Category Archives: Catechesis

Catechesis, High Mass

Gaudete Sunday 2019

Gaudete Sunday (Third Sunday of Advent) will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven, this Sunday, December 15, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Peter J. Langevin, Chancellor, Diocese of Norwich, will be the celebrant and homilist, and The Reverend Robert L. Turner, Pastor of St. Ambrose Church, North Branford will serve as Deacon. The Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant for the service.

Gaudete Sunday marks the midpoint of Advent. As on Laetare Sunday, the midpoint of Lent, the penitential character of the liturgy is relaxed; the organ is played, flowers are permitted on the altar, and violet vestments are replaced with rose. The Introit at Mass exhorts Christians to rejoice at the coming of Christ at Christmas in anticipation of His Second Coming at the end of time.

Saint John the Baptist preaches in the Gospel at today’s Mass, “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord … the latchet of whose shoe I am not worthy to loose.” Following John’s exhortation to prepare for the coming of the Lord, the Church urges her faithful in the Communion Antiphon to “take courage and fear not: behold our God will come, and will save us.”

Music for the liturgy to be sung by the Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will include the Missa Cum jubilo (Vatican edition IX) chant ordinary, the Gregorian proper for Advent Sunday: “Gaudete in Domino semper,” the Antiphon “Alma Redemptoris Mater” set Felice Anerio, the Advent Hymn, “Veni Emmanuel,” and organ music by Jean Titelousze.

Blessed Virgin Mary, Catechesis

Latin Mass New Haven for December 8

The Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven, this Sunday, December 8, at 2:00 p.m. The Reverend Matthew Mauriello will be the celebrant, and the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

Although the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady was defined as dogma by Pope Pius IX on 8 December 1854, the veneration of Mary’s spotless holiness is far more ancient. The feast was observed in the East from the 8th century, in Ireland from the ninth, and in England from the eleventh.

As we anticipate the birth of Our Lord on Christmas, let us rejoice with the cry of admiration that the Church puts in our lips in the liturgy: “Tota pulchra es, Maria! – Thou art all fair, O Mary, unstained by original sin.” And so, the feast of the Immaculate Conception, coming in the course of Advent, heralds the splendors of the Incarnation of the Redeemer.

Music for the liturgy will include the Gregorian chant ordinary “Missa Marialis (Vatican ed. IX/X, the proper Gregorian chants, polyphonic  motets by Guillaume Dufay and Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and organ music by Jean Titelouze.

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Catechesis

Latin Mass for the 24th and Last Sunday after Pentecost

The Twenty-fourth and Last Sunday after Pentecost will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street, New Haven, this Sunday, November 22, at 2:00 p.m. The Reverend Ian Pikulski will be the celebrant, and the Schola Cantorum of the St. Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

On this final Sunday of the Church Year, the Liturgy calls our minds to reflection on the end of this world. The dread of the Last Judgment invoked in the Gospel is offset by the promise of Christ’s second coming in glory with its promise of salvation for the faithful, as expressed in the Introit: “I think thoughts of peace, and not of affliction”.

During this time, let us meditate on last things—death, judgment, heaven and hell—and pray that we receive the discernment to choose to the good in our lives and to resist temptations to do evil.

Music for the liturgy will include the Gregorian chant ordinary “Missa Orbis factor” (Mass XI)  the proper Gregorian chants, motets by Heinrich Isaac and William Byrd, and organ music by Charles Tournemire and Alexandre Guilmant

Catechesis

Latin Mass in New Haven for Christ the King

The Feast of Christ the King will be observed in a celebration of Solemn Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street in New Haven, on Sunday, 27 October, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Michael Novajosky, Pastor of the Cathedral Parish of Bridgeport will be the celebrant and homilist, and The Reverend Donald Kloster will be the deacon. The Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of Christ the King in his Encyclical Letter of Quas primas of 1925. In this letter the Pope showed how laïcism and secularism, by organizing society without any reference to God, lead to the apostasy of the masses and the ruin of society because of their complete denial of Christ’s Kingship, which is one of the greatest heresies of our time. The Pope proposed this feast as an annual liturgical assertion of Christ’s divine right of Kingship as an effective means of combating this pernicious heresy.

By its position on the last Sunday in October, towards the end of the Liturgical Year and just before the All Saints Day, the feast of Christ the King comes at the climax of the celebration of all Christ’s mysteries and a kind of earthly anticipation of his everlasting reign over the elect in the glory of heaven.  

Music for the liturgy will include the Gregorian chant ordinary “Missa Marialis” (Vatican edition IX/X), the Mass proper for the feast of Christ the King (“Dignus est agnus”), motets by John Dunstable and Guillaume Dufay, and organ music by Jacques Boyvin and Guillaume de Nivers.

Catechesis

TLM for the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

The Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost will be observed in a celebration of High Mass at St. Stanislaus Church, State Street at Eld Street in New Haven, on Sunday, 13 October, at 2:00 pm. The Reverend Peter Langevin, Chancellor of the Diocese of Norwich, and the Schola Cantorum of the Saint Gregory Society will sing the Gregorian chant and polyphony for the service.

During these last Sundays of the liturgical year, the Church reminds us with special emphasis of the of the return of Christ when he comes at the end of time to lead us the house of His Father. All the parts of the Mass proper for this Sunday mention the house of God as a prefiguration of heaven, the eternal temple which all nations are summoned to enter. Belonging to the Church means entering here on earth the House of the Lord and obtaining in full measure the treasures of salvation that Christ there bestows upon us.

The Church on earth is the heavenly city which is building up here below, in which, through the ministry of her priests, we receive the pardon of sins, the sacrifice of the Mass, and the Eucharist, which enable us to participate increasingly in the divine life and prepare us for the everlasting life.

Music for the liturgy will include the Gregorian chant ordinary “Missa Marialis” (Vatican edition IX/X), the Mass proper for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost (“Da pacem, Domine”), motets by Tomás Luis de Victoria, and organ music by Antonio de Cabezon and Francisco Correa de Arrauxo