“Music List” • 5th Sunday of Lent

Jeff Ostrowski · April 5, 2025

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the 5th Sunday of Lent (6 April 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. I love the INTROIT (Júdica Me Deus) from the well-known PSALM 42. Since Lent reduces pipe organ usage, I marked with an “X” all the selections being sung a cappella. This Sunday is traditionally called “Passion Sunday.”

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).

“Ubi Caritas” • Knox Translation (1950s)

It seems the gems of the SAINT EDMUND CAMPION MISSAL Third Edition can never be exhausted. In 1952, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen declared the Bible translation by Monsignor Ronald Knox as “the best” (his words). I took the elegant & rhyming translation created by Monsignor Knox for “Ubi Cáritas”—courtesy of the CAMPION MISSAL—and placed it next to the musical notes.

—Jeff Ostrowski

“Music List” • Palm Sunday

Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for the Palm Sunday (13 April 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Since Holy Week reduces usage of the pipe organ, I marked with an “X” all the selections being sung a cappella.

—Jeff Ostrowski

PDF Download • “Offertory” (Palm Sunday)

Some believe “joyful” texts sound happy in Gregorian Chant and “sad” texts sound mournful—but that’s a misconception. For instance, Father Guy Nicholls pointed out that Easter Sunday’s INTROIT “probably sounds too austere and difficult for such a joyous piece.” Another example is the very sad OFFERTORY for Palm Sunday, set in “happy” mode 8. The lesson is: Greegorian settings are quite sophisticated—they’re anything but superficial. You can download the OFFERTORY for Palm Sunday in English, which seems to “fit” the text admirably.

—Jeff Ostrowski

When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962

There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop

—Veronica Brandt

The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum

Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.

—Daniel Tucker

Antiphons Don’t Match?

A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music).

—Corpus Christi Watershed

“Much more serious was the problem, what to do about ‘thou’ and ‘you.’ I confess I would have liked to go the whole hog, and dispense with the use of ‘thou’ and ‘thee’, even where the Almighty was being addressed. They do these things in France, but I felt sure you could not get it past the British public. Why not, then, have ‘thou’ for God and ‘you’ for man? That is Moffatt’s principle; but it seems to me to break down hopelessly in relation to our Incarnate Lord…”

— Monsignor Ronald A. Knox

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About Jeff Ostrowski