The Dominican Rite

08/09/2016

A BLESSED FEAST this day in the life of Holy Mother Church. May God shine brightly upon the Order of Preachers. May St. Dominic guide us to the way of truth.

05/30/2016

REQUIESCAT IN PACE A blessed Memorial Day to all of you.

12/01/2015

MORE PHOTOS from the Eastern Dominican Province from the Solemn Dominican Rite Mass for All Souls. Thank you, Fr. Benedict Croell, OP.

A solemn requiem Mass in the Dominican Rite was celebrated at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC (c) Fr. Lawrence Lew OP

11/26/2015

From Age to Age: The Beauty of Christ in the Sacred Liturgy. Jesson Mata, Director of the Office of Divine Worship in Portland, OR, appointed by Archbishop Alexander Sample, gave the opening lecture at the 2015 Sacred Liturgy Conference in Portland. Mr. Mata has served as Subdeacon for the Dominican Rite. He is an installed Acolyte and Lector, both received as a Dominican friar in the Western Dominican Province.

Jesson Mata, Director, Office of Divine Worship of the Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon. Recorded at the 2015 Sacred Liturgy Conference in Portland Oregon. ...

11/03/2015

Beautiful photos of a Solemn Requiem Mass in the House of Studies in the Eastern Province. Notice the brethren prostrating at the Ecce Agnus Dei.

Once a semester the friars at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington DC celebrate a ‘Missa Maior’ with three ranks of sacred ministers - priest, deacon, sub-deacon, and two acolytes. Brothers in...

08/08/2015

ST. DOMINIC, pray for us.

06/02/2015

MISSA CANTATA in Ohio with the Eastern Province brothers of the U.S.

Young men, 18-35 years old, considering a vocation to the Order of Preachers are invited to a 3PM Missa Cantata in the Dominican Rite for the Solemnity of our Holy Father, St. Dominic (old calendar) at St. Patrick’s Catholic church in Columbus, Ohio.

08/08/2014

HAPPY FEAST of St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers and for whom this site is dedicated.

05/27/2014

SOLEMN REQUIEM MASS in the Dominican Rite on the occasion of Memorial Day at Holy Rosary Church in Portland. Fr. Vincent Kelber, OP, the pastor (center), is a thoughtful rubrician who truly understands the Dominican Rite.

12/12/2013

The Dominicans celebrate a High Mass (Missa Cantata) every first Saturday of the month.

11/07/2013

PRE-MASS lecture on the Solemn Requiem Mass on the Dominican Rite at 6 PM on Friday before the Mass at 7. The brief lecture will cover the particulars of the Dominican Rite and Victoria's setting of the Requiem. Did you know that the Spaniard priest and composer, Tomas Luis de Victoria, was chaplain and choirmaster for the Empress Maria? Come find out about the composition of this magnificent piece and in what setting it was sung. Lecture by Jesson Mata, Subdeacon and Director of Liturgy and Music at Blessed Sacrament Church.

A HISTORY OF VICTORIA'S REQUIEM, which we will sing on Friday evening as part of the Solemn Dominican Rite Mass for the Feast of All Dominican Souls—

In the last years of the twenty or so that he spent in Rome, the Spanish priest from Avila, Tomás Luis de Victoria, composed and published in 1583 a book of Masses including a Missa pro defunctis for four-part choir. This early Requiem was reprinted in 1592. By then Victoria was well established in Madrid as choirmaster and chaplain to the Dowager Empress Maria, Philip II’s sister and widow of Maximilian II, now in retirement at the Royal Convent of the Barefoot Nuns of St Clare. The Princess Margaret, Maria’s daughter, was professed with solemn vows in 1584 and she was one of the thirty-three cloistered nuns whose daily services, the Liturgy of Divine Office, were rendered musically by twelve singing priests and four boys (increased to six after 1600).

In 1603 the Empress died (on February 26) and was buried in the Convent cloister three days later. The services were probably simple. The great obsequies were performed on April 22 and 23. These took place at the Church of St Peter and St Paul (where Madrid Cathedral now stands). The Convent chapel was much too small for such a memorial service. Vespers of the Office of the Dead was sung; then, in the early hours, Matins of the Dead, which we used to call the Dirge (from the Latin, ‘Dirige, Domine …’ with which the First Nocturn begins). Then, after the chanting of Lauds, the Missa pro defunctis, the solemn High Mass of the Dead, was celebrated. The catafalque representing the Empress Maria in her coffin stood between the coro and the high altar. King Philip III was there in his mourning black and silver, his cousin Princess Margaret, the royal nun, all the dignitaries of church and state, crowded into a scene which may now make us think of an El Greco painting, all to witness that ancient Catholic way of death, the Requiem Mass.

For this occasion the composer Victoria wrote his second Requiem—or correctly, as he called it, The Office of the Dead. He wrote music for the Mass itself, a funeral motet additional to the strict liturgy, and one of the great Latin texts for the ceremony of Absolution which follows the Mass, and a Lesson that belongs to Matins.

Two years later Victoria published this music (Royal Press, Madrid, 1605) and it has since become revered as well as admired, for it seems to be somehow a Requiem for an age—the end of Spain’s Golden Century, the end of Renaissance music, the last work, indeed, of Victoria himself. At least he published no more.

Notes by Bruno Turner, editor, Mapa Mundi music publications

Image: The Burial of Count Orgaz (El Greco, 1586-1588)

10/16/2013

HOLY ROSARY PARISH in Portland, Oregon celebrated a Solemn Dominican Rite Mass for their patronal feast of Our Lady of the Most Holy Rosary.