascetic and monastic life; and the motif of the “Thebaid” serves to recall all religious of whatever sort to the ideal expressed by the words of Christ, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect.”

Pope St Leo the Great writes in his fourth sermon on Lent that very few have the strength to remain continually in a spiritual condition such as the feast of Easter ought to find them in, and with the relaxation of the more strict observance of Lent, and the general cares of this life, “even religious hearts must grow dirty with the dust of this world.” Therefore, the forty days exercise of Lent was instituted by Divine Providence, so that the devotions and fasts of Lent might purify us of the sins which we have committed in the rest of the year. The Byzantine Rite therefore concludes its Fore-Lent with a commemoration of those Saints who did have such strength, and by embracing the ascetic life, lived as it were a continual Lent, invoking their intercession on behalf of the whole Church on the eve of the Great Fast.

A New Webpage about Cardinal Dante, with Pictures of Papal Ceremonies

Back in 2014, we shared notice of an e-book about the famous Enrico Cardinal Dante, who served as papal master of ceremonies from 1947 until his death in 1967. The book was originally put together by a Polish scholar, and contained a large number of original documents concerning Dante’s career, and photographs of many of the ceremonies he organized. Today I received notice that the book is no longer available in its original form, but that the material it contained is being made available through the Polish website Caeremoniale Romanum, at the following URL:

https://caeremonialeromanum.com/en/project-information-enrico-dante/

Images reproduced courtesy of Caeremoniale Romanum: two rare color photographs of a papal Mass celebrated by Pope St John XXIII, with Dante as the master of ceremonies.

Mons. Dante (far left) at his episcopal consecration, with Pope John 

The Per ipsum

Lost in Translation #160

After the Per quem haec omnia, the priest concludes the Canon with:

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti, in unitáte Spíritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria… per omnia saecula sæculórum. ℟. Amen.

Which I translate as:

Through His very self and with His very self and in His very self, all honor and glory belongs to You, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, through all ages of ages. ℟. Amen.

The phrasing of the Per ipsum is inspired by Romans 11, 36:

Quis enim cognovit sensum Domini? aut quis consiliarius ejus fuit?

aut quis prior dedit illi, et retribuetur ei?

Quoniam ex ipso, et per ipsum, et in ipso sunt omnia: ipsi gloria in saecula. Amen. (Rom. 11, 34-36)

Which the Douay-Rheims translates as:

For who hath known the mind of the Lord? Or who hath been His counsellor?

Or who hath first given to Him, and recompense shall be made Him?

For of Him, and by Him, and in Him, are all things: to Him be glory for ever. Amen.

In this passage, St. Paul is concluding a theologically dense reflection on salvation history and the cryptic role that Israel plays in it. He ends by stating that since God is the Creator of all (and we cannot say the same about ourselves), we should resign ourselves to the fact that He knows what He is doing even though we cannot fully understand His plan, and that we should glorify him. The triple expression – ;“of Him,” etc. – is primarily in reference to the Father (with a possible Trinitarian echo) and to the beginning, middle, and end of creation. All things have their origin in God; all things continue to exist by virtue of God; and all things have God as their end (the original Greek eis auton or “unto Him” more clearly expresses this idea than the Vulgate’s in ipso).

Although the Per ipsum also has creation in mind (because of the way that it follows the Per quem), it is different in a number of respects, not least of which is that the triple expression is in reference to the Son rather than the Father. We may therefore consider the prayer an example of spiritual eructation; but in this case it is not so much the content that is the object of rumination but a kind of grammar of ascent, a mode of thinking about the transcendent mysteries. [1]

Let us now turn to the different parts of the prayer. (We shall leave the very end and the Minor Elevation for another day.)

Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso

The prayer refers to the Son of God with the demonstrative pronoun ipse rather than is. Whereas the latter simply means “he,” the former is more emphatic and can be translated as “he himself,” “he the very one,” “he in person,” etc. And by making the sign of the cross each time he says ipse with the Host over the Precious Blood (as the rubrics instruct him to do), the priest adds an actual demonstration to a demonstrative word, almost literally pointing to the Person about whom he is speaking.

The prepositions are also telling. For Fr. Pius Parsch, the three expressions are not “mere amplifications but serve to reveal our most intimate relationship with Christ.” “Through” reminds us that He is our Mediator; “with” that He is the Person to whom we must unite as His mystical body; and “in” that we unite with Him “by the living union of grace.” [2] Fr. Jacques Olier has a beautiful reflection on the theme of unity in this prayer. “It is not enough,” he writes,

to pray with Jesus Christ and in His company…. it is necessary actually to be in unity with Jesus Christ, and to act before God in the power and in the grace of His Spirit, which cannot exist in us separately from His love. It is necessary, as Our Lord says, that we should be in Him, as He is in His Father. [3]

While Parsch and Olier think of the prepositions in relation to us, Fr. Nicholas Gihr stays closer to the original meaning of the text and views the prepositions in relation to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The First and Third Divine persons are honored through the Second “inasmuch as the God-man offers Himself on the altar.” The Father and the Holy Spirit also receive all honor and glory along with the Son, and they also receive it in the Son, for “all three Divine Persons by reason of the unity of their essence are eternally in each other, and, consequently, the veneration of one is not to be separated from the veneration of the other two.” [4]

Est tibi Deo Patri…glória

In Latin, there are three ways to indicate possession: a possessive pronoun (“It is His honor”), a genitive of possession (“The honor of God”), and a dative of possession (“To God is the honor”). The first two emphasize the possessor while the third emphasizes the fact of possession. If I say “it is His honor” or if I am speaking about “the honor of God,” I am saying that the honor is God’s and no one else’s. But if I say “To God is the honor,” I am saying that it is His and that He has other things as well.

Another difference between the genitive of possession and the dative of possession is that the former can sometimes indicate mere legal possession while the latter is more robust, implying a more personal relationship with or enjoyment of the thing possessed. Subsequently, it is sometimes called the “sympathetic dative.”

With these considerations in mind, we speculate that the Per ipsum suggests that all honor and glory belong to God the Father in a special way insofar as He has a unique relationship with them, and that He possesses many other things besides.

Pius Parsch views this ending as fraught with eschatology, and given that every Mass is a foretaste of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, it is difficult to disagree:

This doxology is a presage of a scene that may take place at the end of time….Christ our Lord comes into the presence of His heavenly Father to announce that the work of the redemption has been accomplished: “My Father, the redemption of the human race has been consummated. The breach between Thee and mankind has been closed. Through Me, and with Me, and in Me, is unto Thee, Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all honor and glory”…. It will be one of those magnificent liturgical moments, such as St. John pictures in the Apocalypse ; it will be the closing scene in the drama of salvation. [5]

But there is one problem. As we have seen with the Greater Doxology (the Gloria in excelsis), and as one can see with the Minor Doxology (the Gloria Patri), most doxologies are in the subjunctive mood: that is, they proclaim that glory should be given to God, not assert that glory already belongs to God. The Per ipsum, on the other hand, is in the indicative rather than the subjunctive: All honor and glory belongs to God right now and not just at the end of time. In the words of Fr. Josef Jungmann:

It is not by chance that this encomium… has the indicative form (est) instead of the subjunctive or “wishing” form. Here, where the Church is gathered, right in front of the altar on which the Sacrament reposes, gathered indeed to offer the Body and Blood of Christ in reverence – here God does actually receive all honor and glory. [6]

Perhaps the best way to reconcile these differing viewpoints is to recall the New Testament distinction between chronos (regular, sequential time) and Kairos, the time when God acts. Like all liturgy, the Eucharistic action is a moment not within chronos but Kairos, and as such there is no past or future but only present. In Kairos, the end is not nigh; the end is now.

Notes

[1] “Ascent” is not a typo. Although I am alluding to Newman’s grammar of assent, I am referring to a way of thinking by which we more easily ascend from quotidian realities up to the divine mysteries.

[2] Pius Parsch, The Liturgy of the Mass, trans. Frederic C. Eckhoff (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1940), 254.

[3] Jean-Jacques Olier, The Mystical Meaning of the Ceremonies of the Mass, trans. David J. Critchley (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2024), 108.

[4] Nicholas Gihr, The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically and Ascetically Explained, 5th ed., (St. Louis, Missouri: Herder, 1918), 692.

[5] Parsch, 254.

[6] Josef Jungmann, S.J., The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, vol. 2 (New York: Benzinger Brothers, 1951), 266.

Medieval Art and Liturgical Objects at the Musée de Cluny in Paris (Part 1)

Our Ambrosian Rite expert Nicola de’ Grandi recently visited the Musée de Cluny in Paris, so called because it is housed in a building that was once the Parisian residence of the abbot of Cluny. This museum has an extremely important collection of medieval art, and probably is best known as the home of a famous set of six tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn; there are, of course, a huge number of very beautiful liturgical objects in the collection as well. The museum recently hosted an exhibition titled “The Middle Ages of the 19th Century - Creations and Fakes in the Fine Arts”, a display of medieval works next to modern ones inspired by them, and some forgeries as well. I previously posted some pictures of this exhibition taken by another friend, but Nicola managed to photograph pretty much the entire thing, so this will extend over several posts.

We begin with a 19th-century reproduction of the one of the most famous objects in the Louvre’s medieval collection. The nucleus of the original is a vase made in the 2nd century of a kind of stone called porphyry, from the Greek word for “purple.” This material was high prized by the ancient Romans, partly because purple was the color of royalty, partly because it is very rare, found in only one place in Egypt; it is also extremely hard and heavy, making it difficult and expensive to work with and transport. The vessel had been at the abbey of St Denis outside Paris for many years, lying disused in a chest, when it was discovered by the abbot Suger (1080 ca. - 1151), better known to the world as the inventor of Gothic architecture. The abbot had the vessel mounted with metal pieces, made partly of silver and gold, in the form of an eagle, so it could be used as a vessel for the washing of hands during solemn Mass.

A clock made in 1835, modelled on the façade of Notre-Dame de Paris as it was before the restorations of Eugène Viollet le Duc began in 1844.

A pyx for the Blessed Sacrament made in 1887...

modelled on this original made in Limoges ca. 1200.

A jeweled chalice and paten set made between 1868 and 1890...

copied from this set made before the year 962 at the abbey of St Maximin in Trier, commissioned by a bishop of Toul named Gauzelin, for the abbey of Bouxières-aux-Dames.
  

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The Hours of Charles of Angoulême (Part 2): The Passion Cycle and Calendar

This is the second set of images from a particularly high quality book of Hours made for Charles, count of the French city of Angoulême (1459-96), and father of King Francis I (r. 1515-47). (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Lat. 1173); the first part was published on Monday. Just under half of the volume, folios 59-115, is taken up with a very long series of prayers and meditations on the Passion, in both Latin and French, interspersed with twelve images that show episodes from the washing of the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper to the supper at Emmaus. These were originally created as engravings by a German printmaker named Israhel van Meckenem, which were then colored in by the main artist, Robinet Testard (fl. 1470 - 1519). Below them I include the twelve pages of the calendar.

As is typical of the late Gothic period, Meckenem’s images are quite complicated, with a lot of figures in a fairly limited amount of space, and very often more than one episode squeezed into the background. Here we see Christ washing St Peter’s feet in the foreground, with the Last Supper inside the building on the right, and in the upper left, the agony in the garden, with the crowd of soldiers entering the garden through the gate. (If you click the image to enlarge it, you can see that the figure of St John in front of the Lord at the table is very imperfectly drawn as the result of trying to compress too many figures into too small a space.)

The kiss of Judas and the arrest of Christ, with St Peter attacking the high priest’s servant at the lower left.

Christ appears before Pilate, who is dressed more or less as a typical urban magistrate of the period; at the lower left, a soldier is seen grabbing St Peter’s collar, as the serving girl looks on, and at the upper left, we see the soldiers mocking the Lord.

The flagellation, and at the upper left, Christ before Herod.

The crowning with thorns, and at the upper left, the soldiers hitting the Lord.

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A Visit to the Rectory of Vancouver Cathedral

On a trip last fall to give lectures in Vancouver, I was kindly hosted by the staff of the rectory of the cathedral. During my stay, I took a few photos of some items that will be of interest to many readers of NLM. First, the rectory from the street:

In the hallway at the top of the stairs on the way to the small private chapel is found a rather beautiful alcove with a statue of the Sacred Heart (click to enlarge any image):

The small chapel itself is well appointed for the offering of the traditional Mass, a regular occurrence there:

A parlor nearby features one of the finest statues I’ve ever seen of St. Peter Julian Eymard:

Hanging on the wall, a portrait of Christ, with the inscription “I desire mercy.”

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