Musica Seraphica — Music for the Catholic Liturgy

What is this project?

The principal aim of the Musica Seraphica project is to make available newly-composed organ music for use in the Catholic liturgy.

The core output of the project is high-quality, accessible hymn preludes based on the best of the traditional, vernacular congregational hymnody in the common repertoire of Catholic Parishes in the United States.

Priority is given to those commonly-used vernacular hymns, with their own characteristic and time-honored melodies, that represent translations or close paraphrases of liturgical texts proper to the Roman Rite. Preference is also given to tunes closely associated in common use with texts by Catholic hymnographers.

Special attention is also given to hymns dedicated to Our Lady.

The organ pieces are designed to enrich the liturgical worship of the average parish, whose primary vehicle of praise remains vernacular hymnody. They can help couch the singing of the community within a musical fabric that is a cohesive, edifying whole, and they call positive attention to these gems of congregational song, a precious heritage, that we can so often take for granted.

This project may also include vocal music for the liturgy, especially translations into English of popular Marian hymns from other languages, choral miniatures useful for choirs of modest means, and perhaps some settings of the Ordinary of the Mass.

All of these pieces are offered under a Creative Commons license, and are free for liturgical use at no cost. God has abundantly blessed me and my family by permitting me to work as a full-time church musician in a beautiful, faithful Catholic parish and school, and so I can donate these works for the good of the Church and divine worship at no cost.

New Additions

• Prelude on LAMBILLOTTEFebruary 13, 2022
  This stirring tune, composed by its namesake, a Belgian Jesuit priest of the 19th Century, has come to be associated in the English-speaking world with the simple majesty of Fr Caswall’s translation of Veni, Creator Spiritus, a hymn to the Holy Spirit associated with Pentecost, Confirmation, Ordination, and even, by custom, the New Year. ThisContinue reading “Prelude on LAMBILLOTTE”
• Trio on “SWEET SACRAMENT”February 11, 2022
  This beautiful tune is wed in in the English language to Fr. Frederick Faber’s Eucharistic text, “Jesus, My Lord, My God, My All”, which first appeared in print in 1849, although the tune originated with a German hymn about Holy Baptism. This Trio was composed for my oldest daughter’s First Communion. It can be playedContinue reading “Trio on “SWEET SACRAMENT””
• Prelude on “IN BABILONE”February 11, 2022
  This Dutch tune is often associated in Catholic hymnals with two great texts — “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy,” by Fr. Frederick Faber, CO, one of the great English Catholic hymn writers of the 19th Century, as well as “Blessed Feasts of Blessed Martyrs,” John Mason Neale’s 19th-Century translation of Pope St. Gregory theContinue reading “Prelude on “IN BABILONE””