Mass from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham

Mass was offered this morning for the Fifth Sunday of Lent at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham in Houston, the seat of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, the ecclesiastical jurisdiction for Catholics in North America of Anglican heritage:

PS: While we’re mentioning one church named in honor of Our Lady of Walsingham, her National Shrine in England has started 24/7 live streaming of its events, including today’s Mass rededicating England to our Lady as her “dowry”:
https://www.walsingham.org.uk/live-stream/

Prayers for the event are on-line at https://www.behold2020.com/

Closing time at St. James

The “Classic FM” radio station in Britain shared this on Facebook the other day:

Last Sunday, hours before lockdown in the United Kingdom, some singers continued the tradition of singing church services, but singing to empty buildings and spaced two meters apart.

This is Mozart’s ‘Ave verum corpus’, sung at St James’, Spanish Place in London.

Ordinary Form Ordo 2020

The USCCB Committee on Divine Worship has helpfully published the 2020 Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States of America (PDF, free download) on their web site.
The Calendar contains Scripture readings for each observance, details about regional variations in holy days of obligation, and an appendix listing patronal days for Latin American countries and the corresponding celebrations that may be observed when they fall on ferial days.
Also mentioned is the new memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, which falls on Pentecost Monday; this year that will be June 1, temporarily displacing St. Justin Martyr.

The water organ

W.H. Auden’s Hymn to Saint Cecilia, memorably set to voices by Benjamin Britten, sketches the patroness of music thus:

In a garden shady this holy lady
With reverent cadence and subtle psalm,
Like a black swan as death came on,
Poured out her song in perfect calm:
And by ocean’s margin this innocent virgin
Constructed an organ to enlarge her prayer,
And notes tremendous from her great engine
Thundered out on the Roman air.

Why would St. Cecilia construct an organ by the shore? We don’t think of that as a hospitable place for delicate instruments. But the earliest known pipe organ, the hydraulis, invented in the third century BC, ingeniously used water to maintain the pressure in its wind chest. This animation illustrates the mechanism:

and this reproduction instrument at Bath illustrates some of its potential for sound:

No wonder the Byzantine emperors used it in their court ceremonies. This German reconstruction sounds more refined:

A February conference with Peter Latona

Musicians looking for an educational event next February may like to consider a conference NPM is putting on February 10-12 in Washington, with Dr. Peter Latona, the director of music at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in D.C. The program includes four talks by Dr. Latona, two of them at the Basilica, and features the opportunity to observe a choir rehearsal on site. More information on the program, costs, and accommodations are in the event brochure.