Gloria Dei Choir at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church

On this fourth day of Christmas, the day after the Feast of the Holy Family, enjoy a recording of a carol that has been part of our annual Christmas tradition, the "Christmas Lullaby" by John Rutter, recorded during our Lessons and Carols from 2018 at Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Habra. "Clear in the darkness a light shines in Bethlehem Angels are singing their sound fills the air Wise men have journeyed to greet their Messiah... But only a mother and baby lie there Ave Maria, Ave Maria Hear the soft lullaby The angel host sing Ave Maria, Ave Maria Maiden and Mother Of Jesus our King Where are his courtiers and who are his people, Why does he bear neither sceptre nor crown Shepherds his courtiers the poor for his people With peace as his sceptre and love for his crown Ave Maria, Ave Maria Hear the soft lullaby The angel host sing Ave Maria, Ave Maria Maiden and Mother Of Jesus our King What though your treasures are not gold or incense Lay them before him with hearts full of love Praise to the Christ child and praise to his mother Who born us a saviour by grace from above Ave Maria, Ave Maria Hear the soft lullaby The angel host sing Ave Maria, Ave Maria Maiden and Mother Of Jesus our King" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qPsA_xctA

Merry Christmas from our Gloria Dei Choir family to yours! Although we wish we were able to celebrate together through music in person with our congregation, we wanted to share this clip of "Lo How a Rose E'er Blooming" from our 2018 Lessons and Carols Service. Wishing you and yours a blessed Christmas! May the New Year bring us all together again in our beautiful church at Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic Church, La Habra! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dc0LUpAgLfM

Amidst the tumult of our current times, let us remember that Jesus is with us and by our side. We will get through and overcome our current trials with the help of our Lord. Remember all that our Lord went through in His human condition on Earth and that he triumphed over the grave itself to open the doors of heaven for us. Only through suffering did He win the ultimate victory. Poignant and important words to keep in mind as we go through these trying times, from the second ...and third verses of this wonderful arrangement of Alleluia! Sing to Jesus by Robert Hobby: Alleluia! Not as orphans Are we left in sorrow now Alleluia! He is near us Faith believes nor questions how. Though the cloud from sight received him When the forty days were o’or, Shall our hearts forget his promise: I am with you evermore? Alleluia! Bread of angels Here on earth our food, our stay Alleluia! Here the sinful Flee to you from day to day Intercessor, friend of sinners Earth’s redeemer, hear our plea Where our songs of all the sinless Sweep across the crystal sea. (Written for the occasion of the 2015 visit of Pope Francis to the US. It was first sung for the celebration of Mass with the Pope on September 25, 2015 at Madison Square Garden in New York.)

CONGRATULATIONS to our extraordinary Todd Barber, who is not only a Bass in our choir and composer (whose arrangement of "What Child is This" is performed by our choir every year for Epiphany), but who is part of the team responsible for the Perseverance Rover to Mars, which was launched successfully this week! Congratulations to Todd, his team at JPL, and all of NASA on this landmark occasion! God's speed to Mars! We are proud to have such a remarkable individual with so much talent, ability, and humility as part of our choir!

As we celebrated our country this weekend, we sang "This Is My Song," as one of our hymns, based on Finlandia by Jean Sibelius. I wanted to share this memory of a favorite anthem, based on the same tune, "Be Still My Soul," arranged by Mack Wilberg, and the time we got to perform it at Christ Cathedral as part of the Homeless Memorial Mass on December 21, 2019. John Romeri was our organist for this piece that evening and our gracious host as the Music Director of the Cathed...ral. Due to the Coronavirus, his position can no longer be sustained, and he is moving back to the East Coast to be near his family, but his legacy of outstanding music at the Cathedral, and the influence he had on Orange County and Southern California, cannot be understated. Romeri will be greatly missed, and we thank him for this opportunity, for bringing and helping organize the amazing Festival we also participated in to the Cathedral with Mack Wilberg himself in October of 2019, and for his example of outstanding music he left for our diocese. May God bless you and keep you. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us. https://www.facebook.com/248610774585/videos/584921442327498 See more

Public Masses will return this weekend! The outdoor masses will be the only ones with music (cantor and accompanist only); the indoor masses will have no music. Please note that parishioners will need to bring their own chairs to the outdoor masses, but there are no limitations and no reservations required for outdoor masses. Indoor masses will require reservations and be limited to only 100 inside the church.

Congratulations to our own Jake Mackowicz on his Ordination to the Priesthood today at Christ Cathedral! He has served with us at Our Lady of Guadalupe Roman Catholic Church, La Habra for the past two summers as a Seminarian and a Deacon, respectively, and will be assigned to OLG for his first assignment as a Priest! And our very own Pastor, Father Ed, got to be the one to Vest him as priest. Praise the Lord! If you missed the live stream of the Ordination Mass, here is the link where you can still access it on the Cathedral's live stream website (it can also be accessed any time on the Facebook page for Christ Cathedral): https://mass.christcathedralcalifornia.org

In anticipation of the celebration of Pentecost this weekend, enjoy organ variations on Veni Creator, combined with the original chant plainsong, composed by one of our favorite composers, Maurice Duruflé.

A moment of fun here as we post a parody video of one of our very favorite choral composers, John Rutter. We do several of his anthems in the GDC and if you are at all familiar with his music you will recognize his style. Click through for the fun! We hope to find a similar video for our other favorite composer, Mack Wilberg.

https://youtu.be/6pNJQw2EHpQ

The funeral for Terry Kennedy, one of the members of our choir who recently lost his fight with cancer, will be live-streamed tomorrow on the YouTube Channel where our Sunday masses are usually seen. TIME: 10:00am DATE: Friday, May 15 LOCATION: Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Habra YouTube channel:... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZF2v0JNmbCtCKvuUCMhDVg Although none of the members of the Gloria Dei Choir are able to attend in person, we will all be together in spirit, attending virtually, and singing along with the pre-recorded hymns at home. Below can also be found a beautiful obituary written for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune: https://www.legacy.com/amp/obituaries/sgvtribune/196170216 If you would like to attend but are unable to tune in at 10am due to work or other appointments, the mass may still be available to view later on in the day on the same YouTube channel.

Happy Mother's Day to all Mothers in our parish and in our Gloria Dei Choir, and to all who nurture others as a Mother. Every Mother's Day, we usually sing this version of the "Ave Maria" by Rachmaninoff from his All-Night Vespers. It is usually sung in the original Russian - "Bogoroditse Devo" - as it is in this recording performed by The Edinburgh Singers in St. Mary's Cathedral of Edinburgh. The English translation we usually use is very close to the English version of the... Hail Mary prayer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Msv4B8zUMQ If you missed our live-streamed Mass today, you can still watch it on YouTube and receive the blessing for all Mothers at the end of Mass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaXncM1a_gE Father Ed will also be imparting a "drive-thru" sign of the cross blessing in person for Mothers during our parish food distribution between 12pm and 2pm. If you only want the blessing, skip the line for the food distribution and go directly to Fr. Ed in the parking lot. Blessings to all Mothers, today and always, and may Our Lady of Guadalupe pray for us! Amen.

On this Good Shepherd Sunday, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, we celebrate the lives of two wonderful men and beloved members of our choir family, Terry Kennedy and Bruce Pasarow, who were taken from our sight and entered into eternity in the last few weeks to join the heavenly choir. Terry Kennedy entered eternal life this week on Tuesday, April 28, after a battle with cancer. He was an avid motorcycle enthusiast and a Vietnam veteran that loved to travel. He leaves behind his ...wife, Pam, and three daughters. He owned his own property management business, and parishioners might recognize him from ads he had in the bulletin for Kennedy Properties with his wife, Pam, and daughter, Chris. He was very supportive of our parish and sang bass in the choir for over 10 years. Bruce Pasarow entered eternal life on March 29, two weeks after undergoing an emergency quadruple bypass surgery. He was a retired librarian and a pilot who loved planes and books and had a great sense of humor. He and choir member Deborah Pasarow were married for almost 45 years, and have a daughter and two grandchildren. Bruce was a member of our choir for two and a half years. May God grant them eternal rest, and may perpetual light shine upon them. Requiem aeternam. We honor them with a musical setting of today's 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is My Shepherd," from the Requiem by John Rutter, that we have sung together in the Gloria Dei Choir: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8f_0NgsWzfA

Tune in to watch mass now! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkqEI6TwwJI

Happy Easter from the Gloria Dei Choir! He is Risen! Hallelujah! Although we cannot be together today to celebrate this special day with our church community, we wanted to share our favorite memory from last year’s Easter mass with our choir: the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah as the closing moments of the mass. Make sure to tune into our live stream of today’s Easter morning masses from OLG on our YouTube channel, at 10:30am for the English mass, and at 9:00am for the Spanish mass (click here for the YouTube channel): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZF2v0JNmbCtCKvuUCMhDVg