“Entrance Chant” • For Sunday (22-Sep-2024)

Jeff Ostrowski · September 16, 2024

Coming up fast is Sunday, 22 September 2024, which is the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Here’s the PDF file for the ENTRANCE ANTIPHON—in Gregorian notation on five lines—which we’ll be singing. You can also download this organ accompaniment which corresponds to that file. Plainchant scholars will be interested in the ancient version it mimics (i.e. “takes as it inspiration”). If you enjoy rehearsal videos, you can listen to my recording by clicking here.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Michigan. —(Read full biography).

Year’s End Appeal • “Asking for Help”

We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity. We exist solely by the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment; we have no major donors; we run no advertisements; we have no savings. As 2024 comes to a close, we could really use your financial support—especially if you have never donated before. Click here to securely donate with any major credit card. Thank you very much!

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” (4th Sunday of Advent, Year C)

This coming Sunday—22 December 2024—is the 4th Sunday of Advent (Year C). Some have expressed interest in perusing my “ORDER OF MUSIC.” If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. The English version of “Roráte Cæli” we’re singing for the ENTRANCE CHANT is magnificent.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Entrance Chant” • 4th Sunday of Advent

Download the ENTRANCE ANTIPHON in English for the 4th Sunday of Advent (22 December 2024). Set in the first mode—just like the authentic version—this setting manages to capture the “essence” of the Gregorian setting in quite an admirable way. Corresponding to the vocalist score is this free organ accompaniment. If you’re someone who enjoys rehearsal videos, this morning I attempted to sing it while simultaneously accompanying my voice on the pipe organ.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Lessons and Carols”

Seen online! Dr. Samuel Backman conducted a “Lessons and Carols” service with his choir, and someone produced this lovely vignette.

—Corpus Christi Watershed

Epiphany Proclamation 2025

Each year, without fail, someone asks me to typeset the Epiphany Proclamation, an announcement of moveable feasts chanted each year on the feast of the Epiphany. As a result, you may now find an archive of 23 such proclamations in PDF ready to print HERE.

—Veronica Brandt

The Breviary in the Life of the Laity

Recently I have been enjoying looking through the inaugural (1927) edition of a 20th-century liturgical magazine called Orate Fratres. The July 1927 issue included an excellent article by a Chicago laywoman named Ellen Gates Starr entitled “The Delights of the Breviary: From the Point of View of a Lay Woman.” As we in the 21st century have recently undergone a (blessed!) re-translation of the missal into English, and as we await with joyful hope (please God, before Jesus comes back!) a similar re-translation of the breviary, the opening of her article reminded me of that old saying, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” Nearly a hundred years ago, she penned words that could just as easily have been written today: “It is indeed a privilege to be allowed any participation, however slight, in the liturgical movement in the Church – the movement to bring back the classics of devotion, the Missal and the Breviary, into general use by the laity. The wonder is that they should ever have fallen into disuse. Nothing can take the place of these great universal prayers of the Church, the prayers of the Mass and the divine Office. One has only to know them to find them indispensable. And alas, how few of the laity know them!” I know that I have been tremendously nourished by regular praying of the breviary as of late, and my wish is that you and I, dear reader, may continue to nourish our interior lives with the official prayer of the Church, which present to us (in the Mass) and extend (in the Office) the fullness of Christ’s greatest gift to us – the gift of Himself – in the Most Holy Eucharist.

—Daniel Tucker

Agnes De Mille: “When I see my work, I take for granted what other people value in it. I see only its ineptitude, inorganic flaws, and crudities. I am not pleased or satisfied.” — Martha Graham: “No artist is pleased.” ADM: “But then there is no satisfaction?” — MG: “No satisfaction whatever at any time,” she cried out passionately. “There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

— “Martha Graham on the Life-Force of Creativity”

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About Jeff Ostrowski