Thanks for the Ping!
I'm one of those people who is picky about church music, I like the music to be reverent sounding, theologically appropriate, and singable. So recently I popped for a copy of the Adoremus Organist Edition hymnal, which comes with a CD of with enough music to figure out how to sing the various pieces. I bought it with the idea of maybe getting a few people together who want to learn the traditional music - I don't have the training or skills to be a music director, but I thought maybe some people might like to sing together, and then we'd see where the Lord would take us with it.
It starts with the Order of the mass, in Latin, sung.
I listened to it last night for the first time. It was so beautiful. Not the complete mass, but all the parts that the people should know for sure.
I felt so cheated.
And even the sung mass in English done right is beautiful.
Our priest sings the mass a lot. He doesn't have the greatest singing voice, but he still gets up and does it, and I appreciate him for doing it. If we could just get the music for the Gloria, the Agnus Dei, the Alleluia, and the hymns to be as reverent in sound as that reedy voice singing the mass, it would be a touch of heaven on Earth.
As the liturgy ought to be, for this is where heaven comes to earth to touch and heal our souls, and our hungry souls should thirst to meet with the God who calls us.
Our priest tries. He's replaced the crucifix, the processional cross, the tabernacle, added more statues, all more beautiful than devout than when he arrived. He is directing the building of a church which will show that the person who was in charge wanted a building that clearly marks the sacred space.
One step at a time. But I want it all. Music and liturgy and building and sacred items that all work together to lift up my heart.
Sursum corda should be the most natural of responses when at mass, even when we enter the building and draw near our Lord.
May we draw closer, ever closer to this ideal.
And rightly so. This is one of my constant heartbreaks, that I am denied the beautiful and awe inspiring liturgy that the Church calls for and to which I have a right. This is why I respond with disbelief when I hear some bishops say that we cannnot change things now because it might upset the people. Many people will remain upset until some changes are made and we can freely worship according to a liturgy that is clearly a continuation of the Roman Rite.
I'm also picky about music and the liturgy. The pastor and other priests at my parish do quite well with the liturgy. The usual cantor at my 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass has a beautiful baritone voice that is a joy to hear; other cantors at my parish are so-so - too many howling sopranos for my taste! I love old Gregorian chant, Eastern Rite and Eastern Orthodox chant, and the old-time Anglican music as well. My parish has been spared the wreckovation stuff, thankfully. As a Catholic buddy of mine said when he visited my parish about a year ago, "this is what a Catholic church is supposed to look like." Honestly, if they started doing the Mass in Latin with all the old time Catholic chant and music at my parish (even if it was all in Latin), it would not bother me one bit, I'd be delighted! I'm also thankful that "guitar masses", "kumbaya masses", and the rest of that type of modernist sixties-seventies silliness has not happened at my parish. My pastor and the other priests would flog anyone that tried to introduce that type of hooie!
However, when I've travelled......different story, I've been to some places when I've travelled that made me say to myself when it was blessedly over "well, I met my Sunday obligation, and that's about it"! Some of of the "masses" I've endured when I've travelled would curdle vinegar.