Undusted Texts

Here is another Lenten hymn, to pair with my recent setting of my old hymn text "When Time Had Come for Christ to Die."   Whereas that hymn is fitting for commemorating Christ's death on Good Friday, this hymn is a hymn of the myrrh-bearers, who came to anoint Christ's tomb.  It is a hymn of abandonment, a hymn of Holy Saturday.  I first wrote it almost a decade ago, with some adjustments throughout the years, and I'm happy to finally share it. The tune is "Picardy," a French carol tune.  It is best-known through Ralph Vaughan Williams' arrangement of "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence."  That is certainly the inspiration for my use of it here, as the text of that hymn is used as the Cherubikon for Holy Saturday. Have a blessed Fast. Longest Night of Earthly Vigil by Brandon P. Otto on Scribd Scribd link: https://www.scribd.com/document/706723610/Longest-Night-of-Earthly-Vigil Internet Archive mirror: https://archive.org/details/longes...

The front matter of my Vulgate for pleasure-reading—the Colunga-Turrado edition from the Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos series—includes a selection of Magisterial documents relating to Sacred Scripture. One section includes the responses and declarations of the Pontifical Biblical Commission (or, as it was once known, “the Pontifical Commission on Biblical Things,” Pontifica Commissio de Re Biblica ), instituted by Pope Leo XIII on October 30, 1902. A number of the early responses are considered infamous in exegetical circles for their rejection of historical-critical methods of exegesis; such methods later received an allowance in Pope Pius XII’s Divino Afflante Spiritu (1943). Amidst the more famous responses, such as “On the Mosaic Authorship of the Pentateuch” (1906), and “On the Historical Character of the First Three Chapters of Genesis” (1909), I noticed one I hadn’t heard of before, the very first response given by the Commission, which I translate below (Latin origi...

In a blog post from 2014 , reflecting on Good Friday, I included a hymn I had written, to be set to the tune JESU DULCIS MEMORIA.  Almost ten years later, I have finally prepared this musical setting: Scribd mirror: https://www.scribd.com/document/706718005/When-Time-Had-Come-for-Christ-to-Die   The bare text of the hymn is here:   When time had come for Christ to die, and Judas had betrayed Him by a twisted kiss for silver's gain, the sky did not hold back its rain. His Blood upon the ground did fall as guards brought Him the bitter gall. The sun did darken in that hour for sorrow did it overpower. In two spots did blood run that day, from the betrayer, from betrayed, in Akeldama's soiled field, on Golgotha where thunder pealed. Sixth hour passed when He was nailed, Ninth hour now the One who's hailed as He Who comes in the Lord's name will die the death of the infame. One thief to Heaven, one to Hell: the Psalm is now the L...

Included in this repack are Peter of Celle's two sermons (Sermons 65 and 66 ) on the Transfiguration of the Lord.  See the links above for the original posts. As I have been having trouble with my Scribd documents being inexplicably unavailable for download for anyone but me (though, oddly, they are still readable when embedded in a blog-post), I am switching to the Internet Archive for document sharing.  If issues with Scribd continue, I will switch my previous documents to Internet Archive as well. EDIT: Direct download can be found here . Link to Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/peter-of-celle-sermons-on-the-transfiguration-of-the-lord_202402 Scribd mirror: https://www.scribd.com/document/706718672/Peter-of-Celle-Sermons-on-the-Transfiguration-of-the-Lord Translation ©2024.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.   Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

I am going to begin to repackage my longer translations and groups of translations as handsome PDFs, released on Scribd.  These will provide for easy downloading and reading.  The first such release is a repack of my two-part translation of St. Charles de Foucauld's Meditations on Genesis .  The original posts can be found here: Part I , Part II . EDIT: Direct download can be found here . Charles de Foucauld -- Meditations on Genesis by Brandon P. Otto on Scribd Scribd link: https://www.scribd.com/document/703670637/Charles-de-Foucauld-Meditations-on-Genesis Internet Archive mirror: https://archive.org/details/charles-de-foucauld-meditations-on-genesis   Translation ©2024.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.   Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.

  Introduction As an alumnus of a Sacred Heart school, I have fond memories of the anonymous French hymn, "Coeur de Jésus, sauvez le monde," one of the anthems of Sacred Heart schools.  When the song popped into my head recently--particularly the bit in the chorus where "vous soit soumis" is repeated--I decided to look up the text and provide my own translation.   The melody in the version below is based on the four-part transcription by Laura Becker (found at https://aash.org/files/resource/attachment/coeur_de_jesus.pdf ).  However, my memory--which, being decades old at this point, might be faulty--included a dotted eighth note rhythm in the antepenultimate bar of the verse, where Becker's transcription has strict eighth notes (as in the final two bars of the verse).  Thus I've adjusted my rendition to match my memory. For purposes of sonic pleasure, I translated that "vous soit soumis" repetition as "is bowed to Thee" rather than ...