A Special Song for your Special Day

Featured Books

Why Catholics Can't Sing: The Culture of Catholicism and the Triumph of Bad Taste
by Thomas Day

Day, head of the music department at Salve Regina College in Rhode Island, accurately and wittily skewers what passes for culture in American Catholicism, particularly as expressed in church music. He takes aim at the "Irish-American" repertoire of songs that comprise Catholic music in this country, and assails other less felicitous liturgical practices in vogue since Vatican II, such as applauding during Mass. "Liturgical post-modernism," according to Day, has resulted in noisy and forced participation from the laity, and encourages a church-wide narcissism that is a serious threat to individuals as well as the institution. No mere nay-sayer, Day makes positive suggestions for nurturing the latent vitality he perceives in the American Catholic community. This is an informative, insightful and entertaining critique.  $14.00

Singing the Psalms
by Cynthia Bourgeault

Fifteen hundred years ago, St. Benedict established a system of ora et labora - prayer and work - that monastics still follow today. Central to this prayerful integration of body and spirit is psalmody, or chanting the psalms. On Singing the Psalms, Episcopal priest Cynthia Bourgeault shows how the psalms - 150 exquisite paeans of praise and supplication to God - can awaken rich spiritual and psychological insights. This ancient path is accessible to you today, whatever your level of vocal skill or theological understanding. An ideal support for both solitary and group practice, Singing the Psalms includes a mini-psalter (psalm book) with instructions, musical notations, rhythmic and melodic suggestions, and more.Topics include: How psalmody can deepen contemplative prayer, Antiphons: the verses you use to "personalize" your psalmody, How to "bring your mind in harmony with your voice", Specific instructions for singing seven psalms and three other sacred songs,! The three functions of psalmody in spiritual transformation, How to create your own musical settings, and much more.

The Spirit of the Liturgy
by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI

Considered by Ratzinger devotees as his greatest work on the Liturgy, this profound and beautifully written treatment of the "great prayer of the Church" will help readers rediscover the Liturgy in all its hidden spiritual wealth and transcendent grandeur as the very center of our Christian life.

In his own foreward to the book, Cardinal Ratzinger compares this work to a much earlier classic of the same title by Romano Guardini because Ratzinger feels that his insights here are similar with what Guardini achieved in his time regarding a renewed understanding of the Liturgy.  $13.57