The Music Of The Church

 

The Western Rite, dear friends, has beautiful music and it's part of our inheritance, an inheritance which has been trashed by the vandals who took control of our worship some 50 years ago. Out went plainsong, in came banalsong, nylon vestments and industrial attack language vernacular. The argument was and is simple, unless we ape secular fashion and trend we won't appeal to all the secularists.

So, get rid of our liturgy and music and all those disbelievers will come flocking to church, just you wait and see. Well, we've waited and we've seen, they haven't, go figure, step back in utter dumbfounded amazement. Vatican Two? Empty the pew. But all's not lost, listen to the Sisters of Aquinas sing the Veni Creator.

What is that, a seven person schola/choir? I tell you, If my country missions had even a four part equivalent people would drive for tens and tens of miles to worship with them, no kidding. We would stand out in the beauty of holiness, a beauty which the world and all of us badly need.

Surely a 4 person plainsong choir could be achieved, even in rural Texas, right here for the glory of God. That said, you might be surprised to know how hard such a thing is to achieve. Praise bands? Different story. But I won't bang on.

Veni,

LSP

Te Deum - And Return

 

Return to what? The ancient Faith of the West, the faith of Bohemund at the gate, of all that's right and true. Stand fast by that and think, what else do you have? No luggage racks on the back of a hearse, my friends, ask Epstein.

Saying,

LSP

The Saint Michael's Conference, 2017

Normally I'd be on the staff of the St. Michael's Conference for young people right now, overseeing the liturgical dance, teaching a couple of classes and leading discussion groups on UFOs, Cryptids and Why You Shouldn't Be A Thieving Hippy. But this year I took a break and sent a cadet instead. "I don't want to cramp your style," I told my son.

Still, I miss the event. It's an outstanding, immersive course in traditional catholicism as seen through an Anglican lens. Something like an Anglo-Catholic boot camp perhaps, and a lot of fun for the kids who don't seem to miss guitar playing nuns, wymin priests and all the other skulduggery of unpopular modern worship and watered down belief.  

At the Conference the staff don't peddle that, they do worship and teach according to the Faith which has been handed down to us by Christ through the Apostles. 

There is great, Spirit-filled converting power in this and in the end, when the ersatz versions of Christianity have run their course, it's this Faith which will be left standing against the gates of Hell.

Those, says Christ, won't prevail.

God bless,

LSP