Society of Saint Gregory

...at least we haven't got "O Lamb of God". ...But we have got "O God, Almighty Father" in the restructured 'Glory to God in the highest'. Interesting that no text is provided for the actual giving of communion - When I read this, I wondered whether we had gone back to the 1570 ...

'Starting from Scratch - 1' appeared in Vol 1 No 3 dated Spring 1975. The two articles by Bill Tamblyn are very interesting: all about his experience offering his services as music minister at a Catholic church in London and how he got on with the priest and the people. Some useful tips for anyone t...

In connection with the Sign of Peace: 1) When you say in the 'I confess' "...and to you, my brothers and sisters," have you ever thought of turning to those on either side of you, to whom you are confessing? In the pre-Vatican II rite, more conscientious priests used to bow to their altar-...

Why did the missal revisers of the Consilium recommend an offertory procession but scrap the offertory antiphons from the Missal altogether? Bugnini says ( The Reform of the Liturgy 1948-1975 , p. 387): The entrance and communion antiphons... are to be sung or read for their value in showing the mea...

Well, the offertory antiphons were only retained in the 1974 Graduale in order to keep the plainchant people happy. They no longer exist in the Missale Romanum (though they linger on in GIRM, curiously), so in one sense there is indeed no such thing as an offertory antiphon for anyone who is not us...

Low Mass with hymns was encouraged by Pope Pius XII's encyclical 'Mediator Dei' of 1947: 105. Therefore, they are to be praised who, with the idea of getting the Christian people to take part more easily and more fruitfully in the Mass, strive to make them familiar with the "Roman Missal,"...

I believe that it is important for the priest to sing as part of the liturgical rite. Here are some considerations: 1) Until Vatican II, a priest was required to sing the dialogues ("Dominus vobiscum", etc.), the Collect and other prayers, the preface and the Pater noster (then a solo) at ...

The Sacred Congregation of Rites, in its Instruction of 3 September 1958, decreed: 13. a) Latin is the language of liturgical ceremonies... Any exceptions to the general rule of Latin will be mentioned later in this Instruction. 14. a) In sung Masses only Latin is to be used. This applies not only t...

Christ be our light (including the heretical last line of verse 5 ) 'Making your kingdom come'. Quite so, we can't make God do what we want - and the coming of his Kingdom is in his time and by his power. We can however make the ground ready. If you alter the last two lines to read 'May we be serva...

Forgot to say that Music in the Mass does after all bear a tiny printing date of February 1969, so maybe a year earlier than I had thought. At that time Charles Grant was Bishop of Northampton (he wrote the Foreword in his capacity as the Chairman of the National Commission for Catholic Church Musi...

Should the text not be "Holy holy holy. Lord God of..." rather than "Holy holy Holy Lord. God of..."? The text is actually 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord, God of hosts'. Note the intrusive 'is', for which there is no corresponding word in the Latin. True, it is a faithful quote f...

Here's a little rubrical conundrum. The feast of the Presentation is a feast of Our Lord - so says the Calendarium. If it had been one day later, it would have superseded the Sunday Mass and all the weekend Masses would have been in celebration of the feast. This year the feast of the Presentation i...

For an update on the English translation of the Roman Missal, see the latest Liturgy Newsletter from the Liturgy Office: http://www.catholic-ew.org.uk/liturgy/Newsletter/Volume8/8-1.pdf

Here is the bright idea of my PP to fund Laudate for my parish. You invite parishioners to donate a copy in memory of someone - anyone they like. Copies can be donated for a pew or a melody or an organ edition at the cost price rounded up to the nearest pound. They write the name of the someone on a...

For the way Pope Benedict thinks of the Sign of Peace, see Sacramentum Caritatis at para. 49: We can thus understand the emotion so often felt during the sign of peace at a liturgical celebration. Even so, during the Synod of Bishops there was discussion about the appropriateness of greater restrain...