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Chant course at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere

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At the basilica of Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, the tradition of Gregorian Chant has been kept alive over the past decades by the community of Benedictine nuns. There is now an initiative called " Cantantibus Organis " to help others to learn more about the chant. Each Sunday, from 9.30am, there will be a half-hour practice of the chants to be used in that day's Mass (ordinary form). After the Masses, during Advent, there will be the following lectures from 11.15am-12noon: 1) "The Introits of the Sundays in Advent" Luigi Pastoressa, choirmaster and organist at Santa Cecilia. 2) "The ‘sound’ of the Word: Gregorian chant in the liturgy." Dr Jordi-Augustí Pique OSB, from the monastery at Montserrat and director of the Escolania de Montserrat, the oldest surviving music school in Europe, is at Sant' Anselmo this term. He was the organist when Pope Benedict visited Montecassino on 24 May. 3) "Introduction to Liturgical Spirituality" Monsigno...
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"strange and alien teachings"

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On his blog Tidbits , Bishop Medroso from the Philippines has a thoughtful and interesting article called The People of God, the Liturgy and the Religious Artists . He looks at the question of modern architecture and its theological basis. He quotes H Reed Armstrong: If man already lives an "engraced" existence naturally, and the sacramental union with Christ is ontologically superfluous, a mere symbol of entrance into a "faith community," then the altar rail (iconostasis, the rood screen) that separates the natural world of the faithful and the supernatural world of the Divine mysteries must go. As Christ is already present in the community, the sacramental presence of Our Lord in the tabernacle is now superfluous and can therefore be removed from the sanctuary precinct. With the traditional concept of the Mystical Body obscured, the images of saints and holy mysteries, a tradition going back to the catacombs, are removed in favor of a single figure of the "Ri...
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Fr Lang on new sacred art programme

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Zenit has news of a new master's program in architecture, sacred arts and liturgy at the European University of Rome of which Fr Uwe Michael Lang is one of the directors. (Cf. Master's Program Aims to Halt Art Crisis ). Fr Lang commented on the crisis in sacred art: ... a crisis of the deepest roots, a crisis that has swept away, even before art, beauty itself, of which it should be the bearer. The very concept of 'fine arts,' of which the conciliar Constitution on Sacred Liturgy speaks, is debated. Following Hans Urs von Balthasar, he also stressed that Together with the loss of the beautiful, the good and the true have also been lost.
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Continuity: hermeneutic meets architecture

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Norumbega is "an online feuilleton and news portal collected from a traditionalist perspective" (see here for an explanation of "Norumbega" and "Feuilleton" ). Edited by Andrew Cusack, the heart of the publication is a series of readable, thought-provoking articles which will sometimes be controversial - but because they are original and intelligent, not simply because they set out to "shock". Andrew Cusack sent me notice of a recent article: An Architecture of Continuity which looks at the Universidad Laboral, constructed from 1946 in Franco's Spain to provide a second level institution to teach vocational and technical skills, supported by communities of the Jesuits and the Poor Clares. of the architecture, Cusack comments: The Universidad Laboral presents us with an architecture that is a continuation of history, rather than a rejection of history. Its components exhibit a classical symmetry but, like the human body itself, are arranged...
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Views of Bruges

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A few weeks ago, I went for a couple of days to Bruges. It is easy for me to get to: an hour or so to Dover, lunch on the ferry, an hour's drive to Bruges. You can cut half an hour or so by using the Channel Tunnel. The train is not a good idea - from Brussells it is another hour to Bruges. (If you look at the map, you can see that you are going back on yourself.) Bruges is one of the most photogenic cities in Europe. Here are a few of my efforts. First a classic view of the Church of Our Lady across the Minnewater: One of the little bridges over the canals: The end of the Minnewater with the bridge to the Beguinehof on the left: Some typical Bruges houses along the canal: The central part of the City is illuminated at night offering the opportunity for photos with reflections in the canal. The tower of the Markt is in the centre here:
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Piranesi exhibition

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Matthew at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping has an excellent post on the 18th century Venetian engraver, Giambattista Piranesi. As a student in Rome, I often came across reproductions of Piranesi's engravings and will now see if my next visit to the eternal City can take in a visit to Santa Maria del Priorato. See the post The Genius of Piranesi which reviews an exhibition running until 20 January at the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, entitled Piranesi as Designer .
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Popular posts from this blog

Is your alb back to front?

Fr Z has initiated a roaring discussion by asking the simple question whether maniples can be used in the Novus Ordo Mass. ( What Does The Prayer Really Say?: Maniples ) One commenter has referred to an important source for the question that has proved popular among modern liturgists. An answer in Notitiae of 1978 said: "When the rubrics of the Missal of Paul VI say nothing or say little on particulars in some places, it is not to be inferred that the former rite should be observed. Therefore, the multiple and complex gestures for incensation as prescribed in the former Missal are not to be resumed." This is, of course, a strange answer. Saying that it must not be inferred that a rite should be used does not imply that it must not be used. We need to check the Latin of this text. (If anyone with access to a library can check it, I have seen the reference given elsewhere as Notitiae 14 (1978) 301-302, no. 2) Let us in any case take the more restrictive interpretation, bel...
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1962 Missal pdf online

The Church Music Association of America and Jeffrey Tucker of the New Liturgical Movement have made available the 1962 Missal online in pdf format (72Mb). The file is hosted at Musica Sacra , the website of the CMAA, thanks to a generous gift from Fr Robert Skeris While you are at it, take a look at the articles clarifying the rules for music at Low Mass and music at High Mass .
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Saint Gabriel

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The angels call for our veneration and awe as part of God’s creation. Part of the destructive modernism of the 1970s included advice to Catholic school teachers that they should not talk to children about angels. This wrought lasting damage which continues to need rectifying. We should include in our prayers a heartfelt recourse to our own Guardian Angels. The Archangel Gabriel “God is my strength” would be terrifying were he to appear to any of us. Our Lady was “troubled” at the word of Saint Gabriel and wondered at the manner of the salutation. Immediately, according to his mission, the awesome messenger explained himself. Modern retelling of the event is often reduced to the jejune “Mary said Yes to God”. In fact, she said “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word”. This conveys more accurately the flawless faith and trust of the Immaculata. In the infinitely wise providence of the Father, we now know the structure of the event in even more detai...
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The blessing of a chariot

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When I studied Latin in Rome with Fr Reginald Foster, he used to suggest that a good word for a car was autorhaeda , a word in fact used in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis of 1965 when speaking of a visit made by Pope Paul VI to the Basilica of St Chrysogonus in Trastevere. The word raeda (without the "h") was used by Caesar, Cicero and Horace for a travelling wagon with four wheels and the addition of "auto" does not make for too awful a neologism. In the Rituale Romanum , the blessing for a motor vehicle is the Benedictio vehiculi seu currus . The word currus is normally translated as chariot and reflects the way that people often view their car. Since one's motor vehicle is more likely to be the locus of one's death or injury than many other artefacts, it does make sense to have it blessed. Above you can see us striding purposefully past the Georgian houses of Victoria Road and here is the blessing of the classic mini: The blessing given in the ...
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Downloadable booklets for Vespers

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Gregorian Chant Hymns is a most helpful website that I mentioned in a post just over a year ago. As I said then, the site "[...] promotes the learning of Gregorian Chant by making sheet music, recordings, translations, and instructions. There is a short guide to Gregorian Notation (those square notes) and to Latin pronunciation. Everything is available free of charge, in line with other great traditional music websites." Work has continued at the site and there is now a section which makes available pdf (or .docx format) booklets for Vespers for every Sunday of the Year and a few major feasts. There is the basic booklet for ordinary Sunday Vespers which is supplemented by separate files for the Sundays after Pentecost which contain the Magnificat and Collect. Then there are booklets, for example for Advent and Lent, where the office is different from the regular Sunday Vespers with its antiphons. All of the booklets have texts and notation for Benediction and the Maria...
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