Blessed Notker the Stammerer

Today is the last day on which the sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes is sung at Mass this year, and also the feast day of its long-reputed author, Blessed Notker, known as “Balbulus – the Stammerer” in Latin, who died on this day at the age of about 72, in the year 912.

He was born to a wealthy family around the year 840, near the abbey of Saint Gall in Switzerland, where he was educated from early childhood. This was one of the greatest centers of learning and culture in Europe, and to this day, houses an important collection of manuscripts which includes some of the oldest witnesses to the tradition of Gregorian chant. Notker became a great scholar and musician, while also serving the abbey as librarian and guest master, and was offered the abbacy of several other houses, but refused all such preferments. He is generally believed to be the author of a collection of anecdotes known as the Gesta Caroli Magni, one of the earliest sources of information on the life of Charlemagne, a poetic biography of his abbey’s founder, and a martyrology, inter alia.

A portrait of Notker in a manuscript of the 10th century; public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.

But his most important achievement is the Liber Hymnorum, a collection of sequences, for the sake of which he was long believed to be the inventor of the genre, and the author of some of its most famous examples, including the Victimae Paschali. It is now known from Notker’s own testimony that this invention was actually based on an antiphonary brought to San Gallen by a monk of the abbey of Jumièges in France (about 12 miles west of Rouen), after the latter was destroyed by Viking raids around the time of Notker’s birth. Nevertheless, it is true that Notker and two of his fellow monks at San Gallen, a local named Ratpert and a Frank named Tuotilo, studied music together under an Irishman in the monastery, Marcellus, and together, they did much to develop a new musical school at the abbey, moving beyond the mere copying of the Roman tradition. Much of what we now call “Gregorian” chant is in fact the result of this and other Transalpine developments. It is also true that he composed around forty of his own sequences, and was responsible for popularizing the genre in German-speaking lands.

The Shrine of Bl. Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City

A reader recently visited the shrine of the Bl. Stanley Rother in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and kindly shared these pictures with us. Blessed Stanley was a priest of the archdiocese of Oklahoma City, who was murdered in 1981 while serving at a mission in Guatemala run by his diocese; he was beatified in September of 2017, and his feast is kept on July 28. Construction of the shrine began in November of 2019, and the church was dedicated in February of this year by the local ordinary, His Excellency Archbishop Paul Coakly.

It’s very good to see such a new church returning to traditional architectural and artistic styles; the Spanish colonial building has beautiful dark wood moldings and coffered ceilings, and a cruciform design with a central dome. The paintings are all in a classical style, while the reredos, altars and podiums themselves are also quite ornate, with Baroque details. The tabernacles in both the main church and rear chapel are placed directly behind their respective altars, and while the main church does not seem to have much room to accommodate the celebration of Mass ad orientem, the rear chapel does.

The main altar contains the Blessed Stanley’s relics.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

New Dominican Propers for the Liturgy of the Hours

Title Page of the New Collectarium

I recently published a summary of the changes in the Dominican Calendar for Mass and Office that will come into effect on the First Sunday of Advent of this year. At that time, I promised that Dominican Liturgy Publications would be producing new editions of the books we have published for use at the Liturgy of the Hours by those taking various roles in choir.

The first and most important is the Propers of the Office for the Order of Preachers, which contains the full propers for all Dominican Saints and Blesseds on our general calendar. This book would be used by the cantors, lectors, and, if desired by the hebdomadarian, that is, the friar leading prayers that week. This book has been updated to include the two new feasts, that of Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati and of Bl. Bonaventure García Paredes and Companions, Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War. Those feasts with changed ranks or dates are now noted as such. The propers are also available in pocket-book size.

Feasts that have been dropped from the Dominican General Calendar have been removed and included in Dominican Blesseds Celebrated Locally, a companion volume that has the short biographies and collects for the many Dominican Saints and Blesseds who are only celebrated in particular provinces. None of these are celebrated in the provinces of the United States, but many use this volume devotionally. The entire propers of those Saints previously in the Propers of the Office for the Order of Preachers are now represented in this volume. It also includes the full propers for St. Bartholomew of the Martyrs, O.P., who was just canonized by Pope Francis on July 5.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that we have also produced a new edition of our Collectarium: A Manual for Hebdomadarians, which contains all the texts, in particular the collects, needed by the hedomadarian, not only for Dominican Saints, but for every day of the year. Included in this volume are the collects for Saints recently added to the Roman Calendar (John XXIII, Paul V, and John Paul II), as well as one blessed, Francis Xavier Seelos, added to the Calendar of the United States. This volume also has the particular feasts celebrated in the Western Dominican Province, but this does not prevent its use by other provinces.