Posted on 11/29/2009 12:36:46 PM PST by NYer
My thoughts tend to wander in church. The lector might open with a biblical passage describing the Israelites assailing Jericho. I’ll picture myself inside the city, as a trader bartering in the ancient streets. This, in turn, will cause me to wonder how people got along in those days without air conditioning.
So it was that, waiting for Mass to begin one recent Saturday evening, I was unruffled by the sweet, dark strains of “Night and Day.”
“It’s just me,” I thought. “Just my wayward imagination.”
It was with a jolt that I realized, “No, it’s not just me.” Someone really was playing a Cole Porter song in church. It was the violinist.
Later, as the parishioners filed out after the recessional hymn, the same musician struck up a Bobby Darin tune, “Beyond the Sea.” This may have been meant to put a bounce in our step as we exited the building, but I was feeling too disoriented to do much bouncing. Bobby Darin? Was this a Catholic church or a nightclub?
Or was it me? Had I at last turned into the brittle old square I always thought my father was? Music, after all, is largely subjective. By what authority could one anoint some musical pieces for admittance into church while excommunicating others?
I checked the hymnal. It contained hundreds of songs composed for church. Sure enough, though, it also contained a small battery of privileged foreigners — songs composed for other forums but that nonetheless enjoy the occasional performance at Mass. Among these interlopers were “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America.”
A revelation dawned on me: Admittance into my church depended on a song’s being either composed for Catholic worship or endowed with rightly ordered patriotism. This comported with the idea of a nation under God. (For more on this, see Tim Drake’s essay here.)
That notion, however, exploded in the next instant when I thought of another song I’d heard at Mass, “Ode to Joy.” With music composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, a German living in an era when there was no German nation over which to be patriotic, the ode gets its lyrics from another German, Friedrich Schiller, whose sentiments were neither Christian-specific nor dedicated to any particular country.
I thought also of the church song “Morning Has Broken.” This was a song I’d first heard sung by the popular entertainer Cat Stevens, who, as far as I knew, was now a devout Muslim.
As if “Ode to Joy” and “Morning Has Broken” were not remote enough from orthodox Catholicism and Old Glory, I thought also of “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” This hymn is sung in Catholic churches even though its composer, Martin Luther, was a catalyst of the ecclesiastical revolt that would come to be known as the Protestant Reformation. If Luther enjoyed entry into a Catholic church, then why not Cole Porter or Bobby Darin or, heck, the Rolling Stones?
“There must,” I thought, “be something about the music itself.” A song’s melody could have a spiritual temperament that could qualify it for admission into church. In that case, time might be necessary. Like purgatory, time could wash away any stains or taints inappropriate in the house of the Lord, admitting only unblemished gold.
Just so. From its beginnings, the Catholic Church has worked through local cultures to spread its message, honoring differences in expressions of faith. The Catechism, No. 1207, states: It is fitting that liturgical celebration tends to express itself in the culture of the people where the Church finds herself, though without being submissive to it. Moreover, the liturgy itself generates cultures and shapes them.
I was gratified to participate in this process, howsoever humbly, by voicing my views regarding the music played at my church. Locating the church’s website, I left an e-mail message criticizing some of the music I’d heard at Mass. Before receiving a reply, I telephoned the church office. A deacon answered. Briefly and courteously, I explained why I thought some of the music played at Mass had been inappropriate and suggested that the musicians confine their church repertoire to songs of worship.
My efforts seemed to work. Next week, church sounded like church again.
The Catholic Church is no democracy; nor should it be. But through its parishes, it can respond to local, even individual, concerns — like mine — accommodating a vast variety of continually evolving customs, traditions and personal tastes within the compass of a truth that is both universal and eternal.
No need to be so hard on him. I daresay most folks had never heard the hymn before Cat recorded "Morning Has Broken". Actually the words to the song are quite lovely, and full of praise for God's Creation.
Get an organ and an organist who can lead. You don’t need a choir. We aren’t Baptists. There is something bigger than the choir going on in Holy Mass.
And now it’s 11:30 and I’m off.
No puppets. No mimes. No secular music. No liturgical dance. None of the idiocy that passes for entertainment in place of humble worship.
I'm Roman Catholic. If the Transubstantiation isn't enough to hold your attention, I'm not sure what to tell you.
You must be blessed being in a Parish of people who love to sing hymns at Mass. It has taken our new choir director over 10 years to get the folks singing on a regular basis. We use some of the old Catholic standards, but also include what many would call 'Protestant hymns', especially ones written for the Anglican Church, because they fit with the Scripture readings for the day, which is why we have music in the first place.
Just because it's considered 'Catholic' music, doesn't necessarily make it good music.
ROTFL!!
My hubby, SirKit has become very sensitive about songs that 'scold' about how we live today, mainly under the banner of 'Social Justice'.
Our Church has HORRIBLE acoustics!! It was built in the 1960’s ‘Prayer Barn’ style, and is just U-G-L-Y!
Yes, we are, and one of those reasons is to PRAISE God, for the gift of His Son, and His awesome Creation. There is a lot of good music out there, and I, for one, as a choir member, love to try out the new stuff, as well as 'oldies, but goodies'.
Ah yes, the dreaded warble!
Hah! We must be in the same voice range! There were many years when I'd have to sing with the tenors in rehearsal, because the guys who we knew would make it to Midnight Mass, couldn't make it to rehearsal, and the ones who were there needed a little support. That was tough, cause I had to learn two different parts.
I found out this morning that six of the 8 altos in our choir won't be at Midnight Mass. I'm not sure about the 7th one, yet. So I contacted a couple of gals who have sung with us at past Midnight Masses. Also, our daughter will be coming home from college the weekend before Christmas, and she's an alto, too. But we all have strong voices, so we'll be able to hold our own with the other voices.;o)
I'm a cradle Catholic, and I LIKE having new music to sing, as do most of the folks who comment to me about the music that we do. THEY get bored singing the same things over and over, as we in the choir do.
Our Choir Director is a convert, and she takes great care to connect the music we sing to the Scripture readings for the Mass. This is important, because I think that by illuminating the text with music, people remember the Scripture more easily, and that's what we want to happen.
Tears came to my eyes this morning as our youth choir (all new members) sang some songs in Latin and then in English. It was so beautiful.
Our young people are showing themselves to be much more conservative than our usual music director. It was beautiful. All live music and no guitars. Real Music!
God bless them — I told the priest “That’s what a Mass is supposed to sound like.”
(Not the pre-recorded OCP junk that the older music director uses.)
PS. Ask your bishops to dump the “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” junk. It was written by OCP — the other mysteries of faith are prayers to Christ.
Singing in church is a wonderful way to "enter into His gates with thanks-giving, and His courts with praise", wouldn't you agree?
When one is needing to connect with the Lord, it's a good way to begin.
Praise & worship, whatever it's form, as long as it's genuine, is just about the very BEST place to start. It need not be limited to song, alone, of course. Or even 'song" at all. It may take many forms, and has throughout history, and still does, in many settings. The Lord knows, and so do His people, whenever & however the connection is made.
The Spirit of the Lord inhabits the praises of His people.
That said, it's easier to be "genuine", if the material one is singing (if the praise and worship be in the form of song), one can get behind with all their heart. Conversely, uninspiring music whatever it's format, sort of just get's in the way. Which I suppose is what many other posts on this thread were about...
Now this isn't quite what others had in mind, or what I have experienced in the first person, but here's another of the previous sort; Sacred Harp Singers At Liberty Church "I'm Going Home"
They do sound well practiced.
Oh, netmilsmom, I am SO with you. I hate the ditties — esp the lilting tune they use with ‘Christ has died (chachacha).’ Ditch the ditties; there is plenty of wonderful, reverential, worshipful music available in the form of hymns.
Which is why we go to the 7:30 mass, where there is NO music. (I hear that a lot of other musicians are at the no-music services, too...).
The Council of Trent reaffirmed traditional Christian teaching that the Mass is the same Sacrifice of Calvary offered in an unbloody manner. People forget what is going on there. The reverence is missing as people celebrate. MountainBunny said it right, “I’m Roman Catholic. If the Transubstantiation isn’t enough to hold your attention, I’m not sure what to tell you.”
Introducing new music is fine. Introducing a new song every week is over kill. I went to a church on Thanksgiving where the Music Director introduced the new song before Holy Mass and had a practice with the congregation. No prayertime in that church before Mass.
The music is not that important to those in the pew. Especially those who are trying to pray after communion. The happy praise music gets in the way.
Like liturgical committees, Choir Directors aren’t always making things better.
We have a parish that sings, because we don’t have a group of people doing it for us.
>>“That’s what a Mass is supposed to sound like.”<<
Amen.
That’s what most Choir Directors don’t understand.
We want the reverence that makes us Catholic.
Most of us would rather have no music at all than the “innovations”. There is comfort in repetition. Watch an EWTN mass and listen to their choir. It’s not about them.
But we don't want to repeat the mistakes that were made around the time of VCII, and rush in a bunch of unfamiliar stuff on people. Just because the orthodox were bewildered, offended and annoyed when the wreckovationists ripped out the kneelers overnight and made everybody change without any warning or preparation, doesn't mean we should do it back (as appealing as that is to a sense of cosmic justice).
So we phase out the awful hymns, phase in the good ones, add more and more Latin to the Mass where we chant the Ordinary (with the wholehearted cooperation of our Parochial Vicar, who is learning the Extraordinary Form), and try to keep the congregation up to speed on the changes without overtaxing them.
It's a delicate process. But we hear through the ecclesiastical grapevine that we are attracting folks from all over, so even if we're proceeding slowly it's having a good effect. Link by link is chainmail made, as one of Kipling's characters said, or "brick by brick", quoth Father Z.
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