The Society of Saint Gregory is the national society for liturgy and music in the Roman Catholic Church in the UK.
Founded in 1929, the Society of St Gregory has played an important role in the liturgical reform and continues to do so by promoting the study and understanding of the liturgy and resourcing and encouraging good pastoral practice in the public worship of the Catholic Church.
The Society’s interests and activities encompass music and composition, the ministry of readers, presiding at liturgy, liturgy with children and young people in schools and parishes, and Christian art and architecture.
Welcome
Fr Adrian Porter sj, SSG Chair, writes: “Welcome to the Society of St Gregory. We are an association of people interested in good liturgy – the public worship of the Catholic Church. Our members include singers and musicians, readers and servers, bishops, priests and deacons, and ordinary lay folk who have an academic or pastoral interest in liturgy.
We publish a journal three times a year, hold an annual residential Summer School, run online and in-person training courses for those involved in liturgy in their parishes or schools, and organize composers’ groups for those writing music for the liturgy.
Please take a look at our website. Ask for a free copy of our journal, Music & Liturgy. And, if its right for you, think about joining us. You will be most welcome!”
News, views and reviews from the liturgical world . . .
Crichton Lecture 2024
The priesthood of the faithful is one of the most significant doctrines of Vatican II, which taught that this priesthood and the ministerial priesthood are ‘ordered one to another’, and that both …
Psalm texts released
The Liturgy Office of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales has released psalm texts from the new Lectionary Volume 1 (Sundays and major feast days). The new Lectionary uses the...
Eucharistic prayer
It’s worth keeping an eye of the website of the Margaret Beaufort Theological Institute, a lay Catholic institute in Cambridge and a member of the Cambridge Theological Federation. As well as …
New lectionary news
The Catholic Truth Society (CTS), which has been commissioned by the bishops’ conferences of England & Wales and Scotland to produce the new lectionary due to come into use on the first Sunday...
Liturgy for abuse survivors
Thirty five years ago our parish embarked on a path which we are still exploring. The catalyst in April 1989 came when our Parish Priest was asked by a local youth football team whether he would be organising a …
Study day: eucharistic prayer
This study day will consider, briefly, the origins of the eucharistic prayer and its development in different geographical areas in the early centuries of the church. The principal focus of the day will be the content and meaning …
Macmillan on chant
To attract an audience of 300-plus on a cold and rainy midweek night for a lecture on the somewhat niche topic of the origins of western music in plainsong is an astonishing feat. But the draw this past week was Sir …
Easter reflections
As I read through the Triduum feedback forms, one sentence made me pause and caused my spirits to rise. Ever since the end of lockdown, when I was asked to lead the music and aspects of the liturgy...
Music for Easter night
This anthology, which is the first commercial recording the choir has made since Simon Johnson became Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral in September 2021, continues a practice inaugurated by his
Lay preaching
A symposium of preachers and theologians hosted by the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St Louis USA in March 2024, has made a formal submission to the Synod seeking a change in canon law to allow...
Believing not belonging
This research paper from the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge was commissioned by the Diocese of Brentwood and explores the reasons Catholics have become alienated from the...
Gestis verbisque
This Note from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (3 February 2024) comes in response to several situations where the words and gestures used in celebrating the sacraments have been...