Book Meme
Picked up from Scuffulans hirsutus
Book Meme Rules
1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people
"'Oh, good Lord, no!'" Uncle William spoke vehemently and shut his mouth with a snap, glancing at his escort with furtive blue eyes. Marcus turned to Campion, betraying that he had given up the idea of persuading Uncle William to open the proceedings. 'Look here,' he said."--Police at the Funeral, by Margery Allingham
Rather than tagging people, I think I'll let my readers pick it up as they please. There probably aren't more than five of you anyway. Leave a link in the comment box so I can see what you come up with!
28 January 2008
Long-haired Chihuahua at Prayer
No, I'm not kidding. The dog imitates the pose of Buddhist monks (based on the article I guess he's owned by a Buddhist monastery). Check it out.
No, I'm not kidding. The dog imitates the pose of Buddhist monks (based on the article I guess he's owned by a Buddhist monastery). Check it out.
27 January 2008
Draw us in the Spirit's tether
Draw us in the Spirit's tether;
For when humbly, in thy name,
Two or three are met together,
Thou art in the midst of them:
Alleluya! Alleluya! Touch we now thy garment's hem.
As the faithful used to gather
In the name of Christ to sup,
Then with thanks to God the Father
Break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluya! Alleluya! So knit thou our friendship up.
All our meals and all our living
Make as sacraments of thee,
That by caring, helping, giving,
We may true disciples be.
Alleluya! Alleluya! We will serve thee faithfully.
Text by Percy Dearmer
Tune "Union Seminary" by Harold Friedell
Draw us in the Spirit's tether;
For when humbly, in thy name,
Two or three are met together,
Thou art in the midst of them:
Alleluya! Alleluya! Touch we now thy garment's hem.
As the faithful used to gather
In the name of Christ to sup,
Then with thanks to God the Father
Break the bread and bless the cup,
Alleluya! Alleluya! So knit thou our friendship up.
All our meals and all our living
Make as sacraments of thee,
That by caring, helping, giving,
We may true disciples be.
Alleluya! Alleluya! We will serve thee faithfully.
Text by Percy Dearmer
Tune "Union Seminary" by Harold Friedell
17 January 2008
Cool Desktop Wallpaper
Looking for a new backdrop for your computer? Checkout the Vladstudio Cathedrals Wallpaper Pack now available for download. It includes regular and widescreen versions of sepia-toned sketch-looking pictures depicting the cathedrals of Barcelona, Cologne, Florence, Milan and Moscow.
Their website has some other nice wallpapers too, mostly more abstract than the cathedral pictures.
Looking for a new backdrop for your computer? Checkout the Vladstudio Cathedrals Wallpaper Pack now available for download. It includes regular and widescreen versions of sepia-toned sketch-looking pictures depicting the cathedrals of Barcelona, Cologne, Florence, Milan and Moscow.
Their website has some other nice wallpapers too, mostly more abstract than the cathedral pictures.
16 January 2008
Curious
Last semester, one of my students wrote me a paper on chant, arguing that music students today ought to study chant more closely. I was curious to note that most of his citations came from the Catholic Encyclopedia and the writings of Justine Ward. Once again this semester he is in the class I am assisting with, and I have noticed him reading First Things before the start of class. I now assume that he must have been the one who finished the "Gloria Patri" in Latin last semester when the professor couldn't remember the end of it.
I wonder if I should have a chat with him. I wonder where he goes to Mass.
Last semester, one of my students wrote me a paper on chant, arguing that music students today ought to study chant more closely. I was curious to note that most of his citations came from the Catholic Encyclopedia and the writings of Justine Ward. Once again this semester he is in the class I am assisting with, and I have noticed him reading First Things before the start of class. I now assume that he must have been the one who finished the "Gloria Patri" in Latin last semester when the professor couldn't remember the end of it.
I wonder if I should have a chat with him. I wonder where he goes to Mass.
13 January 2008
New Blog
My husband and I have started a new blog called "Requiescat in pace," dedicated to praying for the dead by posting prayer cards from funerals. Check it out. If you have a prayer card to contribute, please scan it and send it along to requiescat.blog@gmail.com, or email us and we'll give you an address where you can send a photocopy or an original card.
This will not impact the irregularly scheduled service from Catholics, Musicians, Students that you, our three or four dear readers, have come to expect.
My husband and I have started a new blog called "Requiescat in pace," dedicated to praying for the dead by posting prayer cards from funerals. Check it out. If you have a prayer card to contribute, please scan it and send it along to requiescat.blog@gmail.com, or email us and we'll give you an address where you can send a photocopy or an original card.
This will not impact the irregularly scheduled service from Catholics, Musicians, Students that you, our three or four dear readers, have come to expect.
31 December 2007
Holy Innocents
The feast of the Holy Innocents--the male children under the age of two years ordered to their deaths by King Herod--was on the 28th. That day is also my birthday. I first found out that I shared my day with the Holy Innocents when I was about ten years old. It was a sobering realization. I sometimes joke that it was a good day to be born a girl; I would not have been under threat from Herod. For a while, I thought that there might be some cosmic significance to the day of my birth, that I might be specially called to assist in the pro-life movement or something of that sort. I no longer think that to be the case, although I do remember to pray for the souls of all murdered children and for the conversion of those who perpetrate evil on children on my birthday when I attend Mass (I always go to Mass on my birthday, even though I'm not in the habit of going to daily Mass anymore). It isn't the most cheerful way to begin my birthday celebrations, but it makes me grateful to be alive.
For the last couple of years the homilies that I have heard on that day have not been centered on the pro-life movement or even particularly about crimes against children. They have been about coming to grips with the presence of evil in the world. It's an excellent yearly reminder for me, as it's something I've always had difficulty understanding. Why do floods and fires deprive good people of homes, property and life? Why does fatal illness take parents from their children and children from their parents? Why are people who commit horrific crimes allowed to remain in power while innocents languish in prison? How can a human being order the death of thousands of people who have done him no wrong?
I don't have the answers, but every year I have a particular opportunity to meditate on the questions. Every year I find myself more sensitive to the problems of the world, but at the same time better able to cope with the evils that arise in my path, learning to depend on God to sort things out when I can't do it myself.
The feast of the Holy Innocents--the male children under the age of two years ordered to their deaths by King Herod--was on the 28th. That day is also my birthday. I first found out that I shared my day with the Holy Innocents when I was about ten years old. It was a sobering realization. I sometimes joke that it was a good day to be born a girl; I would not have been under threat from Herod. For a while, I thought that there might be some cosmic significance to the day of my birth, that I might be specially called to assist in the pro-life movement or something of that sort. I no longer think that to be the case, although I do remember to pray for the souls of all murdered children and for the conversion of those who perpetrate evil on children on my birthday when I attend Mass (I always go to Mass on my birthday, even though I'm not in the habit of going to daily Mass anymore). It isn't the most cheerful way to begin my birthday celebrations, but it makes me grateful to be alive.
For the last couple of years the homilies that I have heard on that day have not been centered on the pro-life movement or even particularly about crimes against children. They have been about coming to grips with the presence of evil in the world. It's an excellent yearly reminder for me, as it's something I've always had difficulty understanding. Why do floods and fires deprive good people of homes, property and life? Why does fatal illness take parents from their children and children from their parents? Why are people who commit horrific crimes allowed to remain in power while innocents languish in prison? How can a human being order the death of thousands of people who have done him no wrong?
I don't have the answers, but every year I have a particular opportunity to meditate on the questions. Every year I find myself more sensitive to the problems of the world, but at the same time better able to cope with the evils that arise in my path, learning to depend on God to sort things out when I can't do it myself.
18 December 2007
How Musicologists Amuse Ourselves
We generally have an end-of-semester grading party, during which many of us read aloud the more ridiculous answers we get on our exams. Some people may think it's cruel to ridicule students; I say we're not ridiculing the student, we're ridiculing stupid answers, and if you study so little that you think Lully was a woman, well, you deserve to be laughed at a little in the confines of our seminar room.
We parodied some of our worst exam answers by hybridizing them with commercials for a soap opera called "Musicologists of Our Lives" (maybe it was "Days of Our Musicology"--I've had a lot of coffee since then). Here are some of the gems that we made up:
"Gesualdo has killed his student, Heinrich Gabrieli, by stabbing him with a conducting staff, thus causing him to contract the Plague! What will happen next week?"
"Dowland, the well-known 14th Century French composer of Italian madrigals, is about to serenade his girlfriend, Lully."
"William Byrd travels to Venice in 1609 to study with Thomas Tallis, but will Tallis accept him as a student? Will he have to compete with Monteverdi for Tallis' attention? Answers after the break, along with the amazing revelation of the subject matter of Martin Luther's next composition (hint: it's a Florentine carnival song)!"
We generally have an end-of-semester grading party, during which many of us read aloud the more ridiculous answers we get on our exams. Some people may think it's cruel to ridicule students; I say we're not ridiculing the student, we're ridiculing stupid answers, and if you study so little that you think Lully was a woman, well, you deserve to be laughed at a little in the confines of our seminar room.
We parodied some of our worst exam answers by hybridizing them with commercials for a soap opera called "Musicologists of Our Lives" (maybe it was "Days of Our Musicology"--I've had a lot of coffee since then). Here are some of the gems that we made up:
"Gesualdo has killed his student, Heinrich Gabrieli, by stabbing him with a conducting staff, thus causing him to contract the Plague! What will happen next week?"
"Dowland, the well-known 14th Century French composer of Italian madrigals, is about to serenade his girlfriend, Lully."
"William Byrd travels to Venice in 1609 to study with Thomas Tallis, but will Tallis accept him as a student? Will he have to compete with Monteverdi for Tallis' attention? Answers after the break, along with the amazing revelation of the subject matter of Martin Luther's next composition (hint: it's a Florentine carnival song)!"
30 November 2007
St. Andrew's Novena
This is your yearly reminder: St. Andrew's Day is tomorrow (or today already, if you're on the east coast like Lizzy), so get out your novena prayer cards, think of an intention, and pray along with us!
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment when the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, o my God, to hear my prayers and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
Fifteen times a day. I like to say five repetitions three times a day; your mileage may vary. I promise, this one works.
This is your yearly reminder: St. Andrew's Day is tomorrow (or today already, if you're on the east coast like Lizzy), so get out your novena prayer cards, think of an intention, and pray along with us!
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment when the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, o my God, to hear my prayers and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior, Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.
Fifteen times a day. I like to say five repetitions three times a day; your mileage may vary. I promise, this one works.
26 November 2007
Nuptial Mass, 17th November 2007
St. Paul the Apostle Church, Los Angeles
Music:
Preludes: Duruflé, Veni Creator Spiritus; J.S. Bach, Liebster Jesu
Procession of the priest: Introit, Deus Israel
Procession of the wedding party: J.G. Walther, Concerto del Sigr. Albinoni mvt. 1
Kyrie: Palestrina, Missa Assumpta est Maria
Gradual: Uxor tua
Alleluia: Mittat vobis
Offertory: Duruflé, Ubi caritas
Sanctus: Missa Cum Jubilo (Mass IX)
Agnus Dei: Palestrina, Missa Assumpta est Maria
Communion: Palestrina, Surge propera amica mea
Recessional: Walther, Concerto del Sigr. Albinoni mvt. 3
Reception music: Andy Cooney Band.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the blog, CatholicNerd and I got married a little over a week ago. Lizzy is the maid of honor that you see in the fetching red dress. The Mass was chanted in English by a friend of ours from Spokane who did a wonderful job. It could only have been more perfect if it had been ad orientem (not possible with that altar because of steps right in front of it), if the choir had been a little more delicate with the Palestrina pieces, and if the parish wedding coordinator had let us have altar candles rather than asymmetrically-arranged floor candles (the wedding coordinator is the American manifestation of Dolores Umbridge; seriously, she's evil and her office is pink). It was beautiful, though, and touched the hearts of many of our non-Catholic guests, and many of the Catholic guests as well. I hope some of them came away with ideas of what Catholic marriage is, and what the liturgy is about.
The priest said it was the most beautiful wedding he'd witnessed in his thirty years of ministry, not because of the music alone--he's done chanted wedding Masses before--but because of the attitude of the people involved. He gave a beautiful homily relating marriage to the liturgy. I wouldn't say we're great friends with that priest, but he understands us and our particular brand of piety in a profound way, and his homily reflected that. I can't remember all of the last sentence of his homily, but I do remember the very last words--his resonant baritone voice boomed out, "...be like God."
People told me I wouldn't hear a note of the music after I started down the aisle. To the contrary, I heard the choirs warming up, I heard the introit chanted beautifully, I heard the organist's articulation, I heard the sopranos be screechy on the Kyrie, I saw the soloist's hands tremble as he held his music for the gradual verse, I heard the second reader consistently sing descending fourths instead of thirds. I heard the priest chanting the Roman canon, and delighted to hear the names of the saints even as I worried about my groom's knees giving out ("nobody kneels here," so the wedding coordinator wouldn't let us have a prie dieu--we knelt anyway, on the bare marble floor). I noticed a lot of things. I was very calm.
I wasn't calm when I got up that morning. I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall asleep again because I felt sick. I paced my apartment for three hours trying not to be sick, was sick at 6am anyway, and gave up and took a shower at 6:30. By 7 my maid of honor and "honorary bridesmaid" were awake, too, and they told jokes and calmed me down enough to eat a bit of breakfast before heading to the hotel where my mother would help me dress and do my hair. I saw CatholicNerd in the lobby just before we left for the church, and he looked wonderful. I guess I didn't look too bad, judging from the look on his face. We were both pretty comfortable by the time we got to the church, making jokes in the sacristy with the altar servers and the priest.
The Mass was solemn, and the reception was a hell of a party. We Catholics know about juxtapositions like that; solemnity loses its savor if you're always solemn, and the sweetness of rejoicing becomes cloying if you have no solemnity to balance it with--it would be like eating cake all the time. The reception was all the better because the Mass was solemn (good food, wine, music, and a large-ish crowd help, too).
We honeymooned in San Diego, and had two bits of Catholic nerdity--on Sunday morning we went to the local Extraordinary Use Mass at 9am (yes, 9am the day after the wedding), which happens to be in a cemetary chapel. On Wednesday as we returned to LA from San Diego, we visited Missions San Diego de Alcala, San Luis Rey de Francia, and San Juan Capistrano. We've vowed to do a novena of visiting missions--nine missions in 90 days--to pray for each other and for a good and fruitful marriage. (No, I've never heard of anyone doing such a novena before--we just made it up.)
Oh, and I bought my first chapel veil in the gift shop at San Juan Capistrano. It's black. I won't wear it all the time, because it would make me a distraction to people at my usual parish, but I'll have it for places where wearing a veil is more common, and that makes me happy.
St. Paul the Apostle Church, Los Angeles
Music:
Preludes: Duruflé, Veni Creator Spiritus; J.S. Bach, Liebster Jesu
Procession of the priest: Introit, Deus Israel
Procession of the wedding party: J.G. Walther, Concerto del Sigr. Albinoni mvt. 1
Kyrie: Palestrina, Missa Assumpta est Maria
Gradual: Uxor tua
Alleluia: Mittat vobis
Offertory: Duruflé, Ubi caritas
Sanctus: Missa Cum Jubilo (Mass IX)
Agnus Dei: Palestrina, Missa Assumpta est Maria
Communion: Palestrina, Surge propera amica mea
Recessional: Walther, Concerto del Sigr. Albinoni mvt. 3
Reception music: Andy Cooney Band.
For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the blog, CatholicNerd and I got married a little over a week ago. Lizzy is the maid of honor that you see in the fetching red dress. The Mass was chanted in English by a friend of ours from Spokane who did a wonderful job. It could only have been more perfect if it had been ad orientem (not possible with that altar because of steps right in front of it), if the choir had been a little more delicate with the Palestrina pieces, and if the parish wedding coordinator had let us have altar candles rather than asymmetrically-arranged floor candles (the wedding coordinator is the American manifestation of Dolores Umbridge; seriously, she's evil and her office is pink). It was beautiful, though, and touched the hearts of many of our non-Catholic guests, and many of the Catholic guests as well. I hope some of them came away with ideas of what Catholic marriage is, and what the liturgy is about.
The priest said it was the most beautiful wedding he'd witnessed in his thirty years of ministry, not because of the music alone--he's done chanted wedding Masses before--but because of the attitude of the people involved. He gave a beautiful homily relating marriage to the liturgy. I wouldn't say we're great friends with that priest, but he understands us and our particular brand of piety in a profound way, and his homily reflected that. I can't remember all of the last sentence of his homily, but I do remember the very last words--his resonant baritone voice boomed out, "...be like God."
People told me I wouldn't hear a note of the music after I started down the aisle. To the contrary, I heard the choirs warming up, I heard the introit chanted beautifully, I heard the organist's articulation, I heard the sopranos be screechy on the Kyrie, I saw the soloist's hands tremble as he held his music for the gradual verse, I heard the second reader consistently sing descending fourths instead of thirds. I heard the priest chanting the Roman canon, and delighted to hear the names of the saints even as I worried about my groom's knees giving out ("nobody kneels here," so the wedding coordinator wouldn't let us have a prie dieu--we knelt anyway, on the bare marble floor). I noticed a lot of things. I was very calm.
I wasn't calm when I got up that morning. I woke up at 3am and couldn't fall asleep again because I felt sick. I paced my apartment for three hours trying not to be sick, was sick at 6am anyway, and gave up and took a shower at 6:30. By 7 my maid of honor and "honorary bridesmaid" were awake, too, and they told jokes and calmed me down enough to eat a bit of breakfast before heading to the hotel where my mother would help me dress and do my hair. I saw CatholicNerd in the lobby just before we left for the church, and he looked wonderful. I guess I didn't look too bad, judging from the look on his face. We were both pretty comfortable by the time we got to the church, making jokes in the sacristy with the altar servers and the priest.
The Mass was solemn, and the reception was a hell of a party. We Catholics know about juxtapositions like that; solemnity loses its savor if you're always solemn, and the sweetness of rejoicing becomes cloying if you have no solemnity to balance it with--it would be like eating cake all the time. The reception was all the better because the Mass was solemn (good food, wine, music, and a large-ish crowd help, too).
We honeymooned in San Diego, and had two bits of Catholic nerdity--on Sunday morning we went to the local Extraordinary Use Mass at 9am (yes, 9am the day after the wedding), which happens to be in a cemetary chapel. On Wednesday as we returned to LA from San Diego, we visited Missions San Diego de Alcala, San Luis Rey de Francia, and San Juan Capistrano. We've vowed to do a novena of visiting missions--nine missions in 90 days--to pray for each other and for a good and fruitful marriage. (No, I've never heard of anyone doing such a novena before--we just made it up.)
Oh, and I bought my first chapel veil in the gift shop at San Juan Capistrano. It's black. I won't wear it all the time, because it would make me a distraction to people at my usual parish, but I'll have it for places where wearing a veil is more common, and that makes me happy.
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