Part 3 of a 3-part Series. You may read the other parts here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Now for something really practical: How should we sing the chant? An experienced choir director will have plenty of advice and know-how, but it requires persistent and persevering effort to educate a congregation to the point where the people…
Part 2 of a 3-part Series. You may read the other parts here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 Some readers might be wondering why the Church places such an emphasis on singing Gregorian chant in particular. Why this style and repertoire of music, in preference to others? And is it really true that the Church expects…
Very often it seems Catholics will dismiss discussions regarding the ongoing reform of the Roman Rite liturgy as being largely irrelevant. Tackling topics such as the manner in which the faithful receive Holy Communion, or the reintroduction of Latin at more Novus Ordo masses, are viewed by many as unnecessary at best, if not downright…
Part 1 of a 3-part Series. You may read the other parts here: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 In his First Epistle to Saint Timothy, Saint Paul says that he is not sure when he can come to visit Timothy, but meanwhile he is giving him instructions “so that … you may know how one ought to…
A public papal Mass will be held at the close of the World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia on September 27th, 2015. With attendance estimates ranging from the hundreds of thousands to over a million people, there is an urgent need to get the message out about the serious potential for Eucharistic profanation that happens…
The Spanish-Language website, Adelante La Fe (Advance the Faith) obtained an exclusive interview with Bishop Athanasius Schneider, our favorite Catholic prelate in the world today, and a once (and hopefully future!) contributor to this website. The interview covers some extremely heady subjects. Among these: The serious diminution of faith in the Real Presence of Christ in…
Most Catholics in our world seem to take a flippant attitude towards liturgical music. It is all-too-frequently deemed something suitable for competent amateurs, of lesser concern and of secondary importance – until, of course, it isn’t. The news this week of the unexpected and noteworthy resignation of Johh Romeri as head of Liturgical Music in…
In Acts 1:2, we witness angels speaking to the Apostles who were staring into the skies into which the Lord had just ascended: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye there gazing into heaven? This Jesus, Who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come as you have seen him going into heaven.”…
Infinite is the one great mystery of Christian faith. The more men ponder over its parts the more bewildering it appears, for the mystery of the Triune God is continually upholding its hidden power. How grandly impressive is Catholic worship! What an awful holocaust is its sacrifice! Far surpassing the power of human concept is the…
The futile closed circle of therapeutic navel-gazing hangs on like an overused joke in a few places still, one of them being the Church. The priest and people facing each other during the entire liturgy is a vestige of the illegitimate seizure and subjection of 2,000-year-old liturgical development by primitivist vandals in the post-Vatican period.…
I had just entered the seminary when Cardinal Ratzinger’s book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, came out. I had an English copy expressed to me and brought it with me into the chapel as my spiritual reading during our daily community Holy Hour. One of the older men knelt next to me as I was…
