Musician, teacher, blogger
A straightforward video post today. Here is the beautiful Credo IV performed by Schola Una Voce a few months ago. I first heard this setting of the creed in an album recorded by Westminster Cathedral Choir and particularly loved the organ accompaniment. There is just something heavenly about a major subdominant in mode I!
The hymn for Matins and Vespers on the feast of St Michael the Archangel was originally written by Rabanus Maura in the early 9th century. The text was revised in the 1600s and indulgenced by Pope Pius VII in 1817.
Continue reading “Feast of St Michael the Archangel, Office Hymn”
For many years now, even from my Anglican days, I have incorporated the Divine Office into my prayer life. Praying the breviary opens us up to more of the Church’s liturgy and intensifies our affinity with the mind of the Church through the pattern of psalms, canticles and antiphons.
Continue reading “Monastic Compline- Finem Perfectum”
The last three weeks have been monumental for Scottish Catholics. Thanks to the hard work of Sancta Familia Media and Fr Grant in cooperation with the Bishops of Scotland, the relics of the Little Flower have traveled the length and breadth of the country.
Continue reading “St Therese and the restoration of reverence”
A protestant and a Catholic walk into Mass… No, it’s not a joke, this occurred in my parish and that Catholic was me.
Continue reading “Dominus Vobiscum”
Below is the liturgical music that will be performed at the Pontifical High Mass at the Throne offered by H.E. Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke on the 14th of September 2019- The Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. This will be the 12th anniversary of the day on which Summorum Pontificum came into effect.
Continue reading “Music List: Cardinal Burke, Pontifical High Mass at the Throne”
After a break for the summer, Sung Vespers and Benediction recommences at Immaculate Heart Parish this week at 4.45pm on Sunday.
Vespers and Benediction are a perfect opportunity to continue our thanksgiving after Mass in the morning and to participate in more of the liturgical prayer of the Church.
For what to expect, click here. For insights into the connection between Mass and Vespers click here.
To whet your appetite, here is the hymn for Vespers on Sundays after Epiphany and after Pentecost, Lucis Creator Optime. Written by Pope St Gregory the Great in the second half of the 6th century, this hymn speaks of the first day of creation with the Vespers hymns for the rest of the week following likewise.
Continue reading “Lucis Creator Optime, Sunday Vespers”
One of the most astounding elements of the Catholic faith, for me, is Biblical Typology. As a protestant who knew all of the stories and little of the meaning, discovering this, particularly in praying the psalms, added to the veracity of the Catholic Church’s claims to be the One True Church, the new Israel.
Continue reading “Incense: Its meaning in the Sacred Liturgy”
In recent years, Corpus Christi has become the Feast of the Body and Blood of the Lord, but it as not always been so. Until Pope Paul VI’s liturgical reform, part of the rationale for which was to ‘simplify’ and contract feast days, a whole chain of related feasts followed Corpus Christi.
Continue reading “Feast of the Most Precious Blood 1st July”
Most Catholics would associate the text Pange Ligua with the hymn for the feast of Corpus Christi by the Angelic Doctor of the Church, St Thomas Aquinas. It is however, from the much earlier chant Pange Lingua by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609) that St Thomas took inspiration. It is worth pondering in this the true nature of tradition: development in seamless continuity with what has been handed down.
Continue reading “Good Friday- Crux Fidelis (Pange Lingua)”