New Book of Old Hymns

Term 1 2026

Wed, 21 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For some reason I’ve been running a weekly chant zoom, running through a piece then playing an online quiz to consolidate vocabulary and the odd bit of neume reading concepts.

It has been 11.30am on Fridays for a long time, but this year there are plans afoot for a play in honour of St Wenceslas for which the rehearsals will take place on Fridays.

First continue 11.30am Fridays for February:

Feb 6 - Attende Domine
Feb 13 - Parce Domine
Feb 20 - Ave Regina Caelorum
Feb 27 - Ave Verum Corpus

Then switch to 1pm Mondays in March:

Mar 2 - Gloria Laus
Mar 9 - Vexilla Regis
Mar 16 - Ubi Caritas
Mar 23 - Stabat Mater
Mar 30 - Pange Lingua

How’s that?

There are 10 pieces in the Lessons so we won’t quite get up to Crux Fidelis, but we could go crazy and include both Pange Linguas on the last session. Or just acknowledge there are two Pange Linguas. Maybe have a vote whether Aquinas or Fortunatus.

Fifth Edition!

Thu, 17 Jul 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Fifth Edition is pretty much ready.

The intimidating task of converting the whole book from OpusTeX to Gregorio and Lilypond turned out to be very fun. I even managed to squeeze in another round and the Pater Noster.

And here’s the finished Papal page:

So, next is the job of updating all the little PDF Excerpts in this webpage. I’ll have a think about how to do that. Maybe there’s a way to automate it. I think last time it was very not automated.

God bless, Veronica

Habemus Papam!

Tue, 13 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We have a Pope!

So now I need to update the “Orémus pro Pontífice nostro” page in A New Book of Old Hymns.

The portrait is a fun thing to do. I have official portrait artists in the family - my husband did the portrait of Pope Benedict XVI from the third edition - but it turns out there’s a way to get a good portrait, without using AI, just tracing over a photo a couple of times.

It’s over twenty years now since I first felt happy enough with this book to consider it publishable. Back then, OpusTeX was a good choice for typesetting chant. Fortunately there have been great strides made with LuaLaTeX and Gregorio since those days. Now looks like a good time to finally rework the book using more current tools.

The choice of fonts is a non-essential, but nostalgic part of the book. The headings are in Humanist Minuscule, which uses the older Metafont way of rendering fonts in LaTeX. My main reason to write this article was to note that, if you’re having trouble getting LuaLaTeX to pick up .mf fonts, remember to do the updmap –enable Map=humanist.map thing as in the README file and then compile a test document using the fonts in both regular and huge sizes.

The main font used in the old books was Computer Modern Roman, the default font for TeX. I have grown to like the font, but I also like Calluna, a font I bought for another project.

OpusTeX was primarily for modern music, so I was able to notate regular five line music natively in the old books. Gregorio cannot do that, so I am using Lilypond for the modern notation. This should look much better.

St Francis Hymns

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

(Image Credit: Rijks Museum, Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata by Lorenzo Monaco)

Hopefully we’re getting to the end of Greater Sydney’s 2nd Lockdown and the feast of St Francis’ Stigmata will see all restrictions chucked out the window. Just in case this doesn’t happen, I’m planning ahead to sing at the 9.15am Livestream Mass for Friday 17th September 2021.

Back when we used to attend Maternal Heart, Lewisham, they prayed a novena on nine consecutive Thursday evenings each year. This involved two hymns - Corda Pia which is already here, and another in English, which I cannot find elsewhere on the Internet, so I type it out as I remember it:

Francis, thou wast lonely plying
For thy bread from door to door
Till God heard thy bitter sighing
For His Wounds and for His Poor.

Blind to earthly pomp and glory
Thou didst see the Crucified
Where the scars that told Love’s Story
Smote thee hand and feet and side

And His Eyes upon the mountain
Left each burning wound with thee
As they looked upon the fountain
Of thy soul in ecstasy

To the Father glory giving
And the wondrous wounded Son
Let us glorify the living
Spirit ever Three in One.

Here is my quick rendition of the tune using flat.io:

And here’s the PDF

If you have more information on this hymn, I would love to be able to properly credit the author and composer.

UPDATE! This hymn was written by Shane Leslie (1885-1971) and appears in the New Westminster Hymnal. My rusty grasp of copyright law suggests that this means that I need to ask someone permission to publish these words. If you know who to ask, drop us a line!

Ave Verum for Corpus Christi

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

So, turns out after all the preparation for this video, I’ve already made a Hymn of the Week video for Ave Verum last September. But this new video is different.

I was thinking about making more prepared videos with younger audiences in mind. I trawled through some of the museums offering public domain artwork for illustrations of the Crucifixion.

Looking through another Corpus Christi hymn, Adoro te devote, I noticed that each verse is a new scene, which could be illustrated. If I were to be teaching this to younger singers, I would take each verse separately. There’s the doubting Thomas, the penitent thief, the blessed Pelican! All very rich topics for talking about.

At the back of my mind, there’s the idea of making another online course, like my Little Office Course. It’s been going really well - possibly a result of renewed Marian devotion for the month of May. A complete collection of recordings going through A New Book of Old Hymns would be great. Making a set of mp3 recordings would be good, and could be sold as a download through gumroad rather than having to co-ordinate videos. A video course would be good though. Lots of possibilities.

Finding the time and peace to make headway is an issue though.

Happy Month of the Sacred Heart!

Veni Sancte Spiritus

Wed, 26 May 2021 00:00:00 +0000

I’ve updated the page for Veni Sancte Spiritus

Getting kids singing chant, showing that it would be great to have Gregorian chant as a part of everyday life, showing that it is possible to have Gregorian chant as a part of everyday life, that is still important to me.

So, I give that a go in this video.

And I realize that I need to teach my kids more. While I can see with my older kids that they do get there eventually.

The other bonus of making these videos is that uploading them maxxes out our household internet, so we get a bit of a holiday from the internet for a few hours.

Gaudete! Hymn of the Week

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Gaudete!

As this one is in four parts, I enlisted the help of some of my children, which was a lot of fun, plus interesting to see myself kinda conducting.

Here is the podcast:

and here is the video:

A favourite Medieval Christmas Carol which you can install in your own family with our step by step guide!

Here is the hymn’s page here

Gaudete, gaudete, Christus est natus
Ex Maria Virgine, gaudete

Tempus adest gratiae
Hoc quod optabamus
Carmina laetitiae
Devote redamus

Deus homo factus est
Natura mirante
Mundus renovatus est
A Christo regnante

Ezechielis porta
Clausa pertransitur
Unde lux est orta
Salus invenitur

Ergo nostra contio
Psallat iam in lustro
Benedicat Domino
Salus Regi nostro

or in English:

Rejoice, Rejoice! Christ is born of the Virgin Mary! Rejoice!

The time of grace has come for which we have prayed. Let us devoutly sing songs of joy!

God is made man, while nature wonders. The world is renewed by Christ the King.

The closed gate of Ezekiel has been passed through. Whence the light has risen, salvation is found.

Therefore let our assembly sing praises at this time of purification. Let us bless the Lord! Greetings to our King!

Alma Redemptoris - Hymn of the Week

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 00:00:00 +0000

I have been keeping up with the Hymn of the Week idea on Youtube, but haven’t been as consistent across different platforms.

Here’s the hymn page here: Alma

Here’s the podcast embed thing:

and the Youtube Video:

Hymn of the Week - Ave Verum

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Here’s the hymn page here: Ave Verum

Here’s the podcast embed thing:

And here’s the youtube embed:

You would be amazed how much feedback means to me - there should be Disqus comments here. Comments on Youtube are great. Anchor, the podcast thing, has a way to send audio feedback ready to use in future episodes.

God bless,

Veronica

Hymn of the Week - Litany of Our Lady

Mon, 27 Jul 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Week 2 of this crazy undertaking.

The Litany of Our Lady or Litany of Loreto - sung according to the second tune given in the Liber Usualis.

The dreaded end to a Mass for Our Lady…

I’ll admit that I wasn’t always overjoyed to hear this piece. Sometimes, after a long Latin Mass keeping little kids in line, the procession would divert to make a stop at the altar of Our Lady and strike up this piece. There would be times I would have to go out with the kids, but there were some times when I was able to stay and join in the responses. It’s so easy to sing - repetitive and meditative like the Rosary. Having two singers to do the “heavy lifting” is a good idea just in case, but it works with a solo cantor too.

Now it’s me who initiates singing the Litany at home. While making the recording it became obvious that I don’t do this often enough. Maybe I can make it a family custom for First Saturdays, especially now that access to the Sacraments is restricted.

Pope Francis’ additions

Earlier this year, His Holiness Pope Francis added three invocations to the Litany, and I have yet to add them to the hymnbook. I’ve added them to the Memrise course. The history of the Litany is rather amazing. This Wikipedia Article gives a good overview.

Also, on a procession I heard someone sing this collect and noticed the word “gaudére” which I have been mispronouncing as “gáudere” for all these years! Okay, I know people will be saying, who cares which syllable takes the accent, but I care. And this I will ammend in the hymnbook ASAP.

Ammending the hymnbook is not a trivial, easy thing. It is written using an obsolete package called OpusTeX. One day I will transfer it all over to the much easier and more modern system called GregorioTeX.

For now, enjoy the new mp3 recording, crossword puzzle and a video from Corpus Christi Watershed at the updated Litany page.