tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-150187272026-09-29T15:46:53.264-04:00New Liturgical MovementRichard Chonakhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02327763839418228519noreply@blogger.comBlogger18073120tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-71902344653691940412026-09-29T14:00:00.000-04:002026-09-29T14:00:00.115-04:00St Michael in the Apocrypha
The Archangel Michael is mentioned three times in the book of Daniel, once in the Apocalypse, and once in the Epistle of St Jude, and these are all of his Biblical appearances. Both New Testament authors introduce him quite abruptly, taking it for granted that their readers already know who he is. “And there was a great battle in heaven, Michael and his angels fought with the dragon…” (Apoc. 12,Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-4241020282570662042026-09-29T08:00:00.000-04:002026-09-29T08:00:00.110-04:00Musica Domestica, by Andrew Goldstein & David Clayton, Available for Pre-orderA two-volume songbook for Catholic families, with a pointed psalter, sacred songs and chants, and folk songs following the liturgical year, published by Word on Fire PublicationsTwo years ago I gave a talk to a gathering of parents and faculty of a classical academy in South Bend, Indiana. I spoke of my vision of families praying the psalms and singing songs together, with their neighbors, beforeDavid Claytonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07041908477492455609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-24376550262468007742026-09-28T15:00:00.000-04:002026-09-28T15:00:00.189-04:00Music for Vespers of St Michael
When Pope Urban VIII had the hymns of the Roman Breviary revised in a more classicizing style, few were altered as completely as the hymn for Vespers of St Michael. The original version, traditionally attributed to Blessed Rabanus Maurus (ca. 780-856) was written in four stanzas of six lines, in a trochaic meter (alternating long and short syllables, with one syllable missing at the end of each Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-21288438818530322382026-09-27T08:15:00.000-04:002026-09-27T08:18:47.385-04:00The Eighteenth Sunday after PentecostGive peace, o Lord, to those who wait for Thee, that Thy prophets may be found true: hear the prayers of Thy servant, and of Thy people Israel. Ps. 121 I rejoiced in what was said to me, ‘We will go unto the house of the Lord.’ Glory be... Give peace, o Lord... (The introit of the 18th Sunday after Pentecost.)Introitus Da pacem, Dómine, sustinéntibus te, ut prophétae tui fidéles inveniantur: Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-74169183732142736492026-09-26T08:30:00.000-04:002026-09-26T08:52:57.782-04:00Our Lady’s SaturdaySince today we celebrate the Saturday Office of Our Lady, here is a polyptych representing Her coronation as the Queen of Heaven, painted in the 1390s by the Florentine artist Cenni di Francesco di Ser Cenni (active ca. 1369-1415), a splendid example of the richly decorative style known as the International Gothic. (Click the image to enlarge it.)This was originally made for a chapel dedicated toGregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-84090441835999794442026-09-25T16:00:00.000-04:002026-09-25T16:00:00.180-04:00Relics of St Padre Pio (Part 2)Following up on a post from two days ago, here are pictures of some more relics of St Padre Pio, this time from the town where he was born, Pietrelcina. After his priestly ordination in 1910, due to his poor health, he lived here with his family until 1916, when he was transferred to San Giovanni Rotondo. His family lived in a collection of rooms which were not all directly attached to each Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-80405499549845161232026-09-25T08:00:00.000-04:002026-09-25T08:00:00.171-04:00Blessed Joaquín de Albocácer
Because the Church has such a glorious history of early martyrs (think of St. Stephen being stoned or St. Lawrence being roasted alive on a gridiron), it is easy to forget that the twentieth century produced the most martyrs – in fact, more than all other centuries combined. During that bloody period, approximately one million Catholics were killed for their faith on every continent except Michael P. Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02649905848645336033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-14634751589106466542026-09-24T13:00:00.000-04:002026-09-24T13:00:00.112-04:00The Feast of St Thecla, First-Martyr Among WomenIn the Byzantine and Ambrosian Rites, today is the feast of the virgin and martyr St Thecla; in the Roman Rite, she is kept as a commemoration on the preceding day.Image from Wikimedia Commons by Shesmax, CC BY-SA 3.0Her story is told in a document known as the Acts of Paul and Thecla, generally dated to roughly 180 AD; the narration is often confused and disjointed, and I here give only a very Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-60736091404506135142026-09-24T08:03:44.067-04:002026-09-24T08:03:57.875-04:00SingCon 2026 Gathers in Brampton, OntarioWe are very glad to share this report from the recently concluded SingCon musical conference, an annual gathering of cantors, choristers, choir directors, and anyone interested in the musical tradition of the Ukrainian Greco-Catholic Church. Over 130 participants assembled to pray, glorify God, and experience their faith together through the liturgical worship and church singing traditions Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-21322860155932618792026-09-23T17:17:43.306-04:002026-09-23T17:17:43.306-04:00Relics of St Padre Pio (Part 1)Today is the feast day of St Pio of Pietrelcina, known to all the world simply as “Padre Pio”, who died on this date in 1968, and was canonized in 2002. Six years ago, I had the very good fortune to go on a pilgrimage which visited San Giovanni Rotondo, where he spent most of his life, and Pietrelcina, the place of his birth and earliest years as a priest. His fellow Capuchin friars knew, of Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-26650419478128628422026-09-23T08:00:00.000-04:002026-09-23T08:00:00.114-04:00A Missal for the Use of Braga, 1558Recently when visiting Milwaukee, I met a friend for coffee, who after we sat down pulled out from a box three marvelous treasures: a 1558 missal for the Use of Braga ; a 1616 Missale Romanum printed in Antwerp; and a liturgical Ordo from 1681, owned by a cardinal. Not usually a shutterbug, I could not resist taking some photos of these lovely liturgical books to share with NLM readers (in three Peter Kwasniewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02068005370670549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-2054641465962908542026-09-22T08:00:00.000-04:002026-09-22T08:00:00.114-04:00The Iconographic Style, #2: Images Not Made with Human HandsDoes an icon truly resemble our heavenly destiny, or only symbolize it — and what does Our Lady of Guadalupe tell us about the answer?This is the second of two related articles on the iconographic tradition. In the first, I set out the history of the style, the modern myths surrounding it, and the theology that accounts for its visual language. Here I turn to a question that the tradition raises David Claytonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07041908477492455609noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-65616770436210538282026-09-21T12:00:00.000-04:002026-09-21T12:00:00.191-04:00Symbols of the Four Evangelists
In Jewish tradition, the vision which the Prophet Ezekiel has in the first chapter of his book is called by the Hebrew word “merkabah – a chariot”, even though this word does not occur in the text itself. The ancient rabbis placed the study and interpretation of this chapter, which is difficult to understand in any language, under a special restriction; St Jerome knew of this, as he writes in Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-30925325250199181562026-09-21T08:00:00.000-04:002026-09-21T08:00:00.114-04:00Dr. Kwasniewski’s Midwest Lecture Tour, Sept. 30 - Oct. 4I am pleased to announce here at NLM my upcoming Midwest Lecture Tour (taking Midwest in a rather broad sense). Click on the images to see the details.September 30 • Burr Ridge, Illinois (Chicago area): “Why Divine Woship Needs the Power of Non-Verbal Language”October 1 • Ambridge, Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh area): “Exploring the Common Riches of the Byzantine Rite and the Roman Rite”October 2 • Peter Kwasniewskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02068005370670549612noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-30440207980726795332026-09-20T08:00:28.293-04:002026-09-20T08:09:11.033-04:00Durandus on the Book of JudithAs the book of Judith is read, we sing of how victory was given by the hand of a woman, and by this, the Church exhorts us to holiness, that is, to continence, by the example of Judith. For just as she killed Holofernes, a name which means, “he who weakens the fatted calf,” so does the Church advise us to kill Holofernes, that is, the devil, who weakens and kills the lustful in this world; and Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-9063300213944227132026-09-19T07:00:00.000-04:002026-09-19T07:00:00.111-04:00The Hymn of the Ember Saturday MassesAt all four of the Ember Saturday Masses, the fifth Old Testament reading is the same, taken from the third chapter of Daniel, in which the three young men, Ananiah, Azariah and Misael, are thrown into a furnace as punishment for refusing to worship the statue of the Babylonian Emperor. This is the single most frequently represented Biblical story in pre-Constantinian Christian art, since itGregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-62827332869797553572026-09-18T17:30:00.000-04:002026-09-18T17:30:00.186-04:00An Old Documentary about Chartres CathedralHere’s another win for the YouTube suggestion algorithm, which showed up after the post which I made on September 10th that included a recent documentary about the cathedral of Chartres: namely, a documentary about the cathedral of Chartres from 63 years ago. The approach is, of course, quite different from that of the modern documentary, but very respectful even where it assumes some of the Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-89095170440118646162026-09-18T09:00:00.000-04:002026-09-18T12:21:28.638-04:00The Priest’s First Prayer before Holy CommunionLost in Translation #169
After the Kiss of Peace, the priest prepares for his Holy Communion with two prayers in the Orations style. Both are “shoots that grew from the still living roots of the abandoned Gallican liturgy,” in Jungmann’s colorful formulation. (vol. 2, 344) The first prayer may be found in the ninth-century Sacramentary of Amiens. It is:
Domine Jesu Christe, Fili Dei vivi,Michael P. Foleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02649905848645336033noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-43742639789237171832026-09-17T19:00:00.000-04:002026-09-18T17:31:34.283-04:00The Rite of the Transitus of Saint Francis: Restoring True Devotion to One of the Church’s Most Beloved SaintsOn this feast of the Stigmata of St Francis, we are very glad to share this announcement sent to us by Fr Johannes Smith, about the rite of the Transitus of St Francis, a commemoration of the Saint’s death celebrated on the evening before his feast day. It includes links to a free booklet of music traditionally sung at this rite.This year marks the eighth centenary of the “Transitus” (i.e. “Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15018727.post-14831260606551483582026-09-17T15:00:04.548-04:002026-09-21T07:07:47.710-04:00The Desert Great-Great GrandfathersOne stumbles across the most remarkable things on the internet. Today I learned that September 17 is the feast day of an Orthodox Saint named Joachim, a Chalcedonian Patriarch of Alexandria, (previously a monk of the famous monastery of St Catherine on Mt Sinai,) who is said to have been elected in 1486 at the age of about 38, and died on this day in 1567 at the age of 119, after serving for 80 Gregory DiPippohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13295638279418781125noreply@blogger.com0