Author: Richard Chonak

The Easter Vigil, celebrated at Our Lady of Walsingham Church in Houston by Bishop Steven Lopes. The church is the seat of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the body in North America for Catholics of Anglican heritage. Their Mass follows the approved liturgical form for the Ordinariate, Divine Worship: The Missal, which preserves elements of Anglican patrimony in a Mass of the Roman rite.

A bulletin with the hymns and chants of the Mass is available on-line. The organist and choirmaster of the parish is Edmund Murray.

From St. Mary’s Cathedral in Sydney, Australia, the Easter Vigil:

From St. Paul Church, Harvard Square, Cambridge:

Fr. George William Rutler, pastor of St. Michael Church in New York, presents a meditation on the Passion of Christ:

While most of us are at home without access to attend Mass, there are some efforts underway to encourage people to take up the other daily liturgy of the Church, the Liturgy of the Hours. Saying or singing the Liturgy of the Hours lets everyone take part in the official daily prayer of the Church; it unites us in a practical way with the Church’s life of grace and unity, even more so than our personal devotions.

Professor Jenny Donelson of the seminary at Dunwoodie will be giving an on-line seminar on this subject Wednesday, April 15. Her presentation will include an introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the “Divine Office”), a lesson on reading square notation, and chanting the Divine Office. The program will end with singing Compline, the last service of the day, in Latin and English. This is a free event sponsored by the Sacred Arts Guild of Alberta and Sacred Heart Church in Calgary. The webinar runs from 7:00-8:30 p.m. Mountain time (9:00-10:30 Eastern). Registration is available at this page.

The Holy Week services of the Byzantine rite are the glory of the church year: at times sober because of our sins, at times filled with confidence because our salvation is coming, and never far from the paradox of Christ our God dying for us. This Divine Liturgy was recorded in 2019 at St. Elias Ukrainian Catholic Church in Brampton, Ontario:

Perhaps the most characteristic hymn of Holy Week, in a setting by Palestrina: