Category: Music

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Advent Music

The season of Advent has arrived. But nothing kicks the legs out from under our observance of Advent like premature Christmas songs. Advent, of course, is the season leading up to Christmas, designed to focus us on the hope and expectation of Christ’s future advent (arrival) and the celebration of his first advent. The spirit of Advent, then, is of watchfulness and waiting. Because of this, Christmas songs are inappropriate to the spirit of the Advent season. They don’t jive; they’re incongruous.

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Under the Standard of the Cross

The Exaltation of the Holy Cross on the 14th of September marks the lifting up of the True Cross before the Christians in Jerusalem after the consecration of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 335 AD. The lifting up of the Cross as a sign or standard to follow and venerate has been a long-established concept in Christian history. In virtually every depiction of Christ’s descent into hades and his resurrection, he carries the Cross as a scepter or banner. And from ancient prayers and chants to modern Christian hymnody, “the Cross is lifted over us, we journey in its light.“

But in Western tradition, there’s one hymn that for its antiquity, universality, and ubiquity stands above the others in its appropriateness on the Feast of the Holy Cross and as a processional song as the Cross is marched before us: The Royal Banners Forward Go. Continue reading “Under the Standard of the Cross”

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A Western Rite Album

As Western Rite churches and organizations continue to build up resources, one that deserves more attention is an album of choral music recorded by St. Patrick Orthodox Church in Bealeton, VA. This album’s the first of its kind (that I know of), providing an actual example of what a good Western Rite Orthodox choir can sound like. Scores and hymnals are well and good, but here in this recording is what the music sounds like, what it’s meant to be.

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