11am Sunday Novus Ordo Mass in English

I don't have my program with me as I type this, so I can't provide a complete list of music, but...

It was really good, y'all.

Chanted Propers in English + Solid traditional hymns
Ordinary plainchant from the Missal (sung unaccompanied and very robustly by the large, diverse congregation)

Choir was AMAZING on a lovely contemporary setting of the "I am the Way" text of the Gospel (I'll find the name of the piece and composer later).

[EDIT: It was In My Father's House by Philip Stopford]

Organist was excellent.

Just, overall, a really beautiful sacred music experience that showed off what the Novus Ordo liturgy can be at it's best. And, while certainly the volume/complexity of the choral repertoire and the quality of the performance is hard to achieve outside the resources of a cathedral, the basic shape of what was going on would be achievable in nearly any parish, and wouldn't (I think) be off-putting or alienating even to congregations unused to Traditional Liturgy: everything was in the vernacular (except the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei), the congregational hymns were easy to sing, the chanted propers were largely syllabic and easy to understand, the Missal chants should be deep in the bones of any English-speaking Catholic. Indeed a "Spirit of Vatican Two" partisan would have to stretch to find anything objectionable about it (not that some of those types aren't particularly flexible when the rhetorical situation calls for it). Actually, I'm sure it would be some of the more hardcore trad types who would have more complaining to do ("Hymns?!"), but they need hobbies and perspective. This was a normal Mass for normal people, while absolutely being Holy Things for Holy People.

The music director Angela Westhoff-Johnson, as well as Archbishop Sample and rector Msgr. O’Connor, are to be commended for leading by example.