PDF Download • “Wedding Booklet” (22 pages)
A word about “Kleptomaniac Choirmasters.”
Jesus said to them: “I have come into this world so that a sentence may fall upon it, that those who are blind should see, and those who see should become blind. If you were blind, you would not be guilty. It is because you protest, ‘We can see clearly,’ that you cannot be rid of your guilt.”
A theorist, organist, and conductor, Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He completed studies in Education and Musicology at the graduate level. Having worked as a church musician in Los Angeles for ten years, in 2024 he accepted a position as choirmaster for Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Michigan, where he resides with his wife and children. —Read full biography (with photographs).
Three (3) bullet points, written on a single sheet of paper.
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Once these songs get into your head, they won’t leave easily—but that’s okay!
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At the conservatory, we’re surrounded by hundreds of professional musicians; but stepping into a Catholic parish the situation is quite different.
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Some claim Catholics deserve condemnation because (unlike Protestants) Catholics often omit verses when singing hymns at Mass. Is that true? The wonderful Sophia Institute Press—as part of a series on authentic sacred music—has provided an answer (PDF) to this question.
Is backroom bowdlerization of Sacred Scripture truly irreversible?
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Fulton J. Sheen: “In those days there were no scandal columns, but there were scandalmongers.”
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What do you do for Quinceañera Masses, Anniversary Masses, Funerals, and Birthday Masses?
This is a beautiful melody worth learning, worth singing, and worthy of the temple.
The wonderful Sophia Institute Press has begun a “Q+A” section which tackles common liturgical questions, and here’s a sample: “At a conference I recently attended, the speaker said hymns don’t belong at Mass; was he telling the truth?” And you can read the answer. To access the complete set (which is a work in progress), […]
From a reader: “I have read the pages explaining the Blessed Sacrament in the Brébeuf hymnal and plan on continuing to contemplate them. Moreover, the Christ the King Hymn is beautifully sung on the recording you posted (to the Watershed blog), and I wish my church would sing these hymns instead of modern ones from […]
Can Protestant translations be dangerous? This paper presents items worth considering.
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I personally find the following pairings (hymn text + hymn melody) to be reprehensible…
From a rare book of Franciscan chants (1902)
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