The Sacred Liturgy – Page 15 – The World is Quiet Here

The World is Quiet Here

O Radix Jesse

19 December 2019 Annual, Chant, Divine Office, Holy Days, Latin, Seasons

By now some of you might be thinking that the O Antiphon words are sounding kind of familiar, even though you’re not really up on your Gregorian Chant. In fact, these antiphons are some of the earliest attested antiphons in the Divine Office, being mentioned in passing in the works of Saint Boethius in the early sixth century. They’re rooted […]

O Adonai

18 December 2019 Annual, Chant, Divine Office, Holy Days, Latin, Seasons

Today is the second “O” antiphon, O Adonai. For a reflection on this antiphon, we will turn to that great liturgical commentator, Servant of God Dom Prosper Guéranger, Abbot of Solesmes (d. 1875). O Sovereign Lord! O Adonaï! come and redeem us, not by thy power, but by thy humility. Heretofore, thou didst show thyself to Moses thy servant in […]

O Sapiéntia

17 December 2019 Annual, Chant, Divine Office, Holy Days, Latin, Seasons

O Wisdom! Advent is drawing to its close, and it’s time again for our annual look at the O Antiphons. These antiphons are part of the prayers at the liturgical hour of Vespers (evening prayer) for the 17th through the 23rd of December – the 24th is of course the Christmas Vigil itself. They are ancient prayers, possibly dating back […]

Ceremonies Explained for Servers – Again

04 December 2019 Bishop Peter J. Elliott, inside baseball, resources, Review, The Sacred Liturgy

Now that a copy of Bishop Elliott’s latest book is finally in my hands and shipping from both the publisher and Amazon, it’s time to reprint my initial review, below. I did some minimal editing for clarity, and I’ve added a note about the illustrations at the end. As an additional note, I will be revising our Altar Servers Training […]

Advent Vespers

30 November 2019 Annual, Chant, community, Divine Office, Holy Days, Holy Rosary Parish Tacoma

This Advent, as in past years, our parish of Holy Rosary in Tacoma will be chanting Vespers on Sunday evenings. Because of the damage to our beautiful church, this year we’re celebrating Vespers the school auditorium again. The school has an elevator, so getting to the auditorium is no problem! Please join us! There’s nothing like chanted Vespers to pull […]

Day of Wrath, O Day of Mourning!

14 November 2019 Annual, Chant, Dom Matthew Britt O.S.B., History, Holy Days, Holy Rosary Parish Tacoma, Prayer, The Sacred Liturgy

Appropriate to today – the Feast of All Souls of the Benedictine Order – we once again have the Dies Iræ, the traditional sequence for Requiem Masses and the Masses of All Souls. Today we pray for the souls of all Benedictine monks, nuns, sisters, and oblates in purgatory. Servant of God Thomas of Celano Most probably written by […]

All Saints of the Benedictine Order

13 November 2019 Annual, Divine Office, Holy Days, Prayer, Saints

Once again we come to a feast of All Saints. “But wait!” I hear you cry, “wasn’t that back on the first of November?” Right you are! But today on the Benedictine calendar is the feast of All Saints of the Benedictine Order. Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside […]

Elements of the Mass;
or, You Might Be Doing that Wrong

11 November 2019 Chant, General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Latin, The Sacred Liturgy

Part 5 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. If I had to guess, I’d say that the part of the General Instruction that has been read by the fewest is Chapter II: The Structure of the Mass, Its Elements, and Its Parts. Why? Because when you read it, you quickly come to […]

Chants of the Masses of All Souls

31 October 2019 Annual, Chant, Holy Days, Latin, The Sacred Liturgy

Can we talk about Gregorian chant? Because All Souls Day – coming up on November 2nd – has some doozies. I confess that I was a fan of chant long before I was a Catholic. In part, God used the beauty of this kind of music to draw me to Him. Specific chants are prescribed for each Mass in both […]

On the Feast of Saint Luke

18 October 2019 Annual, Chant, Divine Office, Saints

Saint Luke is my kind of writer. Luke the historian and Luke the lyrical poet are both in evidence in his New Testament writings, his Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles. He freely admits that he never met Christ in the flesh, that he was not a witness to the events he describes in his Gospel. Like any good […]

Presence and Participation

11 October 2019 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, The Sacred Liturgy

Part 4 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Now we begin at last to come to the crux of the issue as we move on to Chapter I of the General Instruction: The Importance and Dignity of the Celebration of the Eucharist, which begins to lay the foundations for addressing the rubrics […]

Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels

02 October 2019 Annual, Divine Office, Meditations, Saints

Do you pray to your Guardian Angel? Do you ask them for advice or help? Why not? The Church teaches that we all receive a guardian angel at birth, an angel assigned to guide and protect us, to watch over us. As it says in scripture: There shall no evil come to thee: nor shall the scourge come near thy […]

Tradition and Accommodation

29 September 2019 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, The Sacred Liturgy

Part 3 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. Testimony of an Unaltered Faith The Introduction of the General Instruction is at great pains to place itself, and the Missal that it prefaces, in continuity with the tradition of the Roman Rite. Despite what many modern liturgists seem to think, the Third Edition […]

The Authority of the General Instruction

16 September 2019 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Pope Saint John XXIII, Pope Saint Paul VI, The Sacred Liturgy

Part 2 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. What authority does the General Instruction enjoy in terms of the sacred liturgy? That is, for those celebrating the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite according to the Third Edition of the Roman Missal, is the General Instruction normative or advisory? Before we can […]

Follow the Rubrics: an Introduction

15 September 2019 General Instruction of the Roman Missal, Msgr. Richard Huneger, Sacred Liturgy Conference, The Sacred Liturgy

Part 1 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal. At the 2019 Sacred Liturgy Conference, the question was asked, how do you celebrate the Ordinary Form in a more sacred way? How do you infuse it with the mystery and majesty of the Tradition of the Roman Rite? Monsignor Richard Huneger famously answered, “follow the rubrics”. […]

Exaltation of the Holy Cross

14 September 2019 Annual, Holy Days, Meditations, The Sacred Liturgy

Today is celebrated in the western Church as the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (Exaltatio Sanctæ Crucis). In the eastern Church, it is known as “the Universal Exaltation of the Precious and Life-creating Cross”. The feast commemorates a number of events: the finding of the True Cross in 326 in Jerusalem by Saint Helena, the later dedication […]

The Road to Hell is Paved with the Skulls of Bishops

13 September 2019 Annual, Archbishop Alexander K. Sample, Meditations, Saints, The Sacred Liturgy

So saith today’s saint, the incomparable Saint John Chrysostom (c. 347–407). He was, of course, himself a bishop. It seems that this pithy quote is a popularization of the full (attributed) quote, where the saint is talking about the relatively few in number who will be saved and the bad shepherds who are responsible: The road to Hell is paved […]

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