Laetabundus: the Sequence for Christmas

As long time readers of "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" know, I have never forgiven the Council of Trent for eliminating all but a handful of sequences.  Christmas is a glaring hole in the liturgical calender.  Although it is a big feast for ordinary folk in the pews, it does not merit a sequence in wither the Missal of John XXIII or Paul VI.

Sequences are lengthy chants that should follow the Gospel Alleluia, hence the name "sequence."  (The General Instruction seems to require that order be reversed in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite which makes no sense liturgically, musically, or historically.)  As I see it, the sequences' main function is to give musical coverage for a more elaborate gospel procession on special feasts or in big Cathedrals.  Sequences are a "drawing out' of the Alleluia verse while the procession processes.  Their cadence suits a procession. 

It turns out there is a Christmas sequence and it is not a liturgical fossil.  It is the Eleventh Century chant, "Laurabundus." It is still in the Dominican Missal, which is one of the uses of the Roman Rite

Jeffrey Tucker alerts us to its existence and has posted a video of  its being sung.  Read "Sweeten Your Christmas Song: Laetabundus."

Alleluia!

There is a New Biography of Ayn Rand–in Fact, Two!

Jennifer Burns has written a new biography of Ayn Rand, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right.  And it has gotten a good deal of attention and Kendra Marr writes in Politco.com that Ayn Rand is having a mainstream moment."

On National Review Online, Peter Wehner hopes it will pass because "Objectively, Ayn Rand Was a Nut." He reminds us that "Whittaker Chambers...in 1957, reviewed Atlas Shrugged in National Review and read her out of the conservative movement." You can find that review online.   Rand's system seems as rational and inhuman as that of the socialists, yet her books have great appeal to libertarians and others.  They sell in the hundreds of thousands of copies.  Michael Berliner critiques Chambers' review in Capitalism Magazine.  Read both and judge for your self.

there is also a second new biography out: Anne C. Heller's Ayn Rand and the World She Made (Doubleday, 2009.)

Bottum On First Things

Put on your earphones and listen to what First Things is about. More fundamentally, what Joseph Bottum is going to do with it now that Fr. John Neuhaus is holing court in a more luminous place:

Interview with Joseph Bottum from Joe Carter on Vimeo.

Benedict Approves a Document on the Reform of the Reform

As with past councils, it is only now that the fruits of the council are budding.

Rejoice and be glad!

Succoth, the festival of Huts, was a harvest feast. It was called Pentecost in Greek (fifty days after.) It too will come! We will harvest the fruits of the Council!

There is a special irony. The Hebrews lived in tents (huts, booths, tabernacles=tents) for forty years. We seem fated to spend forty years in the dessert living in tents before we reach the promised land. So it was after Vatican I and so it has been liturgically after Vatican II!

You Never Know What Impact You Have.

Robert (not Michael) Novak died yesterday. Yes, that is the Novak of Novak and Evans. Atholic News Service tells us:

"Novak then started to go to Mass regularly and decided to convert a few years later. According to Novak, the turning point came when he visited Syracuse University in New York to lecture. Before he spoke he was seated at a dinner table near a young woman who wore a cross necklace. Novak asked her if she was Catholic, and she asked him the same.

"Novak said that he had been going to Mass each Sunday for the last four years, but had not converted.

“'Mr. Novak, life is short, but eternity is forever,' the woman responded, thus moving the journalist to begin studying for the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, the rite by which people learn the Catholic faith. He was baptized at St. Patrick’s in 1998. His wife was also baptized a Catholic."

When biopsy revealed a major tumor and that he had six months to a year to live, Novak said, “Being read your death sentence is like being a character in one of the old Bette Davis movies. I believe I was able to withstand this shock because of my Catholic faith, to which I converted in 1998.”