FSSP Sacred Music Symposium in Los Angeles, June 20-24

The Fraternity of St Peter in Los Angeles is pleased to announce that its Sacred Music Symposium is taking place this summer from June 20-24th. A refreshing retreat for choral directors and dedicated parish singers, this event is organized with the aim of promoting the use of authentic sacred music in parishes. The Symposium draws upon the expertise of leading conductors and composers in the field of sacred music to inspire, challenge and encourage those who provide music for Holy Mass. Everything taught at it can be applied to both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary Forms and put into immediate practical use.

This year the focus is on directing and developing excellent volunteer choirs. The week’s events will culminate in a glorious special Mass for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, at which the music learned during the week will be sung.

To learn more about it or to register for this conference please visit https://www.ccwatershed.org/symposium/ or email sacredmusicsymposiumla@gmail.com.

A Sequence for St Francis of Assisi

Tomorrow is the feast of St Francis of Assisi, and the YouTube channel of Corpus Christi Watershed has just recently posted a nice recording of the Sequence used by the Franciscans at his Mass, here sung by Andrea Leal. It is attributed to Thomas of Celano, who is also believed to be the author of the Dies Irae. The text is too long to conveniently include in this post, but is available here in both Latin and English: http://www.liturgialatina.org/dominican/sequence_francis.htm. The chant notation can be seen here: http://archive.ccwatershed.org/media/pdfs/20/09/23/02-02-37_0.pdf.

Corpus Christi Watershed’s Fifth Sacred Music Symposium, June 15-19

Corpus Christi Watershed is pleased to announce that the FSSP’s Fifth Sacred Music Symposium will take place in Los Angeles from June 15-19. This year’s theme is “Rehearsal Techniques for Volunteer Choirs: How to stand in front of a choir and live to tell about it!” The professors will reveal their “secret” techniques and lead enjoyable conversations with the participants.

The entire cost of attending the Symposium—including deposit, conference fee, and meal plan—is just $275. We call it the “everything fee.” To request an application, send an email to dom.mocquereau@gmail.com with some information about yourself, and please don’t forget to include your phone number. This year, the Symposium will be held at St Teresa of Avila Catholic Church and School, located at 2216 Fargo Street in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.

Here is some more information about the Symposium:

A New Chant Resource from CCW: the 1908 Solesmes Graduale Romanum

Corpus Christi Watershed has just made available an important resource for Gregorian chant, a pdf of the rare 1908 Solesmes edition of the Roman Gradual, which you can download for free from their website at the following link: https://www.ccwatershed.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/80291-Graduale-Romanum-Solesmes-1908-Reduc.pdf.

The first two pages of the Graduale, with the Introit, Gradual and most of the Alleluja for the First Sunday of Advent.

The accompanying article by Jeff Ostrowski, whom we think for bringing this to our attention, gives a detailed explanation of the place of this edition in the revival of Gregorian chant that took place at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. This was the period when the simplified versions of Gregorian chant in use since the 17th century were replaced by new editions based on more ancient manuscripts, thanks to the work of the monks of Solesmes.

The same chants in the simplified version from an 1871 Pustet edition; the simplified version of the Introit antiphon is shorter than the restored version by 28 notes, the Gradual by 83!

What a Catholic Hymn Should Be

Over a decade ago, I read an article by Joseph Swain, “St. Mark’s—A Liturgy Without Hymns,” that profoundly shook up my way of thinking about music in divine worship. (Swain, by the way, is the author of one of the best books I’ve ever read: Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music. The price of this book has steadily gone down over the years, so it’s almost affordable now.) Swain basically says: Why do we think congregational hymns are so important, as if a liturgy could not be well conducted without them? Why do we have a narrow, univocal, and horizontalist conception of active participation? Our forefathers knew better: they thought of participation in a multi-sensory or synesthetic manner, as an entering into liturgical actions, movements, and symbols that unfold over the course of the rite and impress themselves upon us. Sometimes, as John Paul II once said, the best and most active thing we can do at a certain moment is look and listen well. Swain’s article gives a detailed description of how he saw a solemn (Novus Ordo) Mass conducted at San Marco in Venice. It was thrilling, it involved the faithful in all kinds of ways, but there wasn’t a single congregational hymn.

I suppose that not too many readers of NLM would disagree with this perspective. Most would probably also agree that vernacular hymns can and do have a place; however much we might debate what exactly that place is. The Anglican Ordinariate liturgies may freely help themselves to an immense patrimony of English hymnody. TLM parishes often sing vernacular hymns at the start and the conclusion of High Mass; between these pre- and post-liturgical hymns, only Latin chants, polyphony, and congregational responses are to be heard. The solutions that have been attempted in the Wild West of the Novus Ordo vary from alternating hymns and propers, to always pairing them (either the antiphon first and then a hymn, or vice versa), to finding hymns whose texts match the propers as closely as possible, and so forth. In any case, it seems that, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, hymns are here to stay.

Now, if we want the balance to tilt towards “for better” and “for richer,” we have to look at two things above all: the quality of the music, and the quality of the text. The music should be stately, well-crafted, soaring in melody but reasonable in range, rarely syncopated, and altogether lacking in sentimentality or schmalziness. The text, for its part, should be excellent poetry that actually rhymes, using proper English grammar and rhetorical tropes; it should be not only doctrinally orthodox (which rules out a great deal of the tripe sold by GIA and OCP), but vivid, robust, and insightful.

Two recent books analyze classic hymns that exemplify all these principles: Fr. George William Rutler’s The Stories of Hymns and Anthony Esolen’s Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church. For its part, the long-awaited Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal from the folks who run Corpus Christi Watershed is, hands down, the best Catholic hymnal ever to be published, in spite of the unfortunate choice of wording for the cover. [1] Its copious selection of hundreds of tunes and texts, including favorites, forgotten gems, and new commissions, all beautifully formatted and presented in a surprisingly compact hardcover volume, is not only unparalleled by any other current hymnal, but well exceeds that of any hymnal I have seen from any period.

In honor of the upcoming feast of the Most Blessed Trinity, I would like to share here a French hymn that I encountered in my visit to St. Clement’s parish in Ottawa. This is what a church hymn should be, if it is to be at all: noble poetry, dogmatic content, and sturdy, artful music that has a certain formality and dignity to it, rather than a meandering melody and emotionally manipulative clichés. Naturally, the translation does not have the poetic qualities of the original, but it does show the strength of the text (with the possible exception of the first line of the second verse, which still has me scratching my head).

1. O Trinity, who will be able to fathom
The sublime heights of Thine immense being?
May our faith, in its humble silence,
At least know how to adore Thy greatness.

2. Thou unitest three august Persons
In the unity of one single and same God;
Saints, at His feet lay your crowns—
Glory to Him alone, in every time, in every place!

3. Divine Spirit! O Son! and Thou, O Father!
You possess the same divinity,
The same riches, the same brightness of light,
The same power and the same eternity.

4. O Seraphim! You cover with your wings
The radiant throne of the living God,
And your songs of His holy Name,
Spirits ever faithful, make the skies resound.

5. Holy Trinity, attend to our prayer,
And be propitious to the wishes of Thy children.
Grant that here below, walking in Thy light,
they may one day ascend triumphant to heaven.

NOTE

[1] The hymnal says on the cover: “Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal for Both Forms of the Roman Rite.” I know from experience that this language of “two forms,” a clever canonical fiction of Benedict XVI deemed necessary to deal with an unprecedented rupture in tradition, has begun to wear thin on both sides of the liturgical divide; those who are still principled proponents of the NO resent the idea that their liturgical books are not the definitive Roman Rite as apparently willed by the Council and Paul VI, while traditionalists, including most FSSP and ICKSP clergy and laity known to me, do not believe for a second that there are two equal forms of the Roman Rite. Their position is that of Msgr. Klaus Gamber: there is one authentic Roman rite, and there is a modern deviation from it which does not deserve the same name. It would have sufficed if the hymnal cover had said “for the Roman Rite” (leaving it ambiguous, and therefore acceptable to anyone in the debate), or even “for the Catholic liturgy,” which is broad enough to include not only the TLM and the NO, but the Anglican Ordinariate as well. Perhaps a future edition will modify the cover accordingly. I have spoken with priests and music directors who have said that the cover, by itself, is the reason they could not adopt the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal, though I would think that a color image printed on card stock and carefully glued to the cover might do the trick. It is such a fantastic hymnal that it deserves to be in the pews of every Catholic church.

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for events, articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).

Corpus Christi Watershed’s Fourth Sacred Music Symposium, June 24-28

Corpus Christi Watershed is pleased to announce that its Fourth Sacred Music Symposium will take place in Los Angeles from June 24-28; this year’s event is designed especially for (but certainly not limited to) choir directors and dedicated parish singers, those who sing at either form of the Roman Rite, Ordinary or Extraordinary.

The theme is “Hymnody and your volunteer choir”; participants will learn clever ways Catholic hymns can be sung during the sacred liturgy, as well as different compositional techniques for hymns. They will also sing for the first Mass of a newly-ordained FSSP priest, which will take place on the evening of Thursday, June 27; the setting will be Palestrina’s Missa Jam Christus, which is based on a famous hymn tune, and the Agnus Dei will be the exquisite Mille Regretz (6-voice) by Fr Cristóbal de Morales. Participants will also sing at Solemn Vespers with His Excellency, Bishop Joseph V. Brennan, including a polyphonic setting of the Magnificat by Francisco Guerrero.

(From last year’s symposium: Dr. Horst Buchholz conducts Kevin Allen’s Agnus Dei)

The Symposium offers

• Opportunity to sing under the baton of leading conductors
• Opportunity for private study (composition) with world-renowned composer Kevin Allen
• Opportunity for private study (conducting) with Dr. Calabrese, protégé of Robert Shaw
• Hands-on Training for multi-track rehearsal videos, such as those on CCWatershed
• Fascinating seminar on counterpoint and hymn voice-leading
• Gregorian Chant “Crash Course”—how to implement it without getting fired!
• Magnificent choral piece with a text by Cardinal Newman (soon-to-be canonized)
• Sung Vespers every night
• Survival tips, repertoire ideas, and encouragement for succeeding in what is without question a very challenging vocation.

The Symposium draws upon the expertise of leading conductors and composers in the field of sacred music to inspire, challenge, and encourage those who provide music for Holy Mass, and not just as a theoretical exercise—participants will also learn practical tips for running volunteer choirs and introducing sacred music at their parishes. Advanced musicians and choral directors will have the opportunity to study conducting with Dr Alfred Calabrese and composition under Mr Kevin Allen.

Registration is now open; to obtain an application, send an email to dom.mocquereau@gmail.com. The entire cost of the Symposium—which includes deposit, conference fee, and meal plan—is just $275. We call it the “everything fee.” Please submit your application no later than 31 March 2019. Participants should plan on arriving in Los Angeles on Sunday night or Monday morning; the Symposium begins Monday evening, June 24. See the tentative schedule here: http://www.ccwatershed.org/schedule-2019/ 

A First Look at the New Brébeuf Hymnal

The Brébeuf Hymnal, officially released at the end of 2018, has started to appear in mailboxes! This elegant hardcover pew edition is 932 pages, and contains more Catholic metrical hymns than any other collection. (The focus was not plainsong settings, since these are to be had in abundance in the Liber Usualis, Cantus Selecti, Liber Hymnarius, etc.) The hymns are primarily in English, but Latin versions are also provided, accompanied by literal translations. Drawing from the authentic Catholic treasury, it neither mimics nor builds upon Protestant hymnals. The Brébeuf Hymnal was created by and for choirmasters and priests working in real parishes across the globe; its melodies are beautiful and dignified, but usually very simple. Modern settings are also included, by such composers as Flor Peeters, Alfred Calabrese, Peter LeJeune, Richard Clark, and Kevin Allen. For more information, see http://www.ccwatershed.org/hymn/

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Catholic Hymnal from Corpus Christ Watershed - Review by Fr Christopher Smith

Our thanks to Fr Christopher Smith, one of our colleagues at Chant Café, for sharing with us his review of this exciting new project from Corpus Christi Watershed, the St John de Brébeuf Hymnal, a truly Catholic collection of hymns which can be used with both Forms of the Roman Rite.

The celebration of the Mass that best corresponds to its true nature, and to the Church’s magisterial teaching, is a fully sung liturgy, with pride of place given to Gregorian chant, and the Ordinary and Propers sung according to their proper texts. The all-too-common “Four Hymn Sandwich” is a curious holdover from a Low Mass culture in which people sang pieces unrelated to the liturgical texts, often in the vernacular, while the Mass was in Latin. It is a curious blindspot of the liturgical influence-makers of a certain age that they would keep this disconnect only to advance another part of their agenda, but this is the world we inhabit.

There are voices crying in the wilderness that the propers must be restored to their pride of place, and they are being heard. The melodies of the Graduale Romanum with their Latin texts are being heard in more and more places; vernacular adaptations of them, and new compositions, metrical and more chant-like, are coming forth and being used. This is creating a desire for better liturgy and better music, but we all know that sometimes we have to make baby steps towards our ideals.

Hymns have become such a part of Catholics’ expectation of their Mass experience that calls for their removal and replacement with antiphons alone are often met with suspicion or anger. And so they remain. But the question about the hymns is then reduced to, “What texts, what melodies, what styles are appropriate?” The unseemly battles in liturgy committee meetings over whether young people want Isaac Watts, Marty Haugen or Matt Maher at Mass all miss the point: the relative merits of those varied styles are all paltry in comparison with the treasury of hymnody which the Church already has, still, unfortunately, largely untapped.

How then do the discerning musician and pastor mine the tradition for hymns to introduce to Catholics? How can we unlock the treasury and unleash the riches?

Enter the Saint John de Brébeuf Hymnal for Both Forms of the Roman Rite, published by the John Paul II Institute for Liturgical Renewal in 2018. Those familiar with the other projects which Corpus Christi Watershed has assisted with, will note a familiar design. But this is not the ordinary run of the mill “collection of hymns that people know with a few they don’t know.” This hymnal is a work of incredible scholarship, and one which puts the fruit of that scholarship to work in a practical vehicle for opening the treasures of Catholic hymnody to the people.

The first part of the book, entitled, “Ancient Hymns of the Catholic Church,” contains many of the hymns of the breviary. But these are presented in such a way as to provide several tunes and several texts in English, often taken or adapted from a wealth of English translations from centuries past, some of them even taken from English Catholic primers of the Renaissance and Baroque era. But they are not just borrowed from these sources wholesale. Discerning editors have given great thought to how a large swath of people in our pews would take to singing certain words or turns of phrase, and carefully adapting to what people might actually get their mouths around in singing!

(A version of the communion hymn Sancti, venite, from the 7th century Bangor antiphonary, in a translation by Adrian Fortescue.)

The second part of the book, entitled “Additional Hymns”, will be attractive to those who are open to introducing these “old but new for most” hymns, but want a resource that also contains appropriate hymns for the liturgical year, as well as general use hymns more familiar to English-speaking congregations.

An interesting feature of the book is that the index is placed not at the back, but in the middle of the book, after an attractive set of color plates exploring hymnals. The indices are quite well thought out. They provide the ability to search for name, hymn tune, and occasion in an admirable way, and their placement in the middle makes looking for them easier than wrangling the book at the end. There is also a section at the end with several versions of the Stations of the Cross, which is useful to have, in the same volumes as the hymns for many parishes, text and hymns without the multiplication of more little booklets.

A good choir program will of course contain many pieces of complexity, whether by Palestrina, Bach, or Duruflé. But the mature choirmaster knows well that simple pieces—such as the magnificent hymn tunes in the Brébeuf Hymnal—can be utterly sublime. Moreover, these simple melodies can always be enhanced by new harmonizations, descants, counter-melodies, and SATB arrangements.

This volume is useful to have in any music library or pastor’s office for reference, but is also the kind of volume which can be profitably sought out for choirs and for congregations. As a hymnal without the readings in it, which provides ample resources both old and new, it can truly be said to mark a new and exciting phase in the recovery of ancient liturgical texts for the use of the faithful in a practical way for all involved!

Corpus Christi Watershed Second Symposium on Sacred Music, Los Angeles, June 26-30

Thanks to Dr Alfred Calabrese for bringing this to my attention. The symposium, which is jointly sponsored by Priestly Fraternity of St Peter, is at the church of St Therese in Alhambra, California. For more information, go to the page on the Corpus Christi Watershed website, here.

An Interview with Peter Kwasniewski, On His New Book of Sacred Music

Among his many other talents, Dr Peter Kwasniewski, who has made so many valuable contributions to this site over the last year and half, also composes sacred music of many different kinds. Complete information on the book itself, a number of audio samples of the compositions being performed, and ordering information are available at the website of Corpus Christi Watershed; the publication is also complemented by three full-length CDs containing recordings of nearly every piece, performed by Matthew Curtis of ChoralTracks. These recordings are intended primarily as aids in repertoire selection, and to assist in the learning of the pieces; links to purchase are given on the CCW page linked above.

Peter recently gave an interview to the Cardinal Newman Society about the book, which you can read in the entirety by clicking here. Here are some excerpts.

Could you tell us about your book Sacred Choral Works? What was the primary motivation behind it?

This new book, Sacred Choral Works, brings together my choral compositions from a 23-year period, that is, from 1990 to 2013. There are a total of 91 pieces—some are short psalm responses or Gospel acclamations for Mass, others are more extensive and demanding motets suitable for Offertory or Communion. To give a sense of the variety, the book includes several settings of the Mass Ordinary, doxologies, psalms, Marian pieces, six versions of the Tantum Ergo, an O Salutaris in English and in Latin, a number of English strophic hymns, Christmas, Lenten, and Easter music, a set of Holy Thursday antiphons for the washing of the feet, and three settings of the Reproaches for Good Friday. ...

Having sung many of these pieces with my own choirs over the years, I decided to publish Sacred Choral Works for choirs around the country that might be looking for beautiful and liturgically useful new music to add to their repertoires.There’s a vast amount of great choral literature—one could never exhaust it in many lifetimes—but, for one thing, much of it is extremely challenging, and, for another, I believe there’s an important place for fresh compositions that are nevertheless in profound continuity with the Catholic tradition.

How did your experiences as a student at Thomas Aquinas College (TAC) and The Catholic University of America (CUA), as well as teaching at several Catholic colleges, form you and impact your work?

From my high school years on, music has been a tremendous passion for me, and as I delve ever more deeply into the sphere of sacred music, my wonder and delight continue to grow. Thanks to a wonderful composition and conducting teacher I was blessed to study with in high school (it was an all-boys Benedictine school in New Jersey), I began to compose in a serious way around the age of 18, and by the time I was helping [to] direct the choir at Thomas Aquinas College, I’d written a number of Mass settings and motets, which had their first performances there.

It would be impossible for me to exaggerate the value for my musical life of all that I learned and experienced at TAC and later CUA. Although the primary goods I gained from both schools were academic or intellectual (and, of course, lifelong friendships), their environments were so full of vibrant cultural activity, particularly in service of the worthy celebration of the liturgy, that I simply couldn’t have grown the way I did without those special places. ...

What is the importance of sacred liturgy and its music?

... To me, it is quite simple: Our Lord Jesus Christ chose to give Himself and His divine life to us through the perpetual hymn of praise offered up by His Church and through the seven sacraments —above all, the Most Holy Eucharist, in which the Lord renews His perfect sacrifice to the Father and gives us Himself as our nourishment. We cannot have the Body and Blood of Jesus unless we have the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And if we are aware of the stupendous magnitude, the awesome, holy, divine, immortal, life-creating mysteries we are adoring and receiving in this Sacrifice, how could we not yearn to give to the Lord all that we can and the very best that we can—all that is within our hearts, of course, but also the “externals”: the most beautiful works of art, be it the church itself and its furnishings, the vestments and vessels, the ceremonies, the music? All should be noble, uplifting, harmonious, in a sacred style, in continuity with the Church’s tradition, pointing unambiguously to the transcendent, the heavenly, the eternal. This is what Catholics have always done (or at least aspired to do) until recent decades of amnesia, and we must hope, pray, and work to recover this supernatural common sense, if I may so call it. ...

What do you hope people will gain from Sacred Choral Works?

Naturally, I hope people will find in its pages well-crafted music that will enhance their choral repertoire for Mass and other devotions. The publisher and I took great pains with the beauty and clarity of the layout, providing translations of all Latin texts and organizing the pieces in a useful way—in the Table of Contents, by liturgical season or genre, and on the back cover, in alphabetical order for quick reference. ...

Do you have any other comments you would like to add?

The Catholic world has been much agitated by the scandalous nature of what occurred recently at the Extraordinary Synod. Believe it or not, there is a real connection between this scandal and the devastation that was visited upon the liturgy and its music after the Second Vatican Council. The common denominator is accommodationism—the belief that it is the Church’s responsibility to adapt herself to modern man, to adopt his ways of speaking, thinking, acting. This is a colossal dead end, whether in liturgy or in morality. The Church’s role is to preach the truth of the Gospel to sinners (i.e. all of us), and convert us to the Gospel, so that we are the ones who must change, who must be conformed to Christ. ...

Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, and Gradual [UPDATED]

Those who have visited the Jogues website will have read about the companion volumes, namely, the hymnal and the weekday book.

Today, I received the introductory pages for the forthcoming Saint Isaac Jogues Daily Mass Companion, with permission to post here at NLM.

THIS DAILY MASS COMPANION provides every possible Entrance, Responsorial, and Communion antiphon that could occur during any liturgical year—more than 2,400 possibilities in all—printed in a large typeface with a clear numbering system. Parishes can now stop spending money on disposable Missalettes. We recommend purchasing the Jogues Illuminated Missal for Sundays (as it contains the Vatican II “Sung” Propers and Lectionary readings) and this Daily Companion for weekdays. Because daily Mass crowds are usually much smaller than Sundays, an excessive amount need not be purchased. Indeed, 30-40 copies may suffice.

Below is the review of the Jogues Missal itself, which is already in print and available for purchase.

*          *          *

Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, and Gradual. 818 pages, hardcover, with full color section. Owasso, OK: Pope John Paul II Institute for Liturgical Renewal, 2014. $22.99 (single copy); bulk discounts from $21.99 to $13.99.

We are living in the midst of a veritable renaissance of beautiful new resources for celebrating the liturgy of the Roman Rite in both forms. It is as if, at last, the best of our tradition and the best prescriptions of Sacrosanctum Concilium are coming together for the benefit of the faithful. There is a kind of momentum building for the hermeneutic of continuity. Where just a few years ago it was hard to find the Propers of the Mass in vernacular plainchant, today there is a plethora of options, along with many fine articles explaining the whys and wherefores; where publications for the old rite were out of print and/or outrageously expensive, today there are reprints and new editions pouring forth from the presses.

The new liturgical movement is finding its singing voice and its material means for long-term growth and expansion. In this sense, although the Reform of the Reform faces enormous difficulties and the resurgence of the traditional Latin Mass has an uphill climb, there is also the hope of real progress after 40 years of the People of God wandering in the desert. Pastors and chaplains, musicians and music directors, DREs, everyone involved with the liturgical life of the Church, finally have fantastic products to choose from that can guide and sustain their pastoral programs for years to come. An example for the Ordinary Form would be the Lumen Christi Simple Gradual, reviewed here by NLM's David Clayton; an example for the Extraordinary Form would be the Saint Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal, which I reviewed here.

It is to another project associated with Corpus Christi Watershed that I now turn my attention: the recently released Saint Isaac Jogues Illuminated Missal, Lectionary, and Gradual. (I should note that while Jeffrey Ostrowski was chief editor of this book and promotes it via the CCW website, it is the fruit of a group called the Pope John Paul II Institute for Liturgical Renewal.) There is a lot to say about this multi-layered book, a true labor of love and a work of beauty from start to finish. I could sum up my reaction by saying that the Jogues Missal does for the Ordinary Form what the Campion Missal does for the Extraordinary Form.

As its full title indicates, the Jogues Missal brings together the rich texts of the Roman Gradual (i.e., the Introit, Gradual, Alleluia or Tract, Offertory, and Communion antiphons) and the readings of the Lectionary (including responsorial psalms and Gospel acclamations) and places in their midst a magnificent full-color Order of Mass (pp. 251-314). Like the Campion Missal, the Jogues Missal is for Sundays and Solemnities of the Church year. Unlike the Campion, which includes a substantial hymn section, the Jogues is simply for following along with the texts and ceremonies of the liturgy; a planned companion volume, the Saint Isaac Jogues Hymnal, will be a dedicated music resource with hundreds of hymns, but there is no particular reason that the Jogues Missal could not be paired with other musical resources such as the Lumen Christi Simple Gradual. (The Jogues Missal does include a modest amount of music: the Chabanel Psalm setting for each Mass; Sequences in metrical English versions with simple tunes, with the original Latin texts and literal translations in an appendix; a couple of hymns for Benediction; and the Mass in Honor of St. Isaac Jogues, a plainchant setting that includes the Creed.)

When I first opened the package, I was blown away by the aesthetic qualities of the Jogues Missal. The elegance of the page layout is what first strikes the eye: graceful drop caps of hierarchically gradated size and design are used for various propers and readings, drawing the eye gently to their place in the liturgy; decorative borders set apart the different days; exquisite full-page black and white etchings for major feastdays, surrounded by Scripture verses, plunge us into the mysteries of God and the saints. These qualities render the book a truly worthy instrument for deeper interior participation in the sacred liturgy.

The Order of Mass section is the most striking feature of the Jogues Missal. I have access to a very large collection of liturgical books, and I regret to say that practically none of them manages to convey any conscious or subconscious impression that the Ordinary Form can be a beautiful thing. We have been plagued by utilitarianism and pragmatism for decades, and it often seems as if the traditional Latin Mass is the only surviving refuge for a heightened sensitivity to beauty in every last detail. What the Jogues Missal accomplishes in this regard is nothing short of astonishing. The photos call to mind the historic heritage of the Roman Rite: the glory of its musical heritage; the pregnant symbolism of the different parts and actions of the Mass, with a loving attention to details of ritual; the fittingness of suitable architecture and vesture; even the sacredness of particular words. There is a kind of programmatic “re-enchantment” of the missal that takes place in these pages, simply by the force of loving what the Church herself offers and not filtering it through a reductionistic Bauhaus lens.

This brings me to an interesting angle: the Jogues Missal as an instrument of liturgical renewal and reform. It is no secret that the way the OF Mass is celebrated in most communities bears little likeness to the images provided in this missal's pages. The celebrating priest is wearing a maniple (e.g., p. 263 and p. 277) which matches his ornate red and white chasuble; the altar server is in cassock and surplice, and even the men’s schola is similarly attired (p. 273). One lady is wearing a mantilla (p. 265). Mass is being celebrating ad orientem towards a Gothic high altar with six lit candles and a statue of Our Lady (e.g., p. 266, p. 300); naturally, incense is featured (p. 276). The chalice is gloriously ornate gold and silver (e.g., p. 292). The priest holds his thumb and forefinger together after consecration (p. 300). Holy communion is distributed on the tongue to those who are kneeling (p. 310). And throughout, the assumption is that the Propers are being chanted, whether in the vernacular or in Latin (the second color image, on p. 252, is of a Gregorian chant manuscript with an Introit). Indeed, the very first color image (p. 251; see below) is a Crucifixion-Trinity scene surrounded by the nine orders of angels, with a priest at the bottom raising the chalice ad orientem—a paradigm of the entire approach here, which could be described as “ROTR to the Max.”

All this makes the Jogues Missal an ideal tool for pastors who are seeking to move their community towards a more elevated, solemn, beautiful, and traditional celebration of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite or who, already blessed to be at that point, wish to consolidate the good they have. The book itself seems to anticipate such a purpose: along with the Order of Mass, printed in large readable type, one finds small blocks of commentary in fine print explaining aspects of the Mass and its ceremonial. To some this might appear overly didactic, but my impression is that it is tastefully done and appropriate, especially in an age when liturgical formation is desperately needed. It could certainly be a marvelous tool for liturgical catechesis, whether in preaching or during RCIA and other religious education programs.

Best of all, the Jogues Missal carries on the copyright page the following notice: “Published with the approval of the Committee on Divine Worship, United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 20 March 2014,” followed by the Imprimatur of Most Reverend Edward J. Slattery, Bishop of Tulsa. No one can point to these features—the ad orientem worship, the use of the maniple, the wearing of the mantilla, kneeling for communion, etc.—and say: “This is not to be done in the Ordinary Form.” Those of us who have studied the relevant documents know that they are permissible, but does the average Catholic? And should one have to be a scholar in order to defend traditional practices or common sense views? The Jogues Missal provides a key piece that was missing in the English-speaking world until now: a “This, folks, is really how it’s done” pew resource that unashamedly embraces the ROTR model of Benedict XVI.

The Ordinary Form of the Mass is going to be around for a very long time, regardless of what we may think about its strengths and weaknesses, and it would be hard to dispute that it should be offered as beautifully and solemnly as can be done, ad majorem Dei gloriam. As a matter of fact, proponents of the traditional Latin Mass (like myself) would do well to remember that a plentiful source of future interest in and support of the TLM will come from those fortunate Catholics who are brought up in (or who seek out) communities that embody the hermeneutic of continuity. For these Catholics, the step to the TLM is much more natural; it is like meeting a long-lost relative of the same family, rather than a stranger from a foreign country. Between the current situation of a minority presence of the EF and the future situation of a predominance of it, there will need to be a middle period characterized by parishes across the country that, to put it in a nutshell, have both the Campion Missal and the Jogues Missal in their pews.

The patron of this new book, Saint Isaac Jogues, S.J., knew long before the Second Vatican Council that the Mass is the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church—which is why, even after his thumb and forefinger had been cut off during his enslavement and torture by the Iroquois, he was willing to return to the Indian missions and to continue offering this great Sacrifice, for the salvation of the world. Our attitude should not be any less radical than his when it comes to giving God the greatest and the best we can.

For more information, videos, and reviews, see the Jogues Missal site.

New Missal for the Ordinary Form

Corpus Christi Watershed just announced their new pew-missal series for the OF. Details can be found below in the embedded video or at their page here. It appears it will be released in May of this year.

PDF Download: The Fulton J. Sheen Sunday Missal (1961)

A GUEST POST BY JEFF OSTROWSKI

The famous Fulton J. Sheen Sunday Missal (1961) is now available for free download. Needless to say, Archbishop Sheen did not produce the Missal alone: it was a joint effort by many, especially the Jesuit priests Rev. Philip Caraman and Rev. James Walsh. However, Sheen did compose the lengthy Introduction (which every Catholic ought to read) and seems to have exercised an influence on the general contents. For example, the choice of English translations—Msgr. Ronald Knox for the Lauda Sion, Gerald Manley Hopkins for the Adoro Te, and so forth—is a clear signal of Sheen's involvement, because of his well-known admiration for those literary giants.

Download: "Part 1 of 2" : Fulton J. Sheen Sunday Missal (1961) 

Download: "Part 2 of 2" : Fulton J. Sheen Sunday Missal (1961) 

In addition to the aforementioned Introduction, Sheen's Missal has several other remarkable features. The descriptions of priestly vestments are excellent. It also includes the entire "Fore-Mass" (as Fortescue called it) alongside the readings for every feast. That choice meant printing the "Kyrie Eleison," for example, close to eighty times. Finally, certain translations employed are noteworthy, especially poetic texts like the sequences and Pange Lingua. Similar to the Campion Missal, the editors made judicious use of drop caps and went out of their way to print all the "extra" post-Pentecost Masses in addition to every feast that could ever occur on a Sunday—a tremendous help to Catholics in the pews. The date of publication (1961) is fascinating, considering what would come a year later! The pages use a single numbering system for matching Latin/English pages. Furthermore, it's nice that this book contains most of the changes of the 1962 Missal, such as the Holy Week of Pius XII and optional dialogue Masses.

This book must have been in production for many years. For one thing, it shows such elegance. The unified, lovely images (such as the Divine Pelican, often preached on by Sheen) appear to have been created specifically for this layout. In general, the book seems like an effort to make a significant contribution to Catholics' liturgical life. I mentioned earlier the distinctive translations such as: "Raise your hearts."—"They are raised to the Lord."

For myself, the most interesting part of the book is the translation used for the Pange Lingua of Fortunatus (Good Friday). Producing the Campion Missal, we spent two whole weeks searching for different translations of this magnificent hymn. Sheen ultimately decided upon a metered translation which doesn't rhyme: a truly marvelous choice.

New Publication: Sacred Choral Works by Peter Kwasniewski

I have received some exciting news from Corpus Christi Watershed. Many NLM readers already know the name of Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, one of our regular contributors. Some will know that Dr. Kwasniewski is a professor of theology, philosophy, and music at Wyoming Catholic College and serves as their choirmaster. Few, however, know that he is also a composer of sacred music, a passion he has pursued for almost 25 years. His Masses, motets, carols, antiphons, and acclamations have been performed by a number of choirs around the world from 1990 to the present.

It is therefore gratifying to be able to announce the publication of Dr. Kwasniewski's Sacred Choral Works. This 276-page collection brings together a wide variety of sacred music, in Latin and in English, guided by the highest ideals of the Catholic tradition and ready to be used at celebrations of the Roman Rite in both Forms. The 85 works published here, in styles ranging from Renaissance polyphony to classic English hymnody, include settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, Eucharistic and Marian motets, vernacular hymns, Alleluias and Lenten acclamations, seasonal works for Christmas, the Holy Triduum (with three complete settings of the Reproaches for Good Friday), and Easter. Most of the pieces are scored for SATB choir; some are for SSA/TTB and SAB groupings.

Here is CCW's announcement video, featuring one of Peter's settings of the Kyrie:

Additional information may be found at the composer's page, including the book's Preface and Table of Contents, a sample score, a snapshot of the book, and recordings of five pieces sung by Matthew Curtis of Choral Tracks. As an aid to repertoire selection and choral instruction, Dr. Kwasniewski and Mr. Curtis have collaborated to record nearly all the works contained in the book (available soon on 3 full-length CDs).

Congratulations, Dr. Kwasniewski, on this new publication, the fruit of many years of labor!

1974 Graduale Romanum available for free download

Thanks again to the tireless labors of the folks at Corpus Christi Watershed, we now have available for the first time, as a downloadable PDF, the entire Graduale Romanum published in 1974 by Solesmes.

The Church Music Association of America made the Gregorian Missal available some years ago, and it has of course the advantage of English translations for the Propers and other parts of Mass, but it is restricted to Sundays and Holy Days, whereas the Graduale Romanum is the complete book of chant for every day of the year in the Ordinary Form calendar.

Visit here for the download.

Several Historical Postconciliar Missals Now Online for Viewing

Corpus Christi Watershed seems to have done it again, helping us understand our short-term liturgical history. Thanks to them, the 1965 Missal is now online, as well as the 1966 Sacramentary, as well as an insert that many priests used containing the newly composed Eucharistic prayers 2-4, released in 1969

It seems with these documents, we have a veritable time capsule, letting us take a deeper look into what really happened during those turbulent times. I'd highly encourage you to check out all these documents HERE.

"Missale romanum cum lectionibus" now online

Here is an item that may be of considerable interest to priests, scholars, liturgists, translators, composers, et alia -- the entire LATIN TEXT of the Ordinary Form of the Missale Romanum, with all the fixed and changeable parts of the Mass and the complete lectionary of readings, psalms, and Alleluia verses.

Corpus Christi Watershed has made available a high-quality scan of the four volumes depicted at the left, adding up to a total of 7,777 pages -- no, I'm not making that up!

Although they carry a publication date of 1977, not so much has changed in subsequent MR editions that this first edition would cease to be useful.  And of course, for study of the original edition, it is an indispensable resource.

From what I can tell, these books are extremely rare, so it's nice to see them finally made available electronically to the public.

Books on Chant Accompaniment

Jeff Ostrowski has a superb collection of scanned books on Gregorian Chant which are available for free download to all. You will find the St Jean de Lalande Library of Rare Books at the Corpus Christi Watershed. This is an amazing resource which I am sure will be very useful for choir directors and singers.

In particular, there are a large number of Chant accompaniments available there. One of the main reasons that Chant sometimes fails to take off in parishes is a lack of written chant accompaniments. This collection goes some way to address that problem, and I know that it is one area which Musica Sacra Scotland hopes to address on National Music Day.

Review: St. Edmund Campion Missal - Second Edition

Many may remember my review of the First Edition of Corpus Christi Watershed's Edmund Campion Missal and Hymnal for the Extraordinary Form. The entire stock sold out quite quickly, so Jeff Ostrowski took the opportunity to make corrections and modifications to make it even better for the next print run. Overall, it is very similar to the first edition, so for those not familiar with this book, I'd encourage you to follow the link above to see my review of the first edition. It took me a bit longer to write this than I expected, but it was nice to be able to use this multiple times at Mass to get a feel for it's actual ease of use. This new edition also keeps the page numbers the same, so the two books can be used side-by-side in the pews without issues.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

The Beauty of Holiness: An Appreciation of the Campion Missal

Among my favorite verses from Saint Paul is this, in the Epistle to the Philippians:

Brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8). 

Unlike worldly men who think, speak, and act more or less as they please (to the extent that they can get away with it), Christians are supposed to live conscientiously in the sight of their heavenly Master, thinking on Him and how to please Him. Instead of thinking on what is ugly, clumsy, vile, ignoble, or vicious, they should train their minds to true doctrine, honorable principles, just deeds, pure affections, lovely and gracious ideas, images, and words. In short, they are to strive for praiseworthy excellence in all things—and that striving should, of course, extend especially to everything connected with the sacred liturgy, the very “source and summit” of the Christian life. Here, we do not, we cannot, settle for what is mediocre, slipshod, superficial, profane, or unworthy of the temple of God; we aim at the beautiful, the holy, the finely made and nobly done, as much as lies in our tradition and in our power.

These words in Philippians bring to mind a statement in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: 

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:2)

“Good and acceptable and perfect.” Is this our program for liturgical life, for sacred music, books, vestments, vessels, furnishings, architecture? Do we seek that which is good because it has the requisite qualities of holiness, artistry, and universality? That which is acceptable to the Lord because it accords with the traditions, teachings, and laws He has given us? That which is as perfect as we can make it, because it shares in that litany of attributes related in Philippians?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Solemn Mass section)
and a popular daily missal

It is such thoughts as these, together with a compelling sense of good news that must be shouted from the rooftops, that prompt me to share with the readers of NLM my personal reaction to the Saint Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal. I say “personal reaction” because I do not intend to offer a standard review; the content and layout of the Campion Missal have already been reviewed and discussed in a number of excellent articles, which may be found gathered here. 

My intention is to praise this book as a book that, to an unusual degree, embodies exactly what Saint Paul says to the Philippians and the Romans—to such an extent, indeed, that it should grace the shelf of every Catholic layman, deacon, priest, and bishop, and fill the pews of every church and chapel privileged with at least the Sunday celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. I would add that no Catholic bookstore or gift shop should fail to stock this book.

Why are the reviews gushing with superlatives, exclamations, and imperatives for acquisition? Why all this enthusiasm, this (as it were) sober inebriation? After all, a book is just a book, one might think, and there are several missals already in print for the usus antiquior. What makes the Campion Missal special?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Low Mass section)
and the familiar red booklet

Let me try to say this as simply as possible: this book is a magnificent book. It is stunningly beautiful. It contains all the texts of the Mass for Sundays and Holy Days, well translated, handsomely typeset, tastefully ornamented, and lavishly illustrated. It is a treasure-trove of all that is most true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious in the Roman Rite; from the first to the last page, it is a manual of liturgical, spiritual, and theological excellence, speaking and singing of mysteries and mercies and majesty, of all that is ultimately and eternally worthy of praise. And as a result, it causes one to think about these things—to ponder them long, with joy and wonder, with fear and trembling, with inward peace and consolation, with a spirit of reverence and adoration. Its greatest glory, one might say, is precisely that it humbly helps along that process of the Christian’s transformation by the renewal of his mind, turning it again and again to heavenly realities. It could have been called the Epiphany or Theophany Missal, so well does it open up vistas of meditation and prompt one to prayer.

In a world of video games and movies, sexual utilitarianism, flashy advertising and journalistic manipulation, people have a hard time understanding beauty pure and simple—beauty as a gift from God, to be welcomed and rejoiced in as part of our prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Him. The traditional Mass and sacramental rites and Divine Office are full of a transcendent spiritual beauty that brings deep joy and peace to a receptive soul, but obviously not without the participation of the body at every stage. It is precisely the aesthetic dimension, the sensuous appeal, that first captivates the mind and stirs the heart, leading the worshiper from shadows and images to mystery and truth, and back again, in an upward spiral. The external beauty of the traditional liturgy serves an evangelistic and catechetical role even as it prepares the way for a more profound internal experience of the Lord. The external and the internal are in harmony, as body and soul are created to be.

The Campion Missal layout for the Propers of the Mass:
here, Palm Sunday

Because man has both a soul and a body, it is important that the entire experience of worship be dignified, well-ordered, and beautiful, as befits its inner nature. By providing in a single book all that is or could be needed for Sunday and Holy Day Masses—the Order of the Mass, the Propers of the day, a complete Kyriale, and a generous selection of hymns—the Campion Missal facilitates a full and fruitful participation in the Mass, both interiorly (which is the most important kind of participation) and exteriorly, in all the ways called for by Holy Mother Church, in keeping with the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X and all of his successors.

The care for beauty in the Campion Missal extends to the smallest detail, and, far from being old-fashioned, has an adventurous side as well: Corpus Christi Watershed commissioned Kevin Allen, one of our most gifted composers of sacred music, to contribute several new hymn tunes for the book. Exquisitely crafted and eminently singable, with noble lyrics truly worthy of the liturgy, these new hymns stand as worthy heirs of the English hymn tradition brought to its peak by the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst almost a century ago.

(A digression on hymns: if any reader is wondering whether the Campion Missal has enough hymns in it, this would be my response. There are 151 hymns in the book—a generous number in the context of the Extraordinary Form, where hymn-singing, though it finds a legitimate place, does not have nearly the prominence it does in many Ordinary Form situations. Nevertheless, to focus on the quantity of hymns is to miss a crucially important point. Like the Campion Missal’s chief editor Jeffrey Ostrowski, I have in my personal library a large collection of traditional hymnals from the 19th century to the present, and I have found, in scanning their pages, that it is rare indeed to find a hymnal from which a discerning music director could make use of even 50% of the pieces included. The rest are just too painfully sentimental or musically inept or textually vapid or all of the above. The genius of Ostrowski is that, drawing upon his good taste as a musician and his sound theology as a traditional Catholic, he has brought together 151 of the choicest hymns—the most singable and beloved, as well as lesser known or new hymns with soaring melodies and profound texts. Whereas most hymnals are like a flea market of good, bad, and indifferent, an Ostrowski hymnal is like a satchel of precious and semiprecious stones: every item is beautiful and apt for its purpose. Hence, I would rather have the 151 choiceworthy hymns of the Campion Missal and sing every single one, than sift through 400 hymns of wildly variable musical and textual quality in hopes that I can find enough to satisfy.)

from the Low Mass section

As I draw to a close, I am afraid that my words will be inadequate for those who have not yet held and viewed and prayed with the Campion Missal and totally unnecessary for those who have already seen it with their eyes and taken it to heart. All that I can do is express my amazement that such a book has been created and published in our day and age, when so much of the print world seems to be vanishing into the internet, and so much that remains in print has declined desperately and pathetically in quality. Whoever owns the Campion Missal will find it a princely book, a golden measure for what can be done when human talent throws itself passionately into the glories of the sacred liturgy, for the glory of God. I predict that it will become a cherished, even necessary companion to every Catholic who uses it to pray the traditional Mass.

To read more about the Campion Missal, for more photographs, and for information on placing orders, go here.

A postscript: the Campion Missal is now in its second edition. The first edition had a very colorful cover and florid graphics in the center section. The second edition, while mostly the same, has a more “classic” look to it: the cover is a subdued slate gray, the Solemn Mass section more restrained and easier to follow. A handy ribbon has been added and a few typos were corrected. However, the pagination and contents of both editions are IDENTICAL in all other respects, so they are entirely compatible.