The Class of 2011 of the newly inaugurated Blessed John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music, were honoured at the weekend by the visit of Mgr Andrew Wadsworth to give the first guest lecture.
Mgr Wadsworth, who is the executive director of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), gave the talk on “Welcoming the New English Translation of the Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal”.
Participants listened avidly as he explained the “fuller expression of the content in the original text, a more obvious connection with the Scriptures which inspire our liturgy and a recovery of the vocabulary of faith that will enrich our understanding of the mystery”.
In particular, Mgr Wadsworth talked about how the music in the missal had come to be developed and written, and about the “implications for some of the music used at Mass, as missal chants will now be shared with all other English-speaking Catholics”.
These new missal chants when sung as intended are very Catholic in nature as evidenced at the Requiem for the late Sir Jimmy Savile, which was broadcast on BBC Radio in its entirety. Anyone tuning in to the broadcast unawares, would instantly have known from the music that this was a truly Catholic event.
During the session, many questions were answered and afterwards Mgr Wadsworth chatted freely to participants.
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