Credo III

Gregorian Chant is a School that Teaches How to Serve God and Be a True Man

The Miles Christi religious order has a wonderful piece on Gregorian Chant in their July 2009 newsletter. Some notatable quotes follow:

"The musical evolution that drifts away from Gregorian Chant leads to a decline in the sense of Church and of God. In a hand-written message, revealed on the occasion of the Centenary of the Motu Proprio of St. Pius X, 'Tra le sollecitudini,' on the renewal of sacred music, John Paul II called on the Church to begin a profound renewal of liturgical chant and of music in the Mass and in other ecclesiastical celebrations.

In his letter, dated November 22, 2003, the feast of St. Cecilia -- patroness of sacred music -- John Paul II pointed out that this centenary gave him 'the opportunity to recall the important role of sacred music, which St. Pius X presented both as a means of lifting up the spirit to God and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church.'

The Holy Father then gave an account of the Church's age-old teaching on the nobility and importance of liturgical chant and pointed out that 'in this perspective, in the light of the Magisterium, of St. Pius X, and my other Predecessors, and taking into account in particular the pronouncements of the Second Vatican Council, I would like to re-propose several fundamental principles regarding the composition and the use of music in liturgical celebrations.

First of all, it is necessary to emphasize that music destined for sacred rites must have sanctity as its reference point. The Holy Pontiff warned, 'Today, moreover, the sacred music genre has been broadened to include repertoires that cannot be part of the celebration without violating the spirit and norms of the Liturgy itself.' He also pointed out that 'consequently, not all forms of music can be considered suitable for litrugical celebrations."

Another principle 'is that of beauty of form. There can be no music composed for the celebration of sacred rites which is not first of all true art.

The sacred context of the liturgical celebration must never become a laboratory for experimentation. Pope John Paul II later said, 'Gregorian chant has a special place,' since it 'also continues today to be the element of unity' in the Liturgy.

The Holy Father recognized the value of popular liturgical music, but regarding it he pointed out that 'I make my own the fundamental law that St. Pius X formulated in these words, 'The more closely a church composition approaches the Gregorian melodic form in its rhythm, inspiration, and savor, the more sacred and liturgical it becomes; and the father it is from that supreme model, the less worthy it is of the church.'

John Paul II continued, 'Recalling the Holy Father (St. Pius X), the special attention which sacred music rightly deserves stems from the fact that, 'being an integral part of the solemn Liturgy, sacred music participates in the general end of the Liturgy, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful.' Since sacred music interprets and expresses the deep meaning of the sacred test to which it is intimately linked, it must be able to add greater efficacy to the text, in order that through sacred music the faithful may be better disposed for the reception of the fruits of grace belonging to the celebration of th emost holy mysteries.'

In this regard St. Pius X pointed out, using the term 'universality,' the other prerequisite of music destined for worship, 'while every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its inherent music, still these forms must be subordinate in such a manner to the general character of sacred music, that no one from any other nation would receive an impression other than good on hearing them.'

The fact is that Gregorian chant is, above all, a sacred chant - liturgical, reverential, and enriching. Gregorian chant is not content with putting music, like a veneer, over the litrugical text, nor with putting lyrics into some music. Gregorian chant makes the words sing the music they contain. Studies show that the musical evolution that drifts away from the Gregorian leads to a decline in the sense of the Church and of God.

Gregorian chant is a school that teaches how to serve God and be a true man. It helps us to be human and Christian. It imprints its mark on one's character and sensibility, it fine tunes the soul. It can be sung by one person alone: it places each individual before God. And, at the same time, it has a social role: it is never socialistic. Sensibility and spirituality are not two juxtaposed realities, but intertwined. Gregorian chant is not the work of virtuosos, but of great contemplatives who draw their inspiration from their life of intimacy with God.

Gregorian chant is above all, a prayer. In consoles, edifies, and santifies the faithful; and through it, the faithful are better prepared to receive divine grade: it is a 'sacramental.' It favors silence and meditation, creating a disposition that leads to the supernatural world: in it prayer becomes music. The relationship with God is deepened and leads one to listen to his unique vocation. With nothing that is artificial, it excludes all types of mediocrity, fulfilling the desire of St. Pius X, 'that the faithful pray with beauty.'

It is good to bear in mind these documents of St. Pius X and John Paul II. Moreover, we know already the deep concern of Pope Benedict XVI - a lover of good and classical music - to foster true sacred music and Gregorian Chant for the Roman liturgy. 'An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony.' (Benedict XVI, June 24, 2006).

Thus, the French philosopher, Simone Weil said, 'A passionate lover of music can be a perverse man, but I would have great difficulty believing that of a man who thirsts for Gregorian chant."

Give a listen to the Miles Christi Schola Cantorum.

The State of Catholic Music in the U.S.

From Jeffrey Tucker:

Here is a truth that most mainstream Catholic musicians will not want to hear: Catholics in the pews are deeply unhappy, nearly to the point of disgust, or even past that point, with the state of Catholic music in the average parish. The longer the status quo continues, the more demoralized and angry they are becoming.

I’m not speaking of cathedrals, which have been improving, or of famed and growing parishes that are currently working toward the great ideals of sung prayer in liturgy, and I’m not even speaking of seminaries, which are undergoing rapid and thrilling rates of reform right now.

Instead I’m speaking of the run-of-the-mill Catholic parish you happen into on your travels here and there, anywhere in the country, the parishes that don’t make the headlines, can’t afford the trained musicians, don’t have the wonderful organs, and just have to get by on the resources they have.

Here is where the status quo prevails in a nearly tyrannical way. The musicians here will not read this article. Even if you clip it and send it to them, they will say: “sorry, no time; I’m a volunteer so I don’t really need to read this stuff. People should be grateful that I’m doing anything at all.” They have a point; but the faithful too have a point they their Mass should sound a bit more like Church and less like sit-com theme songs.

These put-upon volunteers, however, are not curious about the reform of the reform, the extraordinary reform, the writings of Benedict XVI or Cardinal Ratzinger, and they are not attending sacred music workshops this summer. They don’t read the documents, are not interested the learn about the intrinsic qualities of the Roman Rite, own no CDs of genuinely sacred music, and never think to investigate their moral responsibilities to the liturgy.

How did they enter on this path from which they refuse to escape? Perhaps ten or fifteen years ago, they happened into a commercial trade show at the National Association of Pastoral Musicians and grabbed a few octavos that they dragged home to foist on unwilling congregations. Maybe there was a pastor who backed them. They were never able to manage to conjure up that spiritual high they felt at the magic weekend but they did finally get their way. And there is where it stayed – no progress, no movement, no action at all.

What is especially depressing is that the music they grabbed, like so much of the fare over the last 30-40 years, implies a certain peppy sensibility with it that requires a hopped enthusiasm (This is new! This is fun! This is exciting!) to make it sound right. It works, sometimes, but only for a while.

Build the City of God! Gather Us In! Sing of God’s Glory! If you are tired of this fare and sing it with a plain-Jane voice, the music sort of dies, and ends up eliciting no more excitement than “Benny and the Jets” sung by a boomer in a dentist-office waiting room.

And this turns out to be the way many, or even most, if not nearly all, regular Catholics describe the music they must endure week to week. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t receive a long, pained email from someone pleading to know why it is that their Mass-going experience must be wrecked every single week by this music that they can’t stand.

Phone calls pour into my cellphone from people who long to hear something that hints of the sacred instead of the material that they uncharitably describe to me on the phone, mainly because they at least feel they have a chance to vent their frustrations. It is overwhelming.

I know what you are thinking. Jeffrey, you are just a magnet for these kinds of bitter complaints but they hardly represent the whole. Who else are they going to call? Well, I used to think this too. But lately I’ve been trying it out an experiment in different contexts.

I’ve been to conferences on non-music subjects where people are clueless about any connection I have to Catholic music projects, and otherwise know nothing of my connections and work. I will just casually ask a Catholic—having discovered their religion affiliation—how the music is in their parish.

Every single time the response is the same and it is like the dam breaks before my eyes. The words they use to describe their music, after breathing a heavy sigh are as follows: unbearable, dreadful, painful, insipid, insufferable, horrid, absurd, ridiculous and many other words that I can’t repeat here. I always listen attentively without encouraging the conversation in any particular direction.

Then once their complaints are over, and follow up with a simple question: what do you think about Gregorian chant? The answer is 100% positive, followed by trouble questions about why they can’t hear this at Mass. They tell stories of chant they have heard on CDs they own, of concerts on television, of radio shows, of moving trips abroad to hear Mass in some Cathedral in a foreign land, and their countenance changes. These are the experiences they hang onto for dear life, while they wait and wait for something (please God!) to change in their parishes.

Now, what these people do not know, and what I would like to tell them, is that a revival is in fact sweeping the country. It began only a few years ago to spread outside a few preserves and is making its way ever more into parishes of all sorts, big and small. There are more each year. Scholas are being founded every week. Thousands of people are being trained, and they are taking on themselves the task of rediscovering this glorious tradition and they are doing so outside the official channels, using downloadable editions, assembling scholas of interested laypeople, and their passion is spreading.

Young pastors have been enormously friendly to the new scholas, giving them a chance to sing and holding them up as models for other musicians in the parish to follow. They are delivering homilies on the topic, explaining the ideal to everyone so that the Catholic people can come to understand and love the music that is native to their Mass. It is happening in schools, and seminaries, and even in monasteries which are again finding their footing in the music that is at the center of their prayer life.

There is no question where the musical history of the Catholic Church is currently headed, and no question about what it is leaving behind, Deo Gratias. The trajectory is unmistakable, undeniable. Be patient. Pray. Work. And pray some more. The time will come, and that time is not as far off as many think. The tedium will slip away and our parishes will again be filled with the music that will inspire the faithful, give true Glory to God, and will even elicit awe in even the most secular ear.
In the meantime, we must avoid casting aspersions on those who are doing their best to provide music for Mass. In some ways, they are victims of a time and victims of a movement that has long outlived its usefulness. They devote countless hours to serving. What they need is guidance, direction, training, inspiration. I believe that most will embrace the challenge once it is presented to them.

Cultures change in mysterious and unpredictable ways. Change in coming. The line might be crooked and the timing might not always be to our liking but the direction of change and the goal of the reform is highly centered and focused. The long period of suffering will not last forever.

Gloria Mass VIII Angelis

Litany of the Saints

Te Deum

Veni Creator Spiritus

Pater Noster

Choose Hymns or Propers?

Can hymns licitly replace Propers? I think not! Check it out here.

The Beauty of Chant

Chant Presentation from O.L. of Guadalupe Seminary

Ave Verum Corpus

Why Latin Hymns

Jeffrey Tucker has this to say: (as posted on New Liturgical Movement)

Part of our ambition as a schola is to bring popular chant hymns from all ages back into the life of Catholic people. So this year, we made an effort to sing the Marian antiphon for Lent—Ave Regina Caelorum—following communion every single week. We put it in the program each week and we have sung it without fail. Today, on the fifth week, the people joined the singing as if they owned it. It is now part of their experience of the faith. Some might have carried the lovely song with them to brunch or while playing sports later in the afternoon. Perhaps it will be sung quietly in their heads before drifting off to sleep tonight, and perhaps it will be recall tomorrow morning as well. This was not true only weeks ago, when hardly anyone in the parish knew this song. Now it is a living reality in their lives, and they have added it to their intellectual and aesthetic store of understanding of what comprises the marks of the Catholic faith. This song is added to a thousand other signs, from holy water to rosary beads, of what it means to be a Catholic. Read more here.

If This is a Liturgy War, Then Who is the Enemy?

Forty-plus years of marginalization and de-construction of the musical heritage of the Church left it's advocates bitter and vengeful in many instances, ready to portray anyone walking in the church with a guitar case as the enemy, and ready to aim the criticism at individuals rather than at the real source of the problem which was the widespread acceptance of a flawed and destructive vision of liturgical music and it's role in Catholic worship. Read more here.

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 9

Popular and Rock Music

On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. “Rock”, on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit’s sober ine­briation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p 148]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 8

Musical Culture Today

After the cultural revolution of recent decades, we are faced with a challenge no less great than that of the three moments of crisis that we have encountered in our his­torical sketch: the Gnostic temptation, the crisis at the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modernity, and the crisis at the beginning of the twentieth century, which formed the prelude to the still more radical ques­tions of the present day. Three developments in recent music epitomize the problems that the Church has to face when she is considering liturgical music. First of all, there is the cultural universalization that the Church has to undertake if she wants to get beyond the boundaries of the European mind. This is the question of what in­culturation should look like in the realm of sacred music if, on the one hand, the identity of Christianity is to be preserved and, on the other, its universality is to be ex­pressed in local forms. Then there are two developments in music itself that have their origins primarily in the West but that for a long time have affected the whole of mankind in the world culture that is being formed. Modern so-called “classical” music has maneuvered itself, with some exceptions, into an elitist ghetto, which only specialists may enter—and even they do so with what may sometimes be mixed feelings. The music of the masses has broken loose from this and treads a very different path. [The Spirit of the Liturgy [SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000) p. 148]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 7

Development in Sacred Music

"An authentic updating of sacred music can take place only in the lineage of the great tradition of the past, of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony." [Speaking in the Sistine Chapel following a tribute concert to Dominico Bartolucci, June 24, 2006.]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 6

Sacred vs. Performance

Whether it is Bach or Mozart that we hear in church, we have a sense in either case of what Gloria Dei, the glory of God, means. The mystery of infinite beauty is there and enables us to ex­perience the presence of God more truly and vividly than in many sermons. But there are already signs of danger to come. Subjective experience and passion are still held in check by the order of the musical universe, reflecting as it does the order of the divine creation itself. But there is already the threat of invasion by the virtuoso mentality, the vanity of technique, which is no longer the servant of the whole but wants to push itself to the fore. During the nineteenth century, the century of self-emancipating subjectivity, this led in many places to the obscuring of the sacred by the operatic. The dangers that had forced the Council of Trent to intervene were back again. In similar fashion, Pope Pius X tried to remove the operatic element from the liturgy and declared Gregorian chant and the great polyphony of the age of the Catholic Reformation (of which Palestrina was the outstanding representative) to be the standard for liturgical music. A clear distinction was made between liturgical music and religious music in general, just as visual art in the liturgy has to conform to different standards from those employed in religious art in general. Art in the liturgy has a very specific responsibility, and precisely as such does it serve as a wellspring of culture, which in the final analysis owes its existence to cult. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), pp. 148]

Not every kind of music can have a place in Christian worship. It has its standards, and that standard is the Lo­gos. If we want to know whom we are dealing with, the Holy Spirit or the unholy spirit, we have to remember that it is the Holy Spirit who moves us to say, “Jesus is Lord” (~Cor 12:3). The Holy Spirit leads us to the Logos, and he leads us to a music that serves the Logos as a sign of the sursum corda, the lifting up of the human heart. Does it integrate man by drawing him to what is above, or does it cause his disintegration into formless intoxication or mere sensuality? That is the criterion for a music in harmony with logos, a form of that logike latreia (reasonable, logos-worthy worship)… [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 151]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 5

Trent and Music

In the West, in the form of Gregorian chant, the inherited tradition of psalm-singing was developed to a new sublimity and purity, which set a permanent standard for sacred music, music for the liturgy of the Church. Polyphony developed in the late Middle Ages, and then instruments came back into divine worship—quite rightly, too, because, as we have seen, the Church not only continues the synagogue, but also takes up, in the light of Christ’s Pasch, the reality represented by the Temple. Two new factors are thus at work in Church music. Artistic freedom increasingly asserts its rights, even in the liturgy. Church music and secular music are now each influenced by the other. This is particularly clear in the case of the so-called “parody Masses”, in which the text of the Mass was set to a theme or melody that came from secular music, with the result that anyone hearing it might think he was listening to the latest “hit”. It is clear that these opportunities for artistic creativity and the adoption of secular tunes brought dan­ger with them. Music was no longer developing out of prayer, but, with the new demand for artistic autonomy, was now heading away from the liturgy; it was becoming an end in itself, opening the door to new, very different. ways of feeling and of experiencing the world. Music was alienating the liturgy from its true nature. At this point the Council of Trent intervened in the culture war that had broken out. It was made a norm that liturgical music should be at the service of the Word; the use of instruments was substantially reduced; and the difference between secular and sacred music was clearly affirmed. [The Spirit of the Liturgy (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), pp. 146-47]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 4

Latin in Liturgy

I would be in favor of a new openness toward the use of Latin. Latin in the Mass has come meanwhile to look to us like a fall from grace. So that, in any case, communication is ruled out that is very necessary in areas of mixed culture... Let's think of tourist centers, where it would be lovely for people to recognize each other in something they have in common. So we ought to keep such things alive and present. If even in the great liturgical celebrations in Rome, no one can sing the Kyrie or the Sanctus any more, no one knows what Gloria means, then a cultural loss has become a loss of what we share in common. To that extent I should say that the Liturgy of the Word should always be in the mother tongue, but there ought nonetheless to be a basic stock of Latin elements that would bind us together. [God and the World, SF, CA: Ignatius, 2002, pp. 417-18]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 3

The Primacy of Singing

THE IMPORTANCE of music in biblical religion is shown very simply by the fact that the verb “to sing” (with related words such as “song”, and. so forth) is one of the most commonly used words in the Bible. It occurs 309 times in the Old Testament and thirty-six in the New. When man comes into contact with God, mere speech is not enough. Areas of his existence are awakened that spontaneously turn into song. Indeed, man’s own being is insufficient for what he has to express, and so he in­vites the whole of creation to become a song with him: “Awake, my soul! Awake, 0 harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn! I will give thanks to you, 0 Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations. For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithful­ness to the clouds” (Ps 57:8f.). We find the first mention of singing in the Bible after the crossing of the Red Sea. Israel has now been definitively delivered from slavery. In a desperate situation, it has had an overwhelming experi­ence of God’s saving power. Just as Moses as a baby was taken from the Nile and only then really received the gift of life, so Israel now feels as if it has been, so to speak, taken out of the water: it is free, newly endowed with the gift of itself from God’s own hands. In the biblical ac­count, the people’s reaction to the foundational event of salvation is described in this sentence: “[T]hey believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (Ex 14:31). But then follows a second reaction, which soars up from the first with elemental force: "Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord” (i 5: i). Year by year, at the Easter Vigil, Christians join in the singing of this song. They sing it in a new way as their song, because they know that they have been “taken out of the water” by God’s power, set free by God for authentic life. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 136]

The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. “Cantare amantis est”, says St. Augustine, singing is a lover’s thing. In so saying, we come again to the trinitarian interpretation of Church music. The Holy Spirit is love, and it is he who produces the singing. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who draws us into love for Christ and so leads to the Father. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 142]

In liturgical music, based as it is on biblical faith, there is, therefore, a clear dominance of the Word; this music is a higher form of proclama­tion. Ultimately, it rises up out of the love that responds to God’s love made flesh in Christ, the love that for us went unto death. After the Resurrection, the Cross is by no means a thing of the past, and so this love is always marked by pain at the hiddenness of God, by the cry that rises up from the depths of anguish, Kyrie eleison, by hope and by supplication. But it also has the privilege, by anticipation, of experiencing the reality of the Resur­rection, and so it brings with it the joy of being loved, that gladness of heart that Haydn said came upon him when he set liturgical texts to music. Thus the relation of liturgical music to logos means, first of all, simply its relation to words. That is why singing in the liturgy has priority over instrumental music, though it does not in any way exclude it. It goes without saying that the biblical and liturgical texts are the normative words from which liturgical music has to take its bearings. This does not rule out the continuing creation of “new songs”, but in­stead inspires them and assures them of a firm grounding in God’s love for mankind and his work of redemption. [The Spirit of Liturgy [SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000], p. 149]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 2

SPONTANEITY AND CREATIVITY

The great­ness of the liturgy depends—we shall have to repeat this frequently—on its unspontaneity (Unbeliebigkeit)…. Only respect for the liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture but receive as a gift. This means that “creativity” cannot be an authentic category for matters liturgical. In any case, this is a word that developed within the Marxist world view. Creativity means that in a universe that in itself is meaningless and came into existence through blind evolution, man can creatively fashion a new and better world. Modern theo­ries of art think in terms of a nihilistic kind of creativity. Art is not meant to copy anything. Artistic creativity is under the free mastery of man, without being bound by norms or goals and subject to no questions of meaning. It may be that in such visions a cry for freedom is to be heard, a cry that in a world totally in the control of technology becomes a cry for help. Seen in this way, art appears as the final refuge of freedom. True, art has something to do with freedom, but freedom understood in the way we have been describing is empty. It is not redemptive, but makes despair sound like the last word of human existence. This kind of creativity has no place within the liturgy. The life of the liturgy does not come from what dawns upon the minds of individuals and plan­ning groups. On the contrary, it is God’s descent upon our world, the source of real liberation. He alone can open the door to freedom. The more priests and faithful humbly surrender themselves to this descent of God, the more “new” the liturgy will constantly be, and the more true and personal it becomes. Yes, the liturgy becomes personal, true, and new, not through tomfoolery and ba­nal experiments with the words, but through a coura­geous entry into the great reality that through the rite is always ahead of us and can never quite be overtaken. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 170]

Pope Benedict XVI on Sacred Music, Part 1

RITE AND CULTURE

The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time. “Always” can only come from “once for all”. The Church does not pray in some kind of mythical omnitemporality. She cannot forsake her roots. She recognizes the true utterance of God precisely in the concreteness of its history, in time and place: to these God ties us, and by these we are all tied together. The diachronic aspect, praying with the Fathers and the apostles, is part of what we mean by rite, but it also in­cludes a local aspect, extending from Jerusalem to Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Rites are not, therefore, just the products of inculturation, how­ever much they may have incorporated elements from different cultures. They are forms of the apostolic Tradition and of its unfolding in the great places of the Tradition. [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 164]

Learning Latin

Here is a good resource for beginners! Learn Latin HERE

Selected Quotes on Sacred Song

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn Liturgy.… [S]acred music is to be considered the more holy in proportion as it is more closely connected with the liturgical action, whether it adds delight to prayer, fosters unity of minds, or confers greater solemnity upon the sacred rites.
Read More Here.

Thoughts on Liturgical Music

If there is one thing that has a great potential for causing division among Catholics, it is the music of the local parish. Everyone has their own taste and backgrounds. Do you come from a parish with a full choir, decked out in robes, accompanied by an organ masterfully played? Or perhaps a a folk choir with guitar? Maybe you attend a "Life Teen" Mass with electric guitar, bass, and a drum kit. Maybe there is little music at all, beyond what two or three non-musically trained volunteers can put together each week. I'm willing to bet, however, that your home parish doesn't frequently feature Gregorian chant in their Sunday liturgies. Why is this?

Many think the answer is obvious. Didn't all that go out with Vatican II and the New Mass? Isn't it just now starting to make a come-back with the new allowance of the Old Mass (now called the Extraordinary Form) under Benedict XVI?


Well.... not exactly.

Read more here

Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus

Ave verum corpus is a short Eucharistic hymn dating from the 14th century and attributed to Pope Innocent VI (d. 1362), which has been set to music by various composers. During the Middle Ages it was sung at the elevation of the host during the consecration. It was also used frequently during Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

The hymn's title means "Hail, true body", and is based on a poem deriving from a 14th-century manuscript from the Abbey of Reichenau, Lake Constance. The poem is a meditation on the Catholic belief in Jesus’s Real Presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and ties it to Catholic ideas on the redemptive meaning of suffering in the life of all believers.

Ave verum corpus (Hail, true Body)
natum de Maria Virgine,(Born of the Virgin Mary)
vere passum, immolatum (Truly suffered, immolated)
in cruce pro homine (On the Cross for man)
cuius latus perforatum (Whose pierced side)
unda fluxit et sanguine, (Flowed with water and blood,)
esto nobis praegustatum (Let it be for us a foretaste [of heaven])
in mortis examine. (In the trial of death.)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s setting of Ave verum corpus was written for Anton Stoll (a friend of his and Haydn’s) who was musical co-ordinator in the parish of Baden, near Vienna. It was composed to celebrate the feast of Corpus Christi.

Mozart composed this piece while in the middle of writing his opera Die Zauberflote, and while visiting his wife Constanze, who was pregnant with their sixth child and staying in a spa near Baden. Mozart died less than six months later.

Lesson from History

...consider the Catholic musician in 1964. He was certain that the future of liturgical music would progress by building upon its past, developing the chant tradition of the church and carrying it into the future. Even the documents of Vatican II, particularly Musica Sacra, called for the composition of “new chants for use in the reformed rites”, a sign that this was the vision being put forward at the time. But that is not how things progressed. In a short period of time, the fundamental paradigm of liturgical music changed, causing not just a swerve in the path, but the ending of the path and the beginning of an entirely new path. It can happen… it did happen only some 45 years ago. There were signs of the coming changes, but the acceptance of the paradigms that had guided liturgical music up to that time kept them from being seen, or at least being taken seriously.
Read more here

Our Bishops Call for Chant

From The Authentic Update:

By an even modest estimation, there are perhaps hundreds of blogs, websites and chat groups dedicated to the discussion of liturgical music. They range from the wildly progressive to the soberingly Orthodox, encompassing every style from Contemporary Christian Rock music to Gregorian Chant and Renaissance Polyphony. The debate about what music is most appropriate in the liturgy began long before the promulgation of the New missal in 1970 and has continued up to this day unabated. Recently however, the debate has heated up, prompted in part by recent liturgical reforms originating from the Holy See, and by the emergence of a grass-roots movement to re-establish the musical tradition of the Catholic Church within the context of these reforms.

With the USCCB document Sing To The Lord, the issue of re-introducing Latin Chant (and other forms of traditional liturgical music) to the liturgy has come suddenly to the foreground, with two camps dominating the debate. Their positions are predictably in line with their views on other aspects of liturgy, centering around what has been perhaps one of the most misunderstood platforms of Vatican II, the call for “full, active and conscious participation of the faithful”. Their respective positions could be summarized as follows:

Pro:– “Gregorian Chant is the music best suited for use in the Roman liturgy. It’s superiority has been re-affirmed by every Pope up to and including the present Holy Father, and it is the music proclaimed as the best suited to the liturgy by the documents of Vatican II, which asked that it be given “pride of place” in the liturgy, taking precedence over other forms of music even though they may be suitable as well. The reason for this suitability is that Gregorian Chant is the actual texts of the Mass itself set to music, expressing eloquently the depth and subtlety of the Catholic faith in a way that substitute “songs” and hymns cannot do. As such, the Chant is an indispensible part of the Roman liturgy, the absence of which has created a serious break with tradition and caused a deterioration of the liturgical form more generally.”

Con: ”Gregorian Chant, while a beautiful and important part of the tradition of the Catholic Church, is unsuitable for a modern liturgy which emphasizes the “full, active and conscious participation of the faithful”. The musical sensibilities of Chant are unfamiliar and alien to all but the elite who study it, and the fact that few if any of the faithful understand Latin means that even if they were able to sing Chant, they wouldn’t be able to understand what they are singing. While the documents of Vatican II re-affirmed the important place of Chant in the traditions of the Church, they also foresaw the creation of new music to better express the call for the participation of the faithful in the liturgy, and likely did not foresee the success of contemporary music in this regard. As such, the prominence of vernacular language contemporary liturgical songs is keeping with the “Spirit of the Council”, allowing the faithful to understand what they are singing and engage more fully in the meaning of the liturgy.”

There are, of course, many other points that can be made either in favor of Chant or against it, but the two above expressions contain, I think, all of the salient points of the positions that are currently engaged in debate. We need to begin by saying that neither side is necessarily right, in the sense that there is a definitive right or wrong to be found, but there are very clearly some assumptions about the liturgy that have led to the acceptance of a flawed premise for the debate in general, and for the adoption of the “con” position specifically. These assumptions might be best described as accepting “too vague a notion of cognition and understanding as they apply to liturgical form.”

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Rip Up Those Carpets

Rip up those carpets!
by Jeffrey Tucker
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Every parish struggles with acoustical problems, some because of the large space, but some because of the wholly unnecessary existence of carpet in the nave and sanctuary. Many parishes have made the huge mistake of carpeting their church space because someone on someone on some know-nothing committee thought that the carpet made the place feel warmer and friendly—like a living room—and perhaps too, someone found the echoes of children crying or hymnbooks dropping to be annoying.

Sadly, carpet is a killer of good liturgical acoustics. It wrecks the music, as singers struggle to overcome it. The readers end up sounding more didactic than profound. And even the greatest organ in the world can't fight the sound buffer that carpet creates. All the time you spend rehearsing, and all the money paying a good organist or buying an organ, ends up as money down the carpet drain.

Elementary errors are involved in the decision. When the church is being constructed and tested for sound, it is during a time when it is empty of bodies. The decision makers stand around and note that a new carpet won't make that much difference. Once installed, it only appears to muffle the sound of steps and things dropped. But once the place is packed with people, something new is discovered. The sound is completely dead—dead in the sense that it doesn't move. This is not the sound of liturgy.

This is when the acoustic engineers are brought in, usually from some local firm that specializes in studio recordings or some such. What they will not tell you is that you can save the expense of massively pricey sound systems and mixing tricks simply by pulling up the carpet. They don't tell you this because they are not in the carpet removal business. Their job is to make the existing space sound better. Sadly, this means sometimes tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in equipment, the effect of which is to make it impossible for anyone to be heard unless surrounded by microphones.

Again, this is no solution at all. Chant will never sound right. The organ becomes a complete waste. The instruments and vocal styles that work in a space like this belong more to the American Idol genre of music than sacred music. This is a true tragedy for any parish seeking to reform its liturgical program. I'm very sorry to say this, but it pretty well dooms the reform. You can chant and play Bach all you want but you will never be able to overcome the acoustic limitations.

What to do? The decision makers need to gather the courage to take action. Pull up the carpets immediately. It might leave concrete or wood or something else. It might be unsightly until the time when tile or new concrete or wood can be installed, but the mere appearance alone will call forth a donation perhaps. What's important is that immediately the sound will be fixed, and the parish will have save untold amounts in paying the acoustic firm. Not only that: funds will be saved from future carpet cleanings, repairs, and replacements.

Much of this information I learned from Reidel and Associates, a firm that does consulting on worship spaces. I ordered their pamphlet about sound called "Acoustics in the Worship Space" by Scott R. Riedel (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1986). It is quite technical and very informative. Here is what he says about floors on page 17.

The floor is typically the building surface that is largest and nearest to worshipers and musicians. It is important that the floor be reflective of sound, particularly near musicians, since it provides the first opportunity for much sound energy to be reinforced. Carpet is an inappropriate floor covering in the worship space; it is acoustically counterproductive to the needs of the worshipers.

The mood of warmth and elegance that carpeting sometimes provides can also be provided with acoustically reflective flooring such as quarry tile or wood that is of warm color and high quality. The notion that the worshiper covers the floor surface, making its material composition acoustically unimportant is false. The large floor area of the worship space bas great acoustical influence. Appropriate floor materials include slate, quarry tile, sealed wood, brick, stone, ceramic tile, terrazzo, and marble.

Walk and Ceiling. Durable, hard-surfaced walls and ceiling are also essential for good acoustical reflections. The ceiling is potentially the largest uninterrupted surface and therefore should be used to reinforce tone. Large expanses of absorptive acoustical ceiling tile are to be strictly avoided. Appropriate wall or ceiling materials include hard plaster, drywall of substantial thickness, sealed woods, glazed brick, stone, med and painted concrete block, marble, and rigidly mounted wood paneling.

The construction of walls, floors, and doors should retard the transmission of noise into the space from adjoining rooms, from the outdoors, or via structure-borne paths. Sound attenuators or absorptive material may be fitted to heat and air ducts to reduce mechanical noise also.

Some may consider using absorbing materials such as carpeting or acoustical tile to suppress noise from the congregation. Noise from shuffled feet or small children is usually not as pervasive as might be feared. It is unwise to destroy the proper reverberant acoustical setting for worship in deference to highly infrequent noisy behavior.

Let me now address the issue of noise. A building in which you can hear your footsteps signals something in our imaginations. It is a special place, a place in which we are encouraged to walk carefully and stay as quiet as possible. Pops, cracks, thumbs, and sounds of all sorts coming from no particular direction is part of the ambiance of church, and its contributes to the feeling of awe.
It was some years ago that I attended a concert of organum—three voices singing early medieval liturgical music—at the National Cathedral in Washington, a vast space. There were only three small voices near the altar, and I was at the back and the people singing looked like tiny specs. Moving my foot a few inches created a noise that could be heard for 20 feet in all directions, loud enough to drown out the music. As a result, everyone sat in frozen silence, fearing even to move a muscle. This went on for more than a full hour. It was a gripping experience.

The closer we can come to creating this environment in our parishes, the holier the space will sound and feel. I've personally never heard an echo that is too extended for worship. It is possible I suppose but I've never experienced it.

One final point about Church acoustics that needs to be added here. The Introit of the Mass is not: "Please turn off your cellphones." This line is increasingly common at the start of Mass. This really must end. Yes, it is a good thing for people to turn off cell phones but instructions to that effect are not what should be the first words one hears at the start of Mass.

And please consider that people are not dumb as sticks. Cell phones are a normal part of life now, and we are all learning to keep them off in any public lecture or event such as a worship service. These things take care of themselves over time. For someone's cell phone to ring ends up being a warning to everyone else for the future.

Sacred Music: Handmaiden of the Liturgy

The place of sacred music in the life of the church has an effective function and a lofty purpose. Its function is to be the handmaiden of the liturgy, making the sung prayers beautiful, solemn, and moving. The lofty purpose of sacred music, like the liturgy itself, was described most succinctly by Pope St. Pius X when he wrote that the purpose of sacred music is "the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful."

The Priests - Pie Jesu

Rehearsal Reflection No. 1

What an amazing night we had! It was an absolute privilege to be in the company of such God-loving, dedicated and EAGER men!

I can tell you that the potential this group has is mighty and powerful . . . not at all because of who we are or what we have done, but because of who He is and all that He has done. I commend each of you for being open to the mission of restoring the sacred. Just as Mary is the window through which we see Jesus, we can be windows others may look through too. People are starving for the sacred, and what greater calling can any of us have than to point them to it? Let us strive to be like Mary, always pointing to her Son.

Remembering that God called each of us to this noble cause, be mindful that He does not always call the equipped, but He is FAITHFUL to equip the called. Singing brings peace and is therefore a prayer for ALL people - both those who sing and those who listen. It is the sacred transendence we concern ourselves with, not some sort of banal cacaphony. Let our song be as incense rising to heaven.

We will be getting down to nuts and bolts in the weeks to come. Please pray for continued openness and patience for all as we move forward.

St. Cecilia, Ora Pro Nobis

--Whenever you begin to undertake any good work, beg God with most earnest prayer to bring it to completion. –St. Benedict

The Priests: PBS Special on Monday, Feb. 16

The Priests 1-hour special will be aired on PBS (WHA) on Sunday, February 8 at 11 a.m. and Monday, February 16 at 7 p.m.

Fr. Manuppella on the Sacred Music of the Mass

I found this in last week's bulletin from St. Peter's in Merchantville, NJ. The pastor, Fr. Anthony Manuppella, has given me permission to post this discussion of his on sacred music.

Sometimes it takes a stranger to help us recognize something about ourselves that loved ones could never let us see. In this case, the stranger is an atheist music critic from The New York Times. What is he telling us about? The importance of sacred music at Holy Mass. Perhaps an atheist intellectual might convince some Catholics, where Mother Church's exhortations have fallen on deaf ears.

Here is an excerpt of Mr. Bernard Holland, "Beauty of musical color, elegance of harmony, soundness of construction and exquisiteness of originality once worked as the lure that would draw the faltering worshiper nearer. Music, as well as architecture and visual art, represented heaven to the earthbound, something dazzling and unapproachable, an advertisement for a paradise still held at arm's length." (NY Times, 23 September 2007) Show me a Liturgy Office that has written something like that recently. I'm waiting.

Of course, the Traditional Mass long understood this symbiotic relationship between music and the world of the sacred. It appreciated the furious power of music to shape man's soul--for good or bad. So it is that Holy Church required only Latin chant or polyphony at Mass. Latin, because of its sacral associations; and the enchanting melodies of a music impossible to be mistaken or utilized for any purpose save God's adoration. Musical forms in currency today at many Churches are interchangeable with lounge music. Such a switch could never be present at the Traditional Mass.

Truth to be told, the nature of sacred music ought to be no different for the Novus Ordo Missae (the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite). Listen to Bishop Edward Slattery of the Diocese of Tulsa.

"I ask...to pay special attention to the Council's liturgical norms....and what the Council Fathers actually wrote concerning the requirements of proper liturgical music, and in particular the principle which places the text in importance over the melody, thus acknowledging the primacy of Gregorian chant among the Church's musical traditions, not merely from the position of its great venerability and beauty, but also because chant, having no rhythm, never forces the text to be rewritten to fit a specific meter. Chant allows us a certain sacred space within which that Word which God spoke in ancient times can be heard today with greater clarity and fidelity."
(Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, 6 March 2006)

For those who think narrowly, music in Church is a kind of mood setter, cute but irrelevant. The more ample Catholic mind recognizes that music in Church ought to act like an earthquake upon the soul, unleashing the powerful forces that make it crave intimacy with the Blessed Trinity. Our Catholic faith does not rest on gauzy sweet nothings, or the musical equivalents. Faith stands upon towering truths. If a soul is fed on musical sap, its soul will turn to sap. Music at Mass is not meant for us to sway to and fro, or to sweetly smile at each other as though a dreamy Barry Manilow tune were playing. Music at Mass should make us tremble. At least a bit. It should drive itself directly into our soul, leaving us thunderstruck.

Even Pagan Plato realized this. In The Republic he teaches, "No change can be made in styles of music without affecting the most important conventions of society." And we might add, the perfect society of the Church. Music's power is so potent that it can arouse passions prompting heroic actions or debased ones. Almost twenty years ago the Port Authority of New York decided to play only soft classical music throughout its Manhattan Bus Depot because psychologists had proven it would lower crime. On the other hand, nightclub owners know to play loud, percussive music, piquing the passions and producing the emotional abandon that sells liquor and facilitates sexual license. No human heart is exempt from the racing at the stanzas of the Battle Hymn of the Republic or John Philip Sousa. Music has its own grammar and vocabulary. All this applies to sacred music as well.

Man is never so intoxicated than when he is surrounded by sacred music. This music transforms him. It pierces his soul to its very depths. Often it produces a contrition so profound that a man's life can take a wholly different course. St. Augustine attests to this in Book IX of the Confessions, "how I wept to hear your hymns and songs, deeply moved by the voices of your sweetly singing Church! Their voices penetrated my ears, and with them, truth found its way into my heart; my frozen feeling for God began to thaw, tears flowed and I experienced joy and relief." Do you really think that Kumbaya could inspire such words?

For all of this, Mother Church has insisted upon and encouraged the most exquisite sacred music known to man. Not only that she has felt it her grave obligation to protect it. After all, she recognizes that man's soul hangs in the balance. If the music is wrong, the teaching of the Church will be wrong, and men will go wrong. Thus in this century, the Popes have devoted such energy in defining and carefully regulating the conduct of sacred music. She stood as a mighty wall against subjectivism and sentimentality.

It was this awareness that clearly inspired Saint Pope Pius X to promulgate his tour de force on sacred music, Tra le Sollecitudine, whose one hundredth anniversary Pope John Paul II celebrated in (November) 2003. There he taught that the three properties of sacred music are universality, goodness of form and holiness. He taught that these properties are alone perfectly fulfilled in the Gregorian chant of the Church. They also become the paradigm of all sacred music. They raise it above idiosyncratic cultural forms (universality); possesses the marks of the grand music of the ages (goodness of form); and excite in souls a hunger for God (holiness). St. Pius X teaches, "The Church has constantly condemned everything frivolous, vulgar, trivial and ridiculous in sacred music--everything profane and theatrical both in the form of the compositions and in the manner in which they are executed by the musicians: Sancta sancte, holy things in a holy manner." (Tra le Sollecitudine, #13)

Sacred music transports us beyond the stars to the throne of the Blessed Trinity. Beware of music at Mass that leaves us only Dancing with the Stars.

Monastic Gregorian Chant

O Sanctissima

Wolgang Amadeus Mozart - Ave verum corpus

William Byrd - Ave verum corpus

Very exciting new release from St. Michael's Abbey

Colloquium 2009

The Mission of the Knights' Schola

The place of sacred music in the life of the church has an effective function and a lofty purpose. Its function is to be the handmaiden of the liturgy, making the sung prayers beautiful, solemn, and moving. The lofty purpose of sacred music, like the liturgy itself, was described most succinctly by Pope St. Pius X when he wrote that the purpose of sacred music is "the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful."

The mission of the Knights of Divine Mercy Schola is to do all we can to help reawaken all of us to the beauty of sacred music. We plan to work very hard to learn Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony so that we are prepared to bring this to parishes. Our hope is that, upon hearing this treasury of our faith, many will seek to bring this music back into our churches and the worship we raise to our God.

First Rehearsal Feb 8

Welcome gentlemen and hearty congratulations for stepping up to this bold initiative of forming our schola cantorum!

Rehearsal begins at 6:00 PM and go until 7:30 PM. They are being held at St. Mary's of Pine Bluff. We will look to have some social time each week at the conclusion of our rehearsals.

See you there!