“… Courage needs to be shown in recovering elements of our liturgical identity so we can give God the beauty he deserves.”
Fr. Michael Rennier
Another parish discovers that the way forward for the Church involves both truth and beauty, and is revitalized in the process.
Aug. 9 & 10
Music directors, accompanists, interested singers, parish clergy and seminarians: join us at St. Mark Catholic Church in Highlands Ranch for an intensive two-day conference designed to lay out the fundamentals of building a strong, faithful parish music program.
Learn more and register:
There’s a lot of weird stuff on YouTube, but every once in a while you stumble across something that makes you think, “Wow—why have I never seen this before?” That’s what I thought when I came across this video (below) by the Catholic musical group Harpa Dei.
Continue readingToday, our music spotlight comes courtesy of our excellent music director, Diana Corliss:
This weekend, we will be singing two beautiful pieces on Mother’s Day in honor of our Blessed Mother.
At the 10:00 am Mass, the choir will be singing a setting of the “Ave Maria” by Michael John Trotta. It has a soaring and tender soprano solo that reminds me of the Blessed Mother hearing our prayers and interceding for us with her motherly love.
We will also be singing the “Salve Regina” at the end of every Mass this weekend.
Links to recorded versions of these pieces are included below. Better yet, come to the 10:00 Mass this weekend and hear our superb choir!
One of our goals at St. Mark has been to gradually restore Gregorian chant to its rightful place in the sacred liturgy. This is specifically in response to the call of Vatican II: “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specifically suited to the Roman liturgy; therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” (Sancrosanctum concilium, 116).
One might be tempted to think that there was an unbroken tradition of Gregorian chant in the Roman liturgy right up until the 1960’s, when “everything changed.” But that’s not quite right. It turns out that Gregorian chant fell on hard times from the about the end of the Middle Ages up until the mid-19th century. It’s ironic that it was that other venerable liturgical musical form, polyphony, that worked to undermine the purity of chant and initiate its decline.
Continue readingHere is the fourth and final part of the series, “What is Catholic Sacred Music?” Here we see the top 10 reasons to sing Gregorian chant. We hope you enjoyed this series! Tell us what you think in the comments.
Truth & Beauty 