Sung Pontifical Mass from the Ordinariate Cathedral for the Nativity of Mary
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    For those who are interested. Looking good so far, including sung parts and even sung readings.

    https://www.facebook.com/CSPOrdinariate/videos/1099185916836921/
  • stulte
    Posts: 355
    Will the video be viewable after the fact?
  • Yes. Facebook Live broadcasts and then saves the video. Youtube livestreaming is more accessible, however, but they work the same way as far as the broadcasting and saving go.
    Thanked by 1Ben
  • How blessed we are!
    Te Deum laudamus...
    Many thanks for putting this up.

    Probably sometime in October (after a delay from June) our rood screen will be installed.

    The needle point kneelers at the altar rail (and elsewhere) were designed and executed by the ladies of the parish - an Anglican tradition.

    Too bad some of our sanctuary folk have brought in very un-Anglican and un-Sarum lace. The Anglican surplice reaches to about four inches above the floor, has a round yoke, pointed sleeves, and not a trace of lace, nor any pleats. Actually, I await the day when our acolytes and all will be properly vested in appareled albs and amices.

    The crucifer, in concert with Sarum usage, wears a tunicle. Tonight's crucifer was Sir Clint Brand, a knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St Gregory the Great - in recognition of his scholarly work in Rome and with our ordinariates on formation of the Ordinariate Use. He is also chair of the English department at UST.

    Though it could hardly been seen, our tabernacle is a representation of the ark of the covenant, complete with kneeling angels, and was created just for Walsingham. The first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet appear on the tabernacle doors.

    The reredos was made in Spain and features, in addition to the central rood scene, St Catherine and St Lawrence, who had a particular popularity in mediaeval England.

    The most wonderful thing about our liturgy, aside from the liturgy per se, is how that it flows without interruption from beginning to end. It is a seamless act of ritual prayer, unfolding of its own accord from one facet to the next, unblemished by page announcements, announcements of what to do, announcements of what day it is and what church we are in, cantors who call attention to themselves, people whose microphoned and callous, thoughtless, remarks interrupt the continuum of deep liturgical flow that is in every single mind and the congregation as a whole.
    One will notice that the people sing hymns and ordinary spontaneously from the subtlest of cues from the organ. Of course, NO liturgy of the pure Roman rite could be this way, ought to be this way, and might have been this way but for the deliberately cultivated and flourishing liturgical chaos, and the invention of the happy-clappy, oh-so-folksy 'assembly', that became the preferred un-normative norm after the recent council.
    Thanked by 2Caleferink BruceL
  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 338
    Too bad some of our sanctuary folk have brought in very un-Anglican and un-Sarum lace. The Anglican surplice reaches to about four inches above the floor, has a round yoke, pointed sleeves, and not a trace of lace. Actually, I await the day when our acolytes and all will be properly vested in appareled albs and amices.

    So, speculating about a counter-factual world, let's imagine that after Mary Tudor Elizabeth had decided to throw her lot in with Rome and that the Church in England had continued to developed liturgically while in communion with the Catholic Church. Is there any reason to think that things like lace would not have become part of English Catholic usage? Or that rood screens would not have vanished, as they did on the Continent? In other words, is lace really "un-Anglican" in its essence, or is it simply not a part of Anglican usage by an accident of history? Likewise, are rood screens essentially Anglican, or did they remain simply because of how medieval churches were adapted for use with Cranmer's BCP (i.e. with the old sanctuary being used as a separate space for the Lord's Supper). In other words, I guess I'm somewhat persuaded that a lot of what is seen as "Anglican" and "Sarum" is really a late-19th century invention by Percy Dearmer.

    As to the actual video, there are lots of nice and beautiful things in it. I do wonder, however, with everything else being sung, why the Canon was not sung. Once you start proclaiming it aloud, logic would seem to suggest that it should be sung, particularly when everything else is sung. If music gives things a certain prominence, then it is hard to see how the canon should have less prominence than the Old Testament reading.
    Thanked by 2Ben CCooze
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    I agree about the canon. Better to make it either silent (giving it a holy of holies treatment) or sung (giving it the elevated dignity of sung prayer).

    All in all though, very good.
  • The Walsingham Houston reredos (below left) was also inspired by the Walsingham UK Slipper Chapel reredos (below right).
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    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • The Cross up on the Rood Beam was built by me, and was hung above the altar in the first church (dedicated 1993). The Corpus was carved in Italy. The Cross is solid, quarter-sawn Teak. The flared shape with rounded ends was based on the Crucifix where Fr. Moore grew up in the Houston Heights - Good Shepherd Episcopal, I think. I assume it will be used again on the Rood Screen. Alas, I don't have any close-up photos of my work.

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    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • In another Forum conversation, the topic of the chanted Lessons came up. My Labor Day Monday afternoon project was setting the O.T. Reading and the Gospel of the tones that have been typically used at OLW. The O.T. is from the old Liber Usualis (Prophecy" tone, which has a different ending than the one in the current Graduale Romanum. The Gospel is Option B in the current G.R., except for the concluding V & R.

    (I can't seem to get the files to attach here, so here is the link to them on my FaceBook page)

    https://www.facebook.com/smcollinsus/posts/10154606327826869
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,471
    In other words, is lace really "un-Anglican" in its essence, or is it simply not a part of Anglican usage by an accident of history?


    Almost all traditions are simply accidents of history.
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  • About Deacon Fritz' observations -

    I rather agree about the canon. This is a glaring oversight. Too, there are several other things, such as orate fratres and ecce Agnus Dei, with their replies, which we should be singing. Also, I would be happier if our priests would learn the Sarum tones for collects and such. One will notice, though, that our Our Father is sung to the correct melody of the Pater Noster, not that embarrassing and pointless substitute that is sung everywhere else.

    About the deacon's wondering about what might have been had Mary.... Well, one cannot assume that the congenitally conservative English would have followed suit with every developing continental fad. This may or may not have happened. There are several prominent saints of the renaissance and baroque eras (their names do not come to me right now) who thought lace decadent and un-Roman. Also, Fortescue was adamantly opposed to this glaring display of tastelessness, wholly inappropriate for liturgical garb. There seems to be something about it that attracts a certain sort of Catholic, the fish-nettier the better, the gaudier and more effeminate the better. It is, actually, an embarrassment. It's not anything that I can imagine our Great High Priest and Rex Universorum arrayed in - in heaven or on earth.

    And, about what is Anglicanesque being a Percy Dearmer (may he be blessed!) invention and XIXth century romanticism, it would be unjust so lightly to dismiss what is actually a glorious embroidery of Sarum riches, lingering Catholic thought and practice in post-Henrician times, the Laudian strain and the Caroline divines, developing liturgical thought and cross-pollination of recent times, oriental influences, even tinges of Celtic heritage, Oxford movement sobriety, a tenaciously preserved and cultivated sacred musical patrimony, the uniquely bonded entity that is an Anglican choir, our people's love of their choirs and music, a very Catholic spirituality that has a distinctively English flavour, forged in antiquity, kept alive amidst enmity, preserved against all odds, the joy of all its heirs. When all is said and done, there is an unmistakable Anglican ethos on display in our worship and spirituality - a particular notion and appreciation for the profound majesty and holiness of God, and a characteristic way of expressing that understanding, which, in itself, is a gift from above. The only thing approaching it in the rest of the Catholic world might be the worship of high Benedictines (very high ones!). To my thinking, the more ordinary parish liturgy is monastic in character and performance, the more truly Catholic and spiritually mature it is.

    And, about the rood screen. As is well known, I think, this screen separated the nave from the choir in monastic establishments and became more universal in British lands. It serves, it seems to me, the same purpose as does the iconastasis in the oriental churches. It makes no sense to me that, just because we are in the XXIst century (what, pray, makes us different - other than our lack of due deference to the holy!), the holy of holies should not be set off in this way. For us, it is not a hindrance, an alienating barrier, but a statement in beautiful architectural language of what is in our minds, namely, that the sanctuary is an incredibly holy place and we are genuinely blessed, not the least bit offended, to perceive it as such and to express it with all artful means at our disposal. To be offended by such a sacral endowment is really rather definitely mean-minded. If anyone is out of step it is that modernist who is incapable of appreciating these things and adamantly refuses to 'get it' - rather than feeling blessed by them. So, deacon, with my heartfelt respect, this is not mere tradition for tradition's sake - nice though that sometimes is. Our rood screen and our holy of holies are a blessing and joy to us. As we desire and appreciate the screen we love and perceive all the more deeply the holiness that lies beyond it.
    Thanked by 1Ben
  • Almost all traditions are simply accidents of history.

    I am at an utter loss of words (which may seem, to some, to be a God-send) adequately to express the profoundness of sagacity evidenced by this penetrating comprehension, shared with us, so graciously, from the author's dower of wisdom.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • fcbfcb
    Posts: 338
    My point about the rood screen was not to criticize it as such, but simply to point out that in the wake of the Council of Trent they disappeared on the Continent (so this is not really the result of a modernist impulse--unless one thinks Trent is modernist) and wondering if the same would not have happened in England as well. Funny enough, it might be that the protestant reformers ended up saving rood screens that Tridentine reformers would have razed.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    ...orate fratres and ecce Agnus Dei...replies...

    Meh... I'm not sure I see the fascination with having these sung.
    The priest would be standing there with the Host for an awfully long time, during a sung 3-fold Domine, non sum dignus. But that isn't the only reason for disliking the sung response right there. That is one response that I definitely like to be able to look up at the Host and reply to. It's a natural response, not one that I want to sing.

    I think a sung version, as a motet, might be nice.

    I haven't yet been able to watch the video, but I am looking forward to doing so.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    The priest would be standing there with the Host for an awfully long time, during a sung 3-fold Domine, non sum dignus.


    If sung properly, it would add minimal time. Not to mention, as with most dialogs, once you learn them in a few weeks, it's all rote. And of course, the mass shouldn't be as short as possible! He's standing there quite a while during the canon, but that's not a bad thing.....

    The roman rite is meant to be sung...
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  • ...would be standing there...for an awfully long time...

    So?
    Is there a more worthy use of his time?

    ...meant to be sung...

    Hear, hear!
    Yes, indeed!
    All of it.
    Every last word.

    We have sung these parts when offering chant masses (English NO) by St Basil's Schola Cantorum at St Basil's Chapel, UST. Singing these, as with any- and everything else, adds wonderfully to the prayerful experience and the existential reality. We've even sung the Confiteor to the Tonus Adamus (otherwise known as the Recto Tono), even though this is the only part of the mass for which no music actually exists. There is no greater enhancement of the confessional act and of the communal experience of it.
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  • ...unless one thinks Trent modernist...

    An interesting suggestion, Deacon Fritz. In this matter one can posit confidently that Trent was modernising - assuming that there is something essentially modern about such an affront (the more you think about it) to the divine presence, an act, certainly, from an ontological view, of relative lese majeste towards the All Holy. Modernising, too, were the prevalent attitudes expressed about music (if one wishes to consider these somehow 'modern', as in an advancement of civilisation - which they weren't). Too bad they couldn't, in their modernising, have listened to the scads of bishops and priests who spoke eloquently for vernacular liturgy. We likely would have had exquisite hieratic 'Cranmerian' French, German, Italian, English, etc., instead of the shamelessly pedestrian disasters we got in the late XXth century.
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    That particular response is sung at our Basilica OF Masses, as well. Not 3-fold, of course.
    I disagree of its adding to the "prayerful experience" at that moment. But, what can I say? I simply do not partake of the sung version, and instead do my 3-fold, instead.
  • I respect your feelings, Cooze, and do so whilst continuing to observe that the mass is a continuum of communal song whose object is God, not a series of private devotions. We have, of course, been over this territory numerous times on our forum and will likely visit it again. Still, respect be unto your feelings. Perhaps, if I were of your persuasion, I would sing it the once with everyone else and then silently add the two missing ejaculations. Pax.
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