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Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

What Monks Sing on Saturday Night


Primo dierum omnium
The first of all the days is here,
the day God made the world appear,
the day His rising made us free,
and vanquished death in victory.
Our sleepiness is put to flight,
so let us speedily alight
to watch and seek the night hours through
as Prophets from of old would do.
May God be list’ning as we stand,
and forward stretch his strong right hand,
that cleansed of stains, we may arise
enthroned by Christ among the skies.
So that the Lord in kindness may,
in this most sacred time of day,
the favors of the blessed bring
to those who through the silence sing.
All glory to the Father be
and to His Son eternally,
whom with the Spirit we adore
forever and forevermore.   


The Gregorian tune and a literal translation may be found here.

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests


On Thursday, the Congregation for the Clergy issued a new edition of its Directory for the Ministry and the Life of Priests. The document makes a clear call for rediscovery of the sacredness of the priesthood within our secularist world.

First and foremost is the priest’s relationship with the Triune God. The revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit is linked to the manifestation of God as Love which creates and saves. Now, if redemption is a sort of creation and an extension thereof (in fact it is called “new”), then the priest, the minister of redemption and in light of his being a source of new life, thereby becomes an instrument of the new creation. This already suffices to project the greatness of the ordained minister, independently from his capacities and his talents, his limits and his miseries. This is what led St. Francis of Assisi to write in his Testament: “I am determined to reverence, love and honour these and all the others as my superiors. I refuse to consider their sins, because I can see the Son of God in them and they are my superiors. I do this because in this world I cannot see the most high Son of God with my own eyes except for his most holy Body and Blood which they receive and they alone administer to others”. That is the Body and Blood which regenerate humanity.
Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

The “Remote” vs. “Close” Theological Fallacy

Someone has gone again and propounded a misunderstanding about God. Like many theological misunderstandings, its basis is the reduction of God to human terms.

Catherine Pepinster says that there has been a tension

between those who want to describe God as a remote, awesome being and others who want to encourage a more intimate, personal connection

I would argue instead that the tension is between those who believe that God is so awesome, good, and desirable that we want Him to be our intimate Lord, and those who would rather do liturgy and life on their own human terms without much input from God at all, thank you very much. The first desire sings with St. Thomas Aquinas, “Dare to praise as much as you can, for He is greater than all praise, and no praise will ever be enough.”

His greatness, His ineluctable distinction from our way of being, is our happiness and good, because through this distinction He can be close to us. He has power to take to Himself our nature, elevating it immeasurably by the Incarnation. He has power to live in us and change us from the inside, because He is so different from us that He cannot be subsumed by us. Through the life of the sacraments, both the “sendings” of the awesome God, the missions of the Son and Holy Spirit, become real for each of us personally.

God lives in us because He is different from us.The life of intimacy with God depends upon the distinction of the orders of being.

We see this closeness in the prayers according to the new translation time and time again. Instead of asking for a vague kind of help from beyond the beyond so that we can help the world, we ask for moment-to-moment grace so that we may be faithful. Instead of sending a memo to a truly remote deity, we are whispering earnestly to the One who is close: “Lord, who have helped us in the past [You whom we know and trust], help us in our present need of salvation.”

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Nuns top the charts, again!

Wall STreet Journal

For the fifth week running, an order of monastic nuns in rural Missouri has the nation’s top-selling album of traditional classical music. Most of these isolated singers don’t know that they created a niche hit with their recordings of ancient chants and hymns, or that it’s their second release to reach No. 1 on the Billboard chart.

“We don’t even talk about it. The sisters might be curious, and I could tell them, but it doesn’t matter,” says Mother Cecilia, head of the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, a Catholic priory surrounded by corn and soybean fields north of Kansas City. Most of the 22 nuns living there are in their 20s or 30s, including Mother Cecilia, a former French horn player in the Columbus Symphony. Except for one hour per day when they can converse, they spend all their waking moments in silence or in song, often Gregorian chants more common to monasteries in Europe.

Now at No. 1 on the classical music chart: a group of nuns whose monastic existence revolves around farming and singing in rural Missouri. John Jurgensen has details. Photo: The Benedictines of Mary.

Their releases are distributed by Universal’s Decca record label and have been boosted by low-key online marketing. The latest album, “Angels and Saints at Ephesus,” sung a cappella in English and Latin, continues the nuns’ unintentional rivalry with a splashier release: the musical tie-in to the erotic “Fifty Shades of Grey” novels….

“If we hadn’t recorded or we never record again, it wouldn’t have the slightest effect on our life of prayer,” she says. Still, she adds that album sales chip away at the remaining debt of $1 million, and someday might help finance the construction of a guesthouse and church. Meanwhile, the recordings also let the nuns reach listeners from whom they’re otherwise cut off: “What we’re doing on these recordings is giving others a share of what is ours day after day after day.”

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

What I look forward to next week

Yes, the grand and great Sacred Music Colloquium starts on Monday, so of course I’m thinking of all the aspects of it I’m looking forward to enjoying.

1. Old friends and new friends. There is just nothing like the camaraderie you experience here. All year most of us are working in the trenches and we are fortunate to have one or two people around us who really “get it.” At this event, there are 200 plus people who do. It is a real and necessary ingathering that gives you the motivation to push onward and with true joy.

2. I’m looking forward to seeing Archbishop Alexander K. Sample of the Portland, Oregon Archdiocese. He is only here for one day but it will be great to see him again. I’m also looking forward to catching up with Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth, along with many faculty members who will be there to teach. It is a happy occasion.

3. This year we are bringing back the follies! We only did this one year in the past. We made room for it this year. It happens on Thursday. Everyone is invited to prepare skits or music or just monologues of 2 to 3 minutes. The goal is fun and laughter — or maybe just being introduced to something new and wonderful that we do not know. I’ve got some ideas, and maybe you do too. Mostly we are leaving it completely open to spontaneous things to happen. The last time we did this — it was many years ago — it was probably the most memorable night of the week. We are going to try again. I’ll talk more about this in the opening dinner but if you are coming, you might start thinking right now.

Off we go! (Oh, we’ll try to post images too throughout the week)