Society of Saint Gregory

There seems to be something about the format of Facebook groups that encourages a speedier and more free-wheeling interaction.

Evensong at York Minster. Proper choral evensong, the shining jewel in Anglicanisms crown. An indifferent visiting choir didnt spoil it. Lovely. But if Cranmer was able to translate the latin collects into beautiful clear English with wonderfully balanced phrases, how come our lot made such a pig's ...

I wholeheartedly agree with your comments about schools.
I doubt we will ever see the day when an honest and realistic appraisal of their usefulness is undertaken. They have become some sort of a shibboleth.

Schols have little curriculum time that they can set aside to liturgical music. They learn what is appropriate for their age and what can be taught in limited time. Lets face it, 95% of them will never go to church again when they get to secondary school, so it matters not that they arent learning w...

For decades my parish has celebrated First Communions fully integrated into the Sunday morning Masses. Over two of the morning Masses over four weeks in Eastertide, from 6 to maximum 10 children make their first Communion (we have about 60 first communicants a year). They will have been expected to...

First of two sessions today - kids from the parish school. Despite reminders to families about being repectful before Mass it was awful. Nobody joined in the music. Nobody said the responses which were in the booklet. Constant hubub which got worse during the actual communion. I've come home furious...

He's an odd one. He issues pastoral letters about adoring the eucharist, and I heard him preach that we came to Mass to adore the eucharist in the tabernacle (highly questionable theology) yet he doesnt give the liturgy time to breathe.
Maybe he sees music as a distraction.

I have a wedding tomorrow of one of my cantors here in Florida. There will be 13 flower girls and11 bridesmaids and groomsmen. The processions start at 5pm but I wonder when the bride will arrive and I also wonder how many times I’ll have to play pachelbel’s Canon in D At least you are warned, unli...

Lucky organist to get a contract!
The RSCM has guidance here
https://www.rscm.org.uk/our-resources/g ... musicians/

I have the same irritation with the preface dialogues and a rude interruption by the celebrant of the people’s response. We rarely interrupt them (much as we might like to!) We have a bishop who never ever lets the final note of a song die before leaping in with what he has to say. Just plain bad m...

There are weather presenters who do that. They take a breath in the middle of a sentence so they can rush straight through full stops. Once you notice it, it is very irritating. Almost as bad as readers who emphasise the prepositions in sentences - "Jesus went TO Jerusalem and said TO his disciples ...

We have only a handful of weddings each year. They are split pretty evenly between active parishioners and unmarried couples who have had their child baptised to get into the parish school and who have then been persuaded by the PP to regularise their union. We have one of the second group this Satu...

Sunday morning Mass in Calabria in a village church. We arrived about 10 minutes early to find a group of ladies leading the May devotions, furiously gabbled Ave Marias and litany, and sung Salve Regina to the usual tune but with local variants. The church was beautifully restored and laden with flo...

Ah, weddings.
I take the money and run.

We started at 8.30 when it was still light outside.
It got darker during the Exultet. That isn't quite what is meant to happen, is it?