Christus Regnat and "Saint Brigid: Two Sequences"

Recently, the folks at the Saint Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association in Ireland informed the NLM of a bi-annual journal they put out, Christus Regnat. The journal has been published for three years and seeks "to provide both a vehicle for and to encourage scholarship and to inform our readers in various fields of liturgy, archaeology, biography, music, art, architecture, and piety, with an emphasis upon matters Irish and related to Ireland." They also note that they have the aim of publishing "predominantly original or otherwise unpublished material"; a laudable initiative indeed.

Past issues of Christus Regnat have included original research into the lives of various Bishops of Kildare and Leighlin; actuosa participatio; the Irish traditional liturgical calendar; Jansenism, the Liturgy and Ireland, and more.

In their current issue, published this June, they include a consideration of St. John the Baptist in the usus antiquior and offer an interview with Fr. Samuel Weber. In addition, they have also published a study of two sequences for St. Brigid of Kildare, the patroness of Ireland, which we are pleased to present here in full today.

This article was published by Dr. Sara G. Casey of the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Casey received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh in 2003. Specializing in Historical Musicology, her doctoral dissertation was entitled "Songs for the Peregrini: Proper Chants for Irish Saints as Found In Continental Manuscripts of the Middle Ages." She is also the author of: 'Glendalough: Liturgy and Music' in "Glendalough: City of God" (Blackrock, Co. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2010).

Forthcoming offerings from Dr. Casey will include, “Songs for the Peregrini: Proper Chants for Irish Saints in Continental Manuscripts of the Middle Ages.” Essays from Symposium for Music in the Medieval Celtic Regions, Brepols; “Irish Saints” and "The Drummond Missal” in The Encyclopaedia of Music in Ireland, University College Press; and "'Through a Glass Darkly:' Steps Towards Reconstructing Irish Chant from the Neumes of the Drummond Missal," Early Music 28 (2000): 202-215.

She has also presented numerous papers, most recently, “Sequences for Irish Saints: Columbanus and Laurence,” at Cantus Planus: A Chant Symposium in East Canton, Ohio.

Saint Brigid of Kildare: Two Sequences

St. Conleth's informs us that the December 2010 issue of Christus Regnat will include articles on the Sarum Use, the 'real' Saint Patrick, Flann O'Brien and Catholicism, and the Most Rev. Dr. Michael Comerford.

Those would would be interested in receiving this bi-annual periodical, please contact the St. Conleth's Catholic Heritage Association.