Ping!
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.