Liturgical Notes

Bishop Lopes talks about our Missal

We use Divine Worship: The Missal for our worship. Our Bishop, Bishop Steven Lopes, recently presented the Hillenbrand lecture on the origins of this Missal at the Liturgical Institute at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake. You can read the text of his lecture here and view our pew Missal here… Read more

“Why Divine Worship: The Missal is so Important…”

Advent Sunday saw the first use of the final version of the Ordinariate Use of the Roman Rite. Our Missal is the first Rome has promulgated for the Western Church since Vatican II, fifty years ago; the one before that was five hundred years earlier: this does not happen every day! But there are a… Read more

But…What IS a Verger?

A Verger (sometimes “Virger”) is a specialized form of Sacristan; therefore a Biblical origin for their office can be found in those members of the Priestly Tribe of Levi set aside by King David and the Prophet Samuel: The gatekeepers were…in charge of the gates of the house of the Lord…as guards…and they had charge of… Read more

Program from Ecumenical Evensong

Choral Evensong (Evening Prayer sung by choir) is a distinctively Anglican worship service derived from the ancient monastic daily office practices of awaiting God’s presence, hearing him speak through his word, and offering intercessory prayer to him. The form and language of tonight’s service were developed in the mid 1500s by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas… Read more

“Why does the Priest have his back to us?”

ONE OF THE FIRST THINGS a visitor to Saint Gregory the Great might notice is that the Celebrant is standing on the same side of the Altar as the people and has his back to them a fair amount of the time during Mass; the technical term for this is worship “ad orientem” (that is, “towards the East,” where the sun rises… Read more