On Friday, April 25th, the Friday of Easter Week, Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish in Grand Rapids, Michigan, welcomed the world-famous Tallis Scholars to sing a choral meditation and Mass for the parish’s year-long Palestrina500 festival. The choral meditation consisted of:Palestrina: Missa “ut re mi fa sol la”Palestrina: Laudate pueri DominumLassus: Media vita in morte sumusLassus: Timor et
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Another Update from the Palestrina500 Festival in Grand Rapids
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Pilgrimage Following in the Footsteps of Newman - London, Oxford, Birmingham and Rome; October 2025
This October marks the 180th anniversary of the conversion to Catholicism of St. John Henry Newman. Here is an opportunity to mark the occasion with a pilgrimage led by Father Peter Stravinskas, editor of The Catholic Response and president of the Catholic Education Foundation, and Dr. Robert Royal, editor of The Catholic Thing. It runs from October 5th to 19th, beginning in London, where Newman
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Vespers of the Precious Blood
Although the feast of the Precious Blood is very new to the general Calendar, added in 1849 by Bl. Pius IX, the exegetical tradition behind some of its liturgical texts is very ancient indeed. Here I will focus on the antiphons sung with the Psalms of Vespers, four of which are taken from Isaiah chapter 63, and one from Apocalypse 19, both passages long associated with the Passion of Christ and
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Interview with Abbot of Fontgombault on the 1965 Missal, Questions of Reform, and the Current Situation in the Church
In these times when much discussion is under way about the restoration of the pre-55 Roman Rite in view of the problematic aspects of the Pius XII Holy Week reform and the Bugninian aspects of the 1962 missal, it seems more than a curiosity to be reminded that the monastery of Fontgombault adheres to the 1965 interim missal, a sort of island that has nearly disappeared due to erosion from the
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Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lectures in Spain (Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia, Oviedo), July 18 to 25, 2025
I am very pleased to share with NLM readers the themes and schedule for my lecture tour in Spain later this month. Between July 18 and 25, I’ll be speaking on the traditional Roman liturgy in Seville, Cordoba, Toledo, Madrid, Segovia, and Oviedo, then participating in the 3-day pilgrimage to Covadonga. Lectures will be given in English with a Spanish translation provided. My books that have been
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Saints Processus and Martinian
For many centuries before the feast of the Visitation was instituted, July 2nd was kept as the feast of the martyrs Ss Processus and Martinian, who remain as a commemoration. According to a legend current since the sixth century, they were the jailers in charge of keeping Ss Peter and Paul in the Mamertine prison in Rome during the reign of the Emperor Nero, and having been converted by the
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Photos from the CMAA Colloquium
Here are some pictures of the liturgical celebrations held last week during the Church Music Association of America’s 35th Annual Sacred Music Colloquium, at the University of St. Thomas in Saint Paul, MinnesotaOn Wednesday, June 25th, a Votive Mass of St. Joseph was celebrated in Spanish and Latin by Fr Michael Connolly, with the Mass ordinary Misa en Honor a San José, Christopher Berry as
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The Preface
Lost in Translation #130
The 1962 Missal contains twenty Prefaces (including the five so-called Gallican Prefaces added by Pope St. John XXIII in November of that year), but it may be more accurate to say with Abbé Claude Barthe that the Roman Rite has one Preface with twenty different options, just as there is one Roman Canon with different versions of the Communicantes and Hanc Igitur. [1]
The
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Interesting Saints on July 4th
In the Middle Ages, very few churches celebrated July 4th as a day within the octave of Ss Peter and Paul as Rome did. In most places, it was kept as a secondary feast of one of Western Christianity’s most popular Saints, Martin of Tours, commemorating the anniversary of both his ordination and the translation of his relics. The origin of this commemoration is narrated by the famous historian St
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The Octave of Ss Peter and Paul
At that time: Jesus obliged his disciples to go up into the boat, and to go before him over the water, till he dismissed the people. And having dismissed the multitude, he went into a mountain alone to pray. And when it was evening, he was there alone. But the boat in the midst of the sea was tossed with the waves: for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them
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The Translation of St Thomas Becket
On this day in the year 1220, the relics of St Thomas Becket were translated from the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral to a splendid new shrine in the main body of the church. This was one of the major religious events of the era, celebrated in the presence of King Henry III and many leading churchmen; in the Use of Sarum, it was commemorated by its own feast on July 7th, with the feast of the Holy
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A Recent Discovery - Is This The Earliest Image of Our Lady of Sorrows?
I was recently contacted by my friend Fr. Andrew Marlborough, a priest based in England, who has written for the New Liturgical Movement in the past about items of interest that appear in auction houses throughout Britain and Europe. Before becoming a priest, his career was in the commercial art world.This time, he wanted to know if I could shed any light on a recent purchase he had made, which,
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A Very Good Video from Brian Holdsworth on Liturgical Reform
I meant to share this video from the always-wise Brian Holdsworth yesterday, which was the 18th anniversary of Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, but travel plans and an uncooperative router intervened. The title is “A Plea to Pope Leo For Reform”, and essentially, he lays out a very good case for why Summorum Pontificum needs to be restored, and likewise, some good food for
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Clarity on Genuflections Around Communion in the Usus Antiquior
I received the following question from a reader, and given that others might find themselves with a similar question, or might simply wish to doublecheck that they are doing the right thing, I share my response today at NLM.The Query: I am seeking instruction on the rubric in the Missal of 1962 which directs the priest to genuflect prior to retrieving the Blessed Sacrament from the
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The Martyrs of Gorkum
The Roman Martyrology notes today as the feast of a group of Saints known as the Martyrs of Gorkum. Their feast has never been on the general calendar, but is celebrated in many places, and by the various religious orders to which they belonged, the Franciscans, who were the majority of the group, the Dominicans, Premonstratensians and Augustinian Canons. They were solemnly canonized in 1867 by
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Liturgical Travels Through France: A New Publication from Canticum Salomonis
We are very pleased to share with our readers this announcement of a new publication by our good friends at Canticum Salomonis, the first-ever English translation of Jean-Baptiste des Marettes’ Liturgical Travels Through France.Gospels chanted atop rood lofts, the Blessed Sacrament reserved in hanging pyxes, processions with dragons and banners, Lenten expulsion and reconciliation of penitents,
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The Feast of the Seven Brothers
July 10th is one of the most ancient feasts in the Roman Rite, that of a group of martyrs from Rome itself, called the Seven Brothers. Their traditional legend makes them the sons of a woman called Felicity, who shares her feast day with Pope St Clement I on November 23rd. The very oldest collection of Roman liturgical texts, the so-called Leonine Sacramentary, has seven different Masses for this
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The Sanctus
Lost in Translation #131For practical reasons the Sanctus is considered its own composition, but as Adrian Fortescue writes, it “is, of course, merely the continuation of the Preface. It would be quite logical,” he continues,
if the celebrant sang it straight on himself. But the dramatic touch of letting the people fill in the choral chant of the angels, in which (as the preface says) we also
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The Solemnity of St Benedict 2025
Gloriosus Confessor Domini, orationem faciens, benedictionem dedit; et lapis, super quem antiquus hostis sedebat, subito levatus est. (3rd antiphon of Vespers on the Solemnity of St Benedict.)
The episode referred to in the antiphon above, depicted in the sacristy of the church of San Miniato in Florence by Spinello Aretino, 1388.
The Lord’s glorious confessor, making his prayer, gave the
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The Feast of St John Gualbert
Today is the feast of St John Gualbert, founder of the monastic congregation known from their mother-house as the Vallumbrosians (the “Shady Valley” monks.) Like his contemporaries Ss Romuald and Peter Damian, he played an important role in the great reform movement taking place within the Church in the 11th century. The life of the Vallumbrosians was extremely austere in an age of terrible
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