This book is about the culture of American Christianity and what it does to our understanding of God, self, and community as reflected in the way Christians worship.

Soulful jazz singer Billie Holiday is remembered today for her unique sound, troubled personal history, and a catalogue that includes such resonant songs as “Strange Fruit” and “God Bless the Child.” Holiday and her music were also strongly shaped by religion, often in surprising ways. Religion Around Billie Holiday examines the spiritual and religious forces that left their mark on the performer during her short but influential life. Mixing elements of biography with the history of race and American music, Tracy Fessenden explores the multiple religious influences on Holiday’s life and sound, including her time spent as a child in a Baltimore convent, the echoes of black Southern churches in the blues she encountered in brothels, the secular riffs on ancestral faith in the poetry of the Harlem Renaissance, and the Jewish songwriting culture of Tin Pan Alley. Fessenden looks at the vernacular devotions scholars call lived religion—the Catholicism of the streets, the Jewishness of the stage, the Pentecostalism of the roadhouse or the concert arena—alongside more formal religious articulations in institutions, doctrine, and ritual performance. Insightful and compelling, Fessenden’s study brings unexpected materials and archival voices to bear on the shaping of Billie Holiday’s exquisite craft and indelible persona. Religion Around Billie Holiday illuminates the power and durability of religion in the making of an American musical icon.

Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship provides basic guidelines for understanding the role and ministry of music in the liturgy. An excellent resource for priests, deacons, and music ministers!

This is a new release of the original 1939 edition.

Anthony Ruff, O.S.B., has written a brilliant, comprehensive, well-researched book about the treasures of the Church's musical tradition, and about the transformations brought about by liturgical reform. The liturgy constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium stated many revolutionary principles of liturgical reform. Regarding liturgical music, the Council's decrees mandated, on the one hand, the preservation of the inherited treasury of sacred music, and on the other hand, advocated adaptation and expansion of this treasury to meet the changed requirements of the reformed liturgy. In clear, precise language, he retrieves the Council's neglected teachings on the preservation of the inherited music treasury. He clearly shows that this task is not at odds with good pastoral practice, but is rather an integral part of it. The book proposes an alternate hermeneutic for understanding the Second Vatican Council's teachings on worship music.

Pamphlets are located in the pamphlet section, in the box labeled with the first heading listed below under Subjects. Pamphlets are for in library use only. Special permission to borrow the pamphlets may be granted by the librarians.

"Music and silence-how I detest them both!"Screwtape, under-secretary to the devil, The Screwtape Letters by C. S. LewisIt's easy to see why the enemies of mankind would hate and fear both sacred silence and sacred music. Both bring joy, spur contemplation, and draw the soul nearer to the Lord. Both have been part of our private prayer as well as our communal liturgy for thousands of years.The Psalms-biblical songs of praise, supplication, and wonder-have been sung for three thousand years. Naturally, Jesus, His disciples, and later the early Christian community also sang hymns (from the Greek word meaning "songs of praise"), as The New Testament makes clear. We sing because we love, and sung praise elevates our words, takes them out of the realm of the commonplace, and increases our joy. The holy pleasure of singing to God involves the entire person-spirit, heart, mind, and body-and unites us not only with the Divine but also with one another as a worshiping community.This collection of hymns for the singing Catholic congregation exemplifies the best of the genre. These songs are religiously orthodox, beautiful, sacred, and-for the most part-familiar. But here you will also find worthy hymn tunes and texts that are new to you.We present this book to propose not that hymns replace the proper chants for that days Mass* but live happily alongside them. In most instances the proper chants for processions are the prerogative of cantors and choirs and, as they change very day as part of the Mass aren't practical to be sung by the congregation. Hymns, on the other hand, belong to all the faithful and serve as a key means of the "active participation" spoken of in Vatican II's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. Hymns have been sung as an important part of the Liturgy of the Hours for century upon century, so they are nothing new, new only to be sung at Mass. "To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence."Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II, 1963), Paragraph 30In a parish where the scriptures are sung, the introit will accompany the procession of the ministers and the cross. Clergy, choir, and people can then sing a congregational hymn. The same is true at offertory and Communion: hymns can follow the proper chants. And at the conclusion of Mass, a suitable hymn can send the people forth with the praise of Almighty God on their lips.May this book bring joy to all who sing from it! What is the source of the Sung Antiphons for the Roman liturgy Mass?The proper texts of the Antiphons of the Roman liturgy may be found in: Graduale Romanum; English translations of these texts are also widely available. The antiphons from the Roman Missal, third edition, may also serve as proper texts. For more information see: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Vatican II, 1963), Musicam Sacram (Instruction on Music in the Liturgy, 1967)The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2010.

"No attempt has been made to present a critical study of Frances Jane Crosby, but simply to retell the life of the Sightless Singer as she, herself, told it to me on various occasions when visiting my home" - p. 11.