Posted on 06/03/2015 9:50:21 AM PDT by Salvation
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VEXILLA REGIS
The hymn "Abroad the Regal Banners Fly," sung at Vespers from Palm Sunday until Holy Thursday, and on the feast of the Exaltation (or Triumph) of the Holy Cross (September 14). It was also used formerly on Good Friday, when the Blessed Saacrament was taken from the repository to the high altar, and for Vespers on the now suppressed feast of the Finding of Holy Cross (May 3). Written by Venantius Fortunatus (530-609), it has at least forty translations in English alone.
All items in this dictionary are from Fr. John Hardon's Modern Catholic Dictionary, © Eternal Life. Used with permission.
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Thank you....beautiful.
I liked following that with the four settings.
I handle our choir's Email system - every Wednesday after choir practice I mail out YouTube videos of Sunday's selections. I try to find the ones with the score - it's such a help.
I also write the music column for our church website. I am a reactionary while the rector likes the happy-clappy stuff, so I'm kind of a stealth musician . . .
The Royal Banners Forward Go. Stand by, there's some organ noodling before they get down to business.
Richard Proulx, the late music director of the Catholic cathedral in Chicago, edited the Episcopal hymnal. They are undoubtedly a bunch of heretics (having gone over the line from being merely schismatic) but they have excellent musical taste.
Wish I could say the same for most American Catholics. The level of music competence/appreciation/ability in most parishes is appallingly low.
*If you could call it that!
Two of my aunts sang in the choir-one a soprano, the other an alto. From as long as I can remember, until I was about 9, the two came 6 days a week to help out, as my mother was a cancer survivor, was ill often, and tired easily. They would sing is the songs from choir practice, and it was lovely! There was a Christmas Carol called, "The Christ Child" (Little White Lamb in the Manger) that was just beautiful!! I can't find it on the'net; maybe you've heard of it....
God bless you!
I think I can offer one reason for our not learning much music. Religious instruction for the public school kids was changed from Sundays to weekdays two days a week. Something had to be eliminated for us, so we could get out early those two days and still get our own religious instruction in. Thus that cute little gadget with the 5 pieces of chalk, used to make a staff on the chalkboard was retired. We sang the National Anthem, and a hymn in the morning, and that used to be it most of the time. I wished they would have knocked out gym instead- I wasn’t any good....
Scroll down to No. 13 in the mpg files. It's sung as a baritone solo - didn't see an SATB setting.
If you watch enough of those YouTube videos with the score scrolling along, you can learn to read music easily enough! When I became Catholic I had never read Gregorian notation, it is quite different from our standard "staff notation". I had to work at it a bit, but I'm pretty confident with it now.
Our parish has a children's choir although it's not very well attended. I would like to see it mandatory. :-) Really. Music is an extremely valuable part not only of worship but of life in general.
I have thanked my parents in my heart over and over again for (1) making me take piano lessons and (2) making me participate in children's choir. I continued both on my own once I hit high school, and I have never really stopped. It is such a blessing to be able to pick up a piece of music and read it off or play it on the piano, I can learn so much music in much less time than folks who are learning by ear.
psst . . . you know, it's never too late to learn . . .
(((Tears))) Thank you, I’ve searched over the years and never found the right one... Last year, I lost my aunt who was the soprano- she was in her nineties and still sharp as a tack, but had the family breathing problems and couldn’t sing as she once did. How she used to manage that note, I’ll never know- even our lead soprano couldn’t- that was the only time we had a solo. I haven’t heard that hymn sung by anyone else before. Thank you again, and God bless you! You touched a heart today.
That's a traditional Catholic devotional hymns website, so there are probably some others on there you would enjoy.
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