Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship
Morning’s Minion generated some good discussion around the U.S. bishops’ upcoming update of their voter’s guide, Faithful Citizenship a few days ago, which is set to be discussed at their upcoming meeting in Baltimore. Also on the agenda is the approval of a new document on liturgical music, Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship.
The draft articulates more clearly a theology of the liturgical celebration and includes a reflection on Redemptionis Sacramentum, no. 116, the latest Vatican document related to the issue. It incorporates the concept of “progressive solemnity” to outline the process of choosing what to sing from among the various parts of the Mass. The text also explores the role of the composer, music in the celebration of sacraments, instrumentation, language and cultural issues, technology, copyrights and participation aids.
I have not read the previous document in some time, and I can’t remember if it dealt with the issues of technology and copyright. But this should be an interesting section in the contemporary context where the Catholic “liturgical music industry” functions in a similar way to the secular music industry. Over at my main blog, I have promised my readers (a couple times now!) that I will do a bit of writing on why Catholics should be concerned about the music industry in general; many of my concerns would apply to Catholic liturgical music as well.
The section on instrumentation and “liturgical appropriateness” should also be interesting in light of the (somewhat overblown and largely puzzling) interest in the Tridentine Mass. The issue of liturgical appropriateness, of course, generates fierce arguments, some being strongly in favor of “inculturation,” and others taking cheap shots at local church manifestations of inculturated liturgy. The use of culturally-appropriate instruments, like the guitar, is one such example of legitimate inculturation. Of course, there are both good and bad “guitar Masses,” no doubt (and guitarists who have been playing for a while are certainly in a good position to know the difference!), just as there are good and bad “organ Masses” and good and bad “acappella” Masses. But I still find it hard to believe that some people simply don’t think guitars can be sacred instruments at all. They obviously haven’t heard Segovia… or the Edge, for that matter!
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Segovia, yes!
That’s so true… Michael and I have gone a couple of times to this “LifeTeen” Mass where the young music director plays the piano (and very well I should say!), but he is yawning when he is not playing or picking on the other members of the choir and it is just very distracting, because the Mass turned into something “about him” rather than about the community.
I’ve been a soprano before for my church choir and unless your music director understands the role that music plays in the liturgy, it can be easy to see yourself as the “parish celebrity” and turning it into something that is “all about you.” And that is when music starts becoming secular, because you turn it into a concert.
I think OCP has something like 70% of hymns copyrighted, be it arrangement or otherwise. Despite a wealth of musical history, my understanding is that it would be grotesquely expensive to create a new hymnal because one would have to come up with original arrangements of everything, even the old stuff.
It will be interesting to see what they come up with. Not only do we have the music industry and various cultural forms to deal with, but we also have competing notions of what constitutes ‘worship’. BTW, I agree that the Edge playing ‘Gloria’ can be a religious experience, but I’m not sure it rises to the level of ‘sollemnity’.
Hoo boy, is this topic going to generate some fireworks…
I attend a 10pm Mass in the local Newman center, which has a single singer with a guitar.
The lights are usually off, and so the only illumination is the candles around the periphery of the church; the music is quiet, meditative, and grounded in scripture; the atmosphere this creates is reverent and usually reminds me of midnight prayers at a monastery.
Matt — YES. That sounds like a good guitar-based set-up. I love Taize music on guitar, personally. Also a lot of the lesser-known St Louis Jesuits songs (not so much the “hits”) are pure gold.
Michael,
I generally don’t think it is about the instrument so much as the attitudes that the people implementing the instrument take. Many people prefer the organ because of the environment it fosters. If you want to come to church and pray before Mass or prepare for an encounter with God, generally at an organ Mass, there will be organ music in the background and people will have a tendency to disturb what you are doing less. If you go to a guittar Mass, you will be “taught” a song, and told to greet your neighbor. If you believe that you shouldn’t socialize inside church, you probably won’t see this at a Guittar Mass. Generally throught the guittar/piano Mass (and, unfortunately, many organ Masses) the spaces that used to be left for individual prayer and recollection have been replaced with singing and socialization.
The distinction between Guittar and Organ, to me, is more of a sign of the people and practices that people in a parish take on. I think there is just a different mindset between people who think that worship is primarily about relating to God (you can relate to one another after you gave God his proper place) and that worship is primarily about getting together as a community and singing, socializing, and holding hands. One group tends to like organs and the other guittars. That one group likes organs and the other guittars is accidental. It would be interesting to see the guittar applied to a more traditional style of Mass (not necessarily “Tridentine”).
From the Hootenanny Mass….Delivery us O Lord!
Michael Enright – I think the distinction you are setting up is a false one, based on stereotypes more than on reality, and likely based on your own preferences. I think it’s insane that Catholics tend to think in this binary way, as if Mass is either “primarily” about “relating to God” or about “relating to others.” In orthodox Catholic liturgical theology, the liturgy is about both of these things. If one does not think we should “socialize” at Mass, I start to wonder what he or she thinks terms like “communion” and “the Body of Christ” really mean.
Greg – I grew up in the post-Vatican II “experimental” phase of liturgy in an Appalachian context and have never experienced a “Hootenanny Mass.” My own experience suggests that the “Hootenany Mass” or whatever other clever terms or images are produced do not refer to reality but to a myth. Are you telling me you have gone into a church expecting a Mass and what you got was a hoe-down?
Michael E. – Also, for some Catholics, it is very much about the appropriateness of particular instruments. Some outright say that guitars are not “liturgically appropriate,” or are not “sacred.” Ratzinger pretty much said this explicitly in The Spirit of the Liturgy if I remember correctly. It makes me wonder if these people are simply ignoring the fact that much of our liturgical music, in many contexts, has carried “secular” music over into the liturgy and has made it “sacred.”
With a magnificent musical heritage stretching over two millenia it never ceases to astonish me that the typical music of most parishes in this country consists of 10 lame tunes from the Sixties and the Seventies of the prior century.
I suspect that liturgical conservatives will be disappointed by the final document. Most of their criticisms are still stuck in the 70′s, as it were, and not at all aligned with parish practice in places where the leadership is sound.
Parishes who by financial or geographical circumstance (or by choice) find themselves lacking leadership might well be languishing in the 80′s, the 60′s or even the 1860′s. Will this document have a positive effect there? I think it unlikely.
Having some exposure to the “Catholic music industry,” I find the critical comments run the spectrum from informed to naive. It’s still run mostly on a consumer’s market. GIA tried, for example, to end the publication of hymnals with the texts of the Sunday readings. The parishes still wanted ‘em. OCP found a market by appealing to the basic levels of musicianship found in small and mid-sized parishes. People wanted simple psalm tones, easy Mass parts, old and new favorites. They got ‘em all.
Anyway, the discussion is guaranteed to generate heat. Light, too, would be good.
Michael,
Interesting that you bring up Spirit of the Liturgy. I thought that was a wonderful book for the most part, but when Ratzinger got to talking about music, his arguments against modern music did not convince me. He comments that rock music expresses “elemental passions”, takes people out of themselves by taking them below the “eloemental forces of the universe” and becomes “a form or worship opposed to Christian worship.” I’m not even 100% certain what he means here. What are the elemental forces he’s referring to? How does the loudness of the music or the fastness of the rhythm either take ones identity or put one below nature? Sure, the lyrics were often scandelous, but what does that have to do with the musical style. I’ve been using “Christian rock” to praise God for nearly a quarter of a century now. I grew up on a mix of Christian pop/rock, Praise and Worship music, and old Protestant hymns. Certainly, the quality wasn’t always there, and even from a Protestant theological perspective, there was much to be desired in the lyrics of some of the newer Christian music. But, I didn’t see anything sinister or un-Christian about it.
You are a BRAVE man, Michael for touching on this topic. I don’t know what the solution is and it will be interesting to see what the Bishops have to say. I do tend to react very negatively to those who are anti-guitar. I am not sure what makes the organ a holy instrument. I have attended Masses where the organ playing and the guitar playing were really out of hand. The distinction is the person playing the instruments and what they choose to do with those instruments.
For full disclosure’s sake: I sing in my church’s choir and the instruments are all guitars with some rhythm. But then we sing traditional Latino music.
‘It would be interesting to see the guittar applied to a more traditional style of Mass (not necessarily “Tridentine”).’
Then be sure to check out the final number in Elvis Presley’s last movie, ‘Change of Habit’, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-S3K6wXYpg. I can’t say the combination works very well!
PS–If the link doesn’t take you directly to Elvis, the song is entitled ‘Let us Pray’.
I think caricature generates, as Todd put it, more heat than light.
Personally, I wouldn’t mind hearing some Palestrina (sixteenth century polyphony) at my local parish, but they can’t afford the quality of musicians to really do the Missa de Beata Virgine justice. I also, as I said previously, appreciate well-done, liturgically appropriate guitar music. See? It IS possible to love both!
The choices aren’t vapid hippie music (and, c’mon, when was the last time you personally heard “Kum Ba Ya” actually being played at Mass? My answer is I’m not sure, but I’m reasonably certain it’s been at least 35 years and probably more like 40) or stuffy old “Faith of Our Fathers” triumphalism.
Oops, forgot to close italics. Sorry.
Matt,
I closed them for you.
Who wouldn’t love Palestrina’s music in Mass? You bring an excellent point. Not every parish has the quality of musicians/instruments to make this happen. I think we’re all commenting here presupposing that these parishes are “middle-class” parishes, but that’s just not reality. Back home in Venezuela, we went to a humble parish that couldn’t even afford a piano, so the music/choir was just a guy with a guitar–and it was reverent and beautiful. I mean, guitars are cheap!
And all you guys are right–it has to do SO MUCH with the music director and those who are playing the instruments than the actual instruments themselves. Something I can’t stand is those people who consider themselves celebrities when they sing or play an instrument during Mass… ugh! ;)
A society I heartily endorse!
http://www.mgilleland.com/music/moratorium.htm
Thanks, Katerina.
Matthew K. — Honestly I have mixed feelings about “rock music” at Mass. Like anything, it’s all in how it’s done. That said, I agree with you that Ratzinger’s comments on rock music in The Spirit of the Liturgy made little sense to me and I was surprised to see him writing his musical tastes into his theology in that way. Sure, feel free to state your liturgical tastes, but enough with the “my tastes are the only thing that are liturgically appropriate” BS.
Donald — I’m familiar with that website. While Haugen and Haas are not my favorite liturgical composers (they rip each other and themselves off so as to become caricatures of 1990s Catholic music) the website is, frankly, mean spirited. It’s a shame you so proudly endorse that kind of thing.
An organist friend of mine once surfed to Donald’s referenced site. She has been a church musician since before the council, is a tireless promoter of choirs, chant, and the organ. Her take was that no professional musician with any sense of ethics would engage in a work of attack like that or sign on to it.
As for the guitar, Monteverdi employed the use of the lute in his 1610 Vespers. Not sure about Elvis, but if plucked strings are good enough for Monteverdi, they’re good enough for me.
“Her take was that no professional musician with any sense of ethics would engage in a work of attack like that or sign on to it”
Or a sense of humor Todd.
To add fuel to the fire:
http://oxfiles.blogspot.com/2006/03/ten-step-marty-haugen-song-writing.html
Donald, I was stuck by this line from your second website recommendation:
For a song to be a true Haugen classic it needs to incorporate some or all of the following words and phrases:
Justice, community, gathering, eat at the table, communion of hope, peace, injustice, bread, singing people, new song, light, open our minds, you love our failures, weakness.
Do not consult the Catechism or any other official Church documents during the lyric writing process, it will just complicate your lyrics and taint them with an official hierarchical flavour which doesn’t work for Haugen songs.
Sounds like the idiot thinks Catholic composers should do away with biblical themes in song lyrics and should instead try to be lyrically inspired by the Catechism. Um, yeah. Good idea. It’s apparent the dude knows nothing about writing music, nor about what the Church actually wants from its liturgical music composers, which is the former: biblically based texts.
Michael–
I think I understand your point, but I don’t really agree. I probably did present caricatures. Whenever I go to a guittar Mass, it reminds me of a certain parish (the one where I grew up), and I probably presented a caricature of it. Being part of the community and relating to other parish members is important to me. I just think it is rude when I go there to pray and people carry on in their conversations like they can’t see me, or the people who see me kneeling and want to start a conversation. Perhaps the problem is one I would consider of “inappropriate noise”.
Also, I do think it has something to do with ideas of communion. That is why my carricatured guittar mass parish has an inconspicuous tabernacle sitting way off to the side in a hidden chappel. The physical presence of Christ is actually demoted, from its once front and center position on the alter. Growing up in that parish it was easy to forget its importance.
And reading the above, I would also admit to my own preferences, and perhaps even issues with certain liturgical attitudes that I see as related to a very poor Catholic formation. I would admit to perhaps even going in an extreme opposite to the parish I grew up in out of frustration and fear. I am certainly interested in any input regarding a more well rounded “orthadox Catholic liturgical theology”.
Michael E. – I understand some of the frustrations you are expressing, like lack of reverence at liturgy, treating it like a mere social gathering, etc., but I’m not sure what that has to do with the guitar. There is, of course, some truth in caricatures, or else they would not function as caricatures, but I just find them unhelpful because then discussions like these end up looking like American political debates.
A few things to think about:
I understand what you are saying about trying to pray before Mass when people are talking, etc., but it’s worth considering anew what the purpose of liturgy is. When we go to Mass, and get there a little early, is that time primarily for private, individual prayer or is it more about entering into communal worship? When I want private, personal prayer time, I don’t do it right before Mass. I wouldn’t expect to experience very fruitful prayer at that particular time. Of course, there is an individual aspect to liturgy, but I would not say that is the primary focus of liturgy, nor of the time pf preparation before the liturgy.
The placement of the tabernacle is an important issue, and I am with you in your distaste for “hidden” eucharistic chapels. I don’t, however, think the tabernacle always needs to be “front and center,” nor do I think having the tabernacle in some other place necessarily “demotes” the Catholic emphasis on the Real Presence. Do we really need to see the tabernacle “front and center” in order that we don’t forget that Christ is truly present? The tabernacle is primarily a place to reserve the eucharistic elements, not the center of our liturgy. My parish back home (and my parish here in Toronto, actually) has the tabernacle placed on a side altar, but not in a separate room.
Finally – and this is simply a pet peeve of mine – we should be careful about the claim that Christ is “physically” present in the Eucharist. Technically, the Catholic belief about the Real Presence, transubstantiation, etc. is not that Christ is physically present, but sacramentally present under the appearance of bread and wine. That sacramental presence is no doubt real, but it is not “physical” since the Risen Christ is beyond time and space.
First, the Church teaches that the Sacred Liturgy is about Christ the head, united to His Spouse offering Himself to the Father. In the Sacred Liturgy we enter into this dynamic, but it is primarily about God and not us. This is not making the liturgy into “binaries” or treating it as we treat U.S. politics.
Secondly, it is disheartening to hear you say, “The section on instrumentation and “liturgical appropriateness” should also be interesting in light of the (somewhat overblown and largely puzzling) interest in the Tridentine Mass.” First of all, in speaking of the “largely puzzling interest in the Tridentine Mass” you are betraying an apparent lack of knowledge concerning one of the main theological thrusts of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate. On the 22 of December in 2005 he gave an address to the Roman Curia in which he discussed the Second Vatican Council 40 years later. In this he condemned the “hermeneutic of rupture” which can be had on both sides (liberal Catholicism that flees from anything not “post Vatican II” and the Lefebrevists and Sedevacantists) and lauded the hermeneutic of continuity which sees Vatican II in light of the Church’s Tradition. He quotes this address 4 times in the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortatioin Sacramentum Caritatis and it is with respect to this hermeneutic that this summer we had the CDF’s document on “subsistit in” and the Motu Proprio concerning the Missal of Blessed John XXIII. I think therefore that your saying about the Tridentine Mass comes off as offensive to those who are attached to it and receive great spiritual nurishment from it.
Thirdly, I do not think that Guitars are appropriate 99% of the time in the Sacred Liturgy. I would say they are never appropriate in the way I have heard them in every Mass I have been to in the United States with guitars. I would be willing to give you a more in-depth answer but I would rather email it to you or give it to you as a post than put it on a comment board. This is not merely a taste issue.
I go to the North American College here in Rome and I can only tell you this. While the new seminarians I have encountered from the States and other places around the world are not “traditionalists”, almost all of them seem to be sick of the horrendous, yes I said that, liturgies that we have, for the most part, experienced over the past 40 years. Whether it be priests deviating from the Missals, fluffy homilies, goofy music that makes one wonder if they are at the Sacred Liturgy or a circus, iconoclastic church buildings, and the thrust to protestantize Catholic worship. Most of the friends that I grew up with in the States are Protestant, and yes I love them dearly as my brothers and sisters in Christ, but let’s face it, we have completely different ideas of what the Sacred Liturgy constitutes with the exception of some Anglicans.
I think your discussion on inculturation is certainly lacking in that you speak of those taking cheap shots on “local dioceson inculturation”. First, we have to deal with the question of what if any culture exists in the United States. Secondly, I would say that most people are not against inculturation per se, so much as they are against the adding of elements that detract from the substantial unity of the Roman Rite which the Church says must not be compromised. Inculturation is much deeper than the binary you suggest as “for or against”.
Perhaps instead of throwing the word around we could discuss it in light of Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the “Instruction: Inculturation and the Roman Liturgy (Varietates Legitimae)” from the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.
One thing I appreciate about this blog is that it seems to understand issues at more than a superficial level and I hope that can happen here. Please don’t take what I said above as a personal attack on you, rather I am attempting to look critically at what you have said.
Poor USCCB. Between this document and their draft election year statement (see previous post), they will be tackling two issues on which consensus is impossible. The barn door has been open for too long.
For a song to be a true Haugen classic it needs to incorporate some or all of the following words and phrases:
Justice, community, gathering, eat at the table, communion of hope, peace, injustice, bread, singing people, new song, light, open our minds, you love our failures, weakness.
Do not consult the Catechism or any other official Church documents during the lyric writing process, it will just complicate your lyrics and taint them with an official hierarchical flavour which doesn’t work for Haugen songs.
Have these people that criticize Haugen or Haas ever opened the Bible and realized that their themes are taken from THE Book?????
The section on instrumentation and “liturgical appropriateness” should also be interesting in light of the (somewhat overblown and largely puzzling) interest in the Tridentine Mass.
That’s the party line out of the Spirit of Vatican II playbook.
The issue of liturgical appropriateness, of course, generates fierce arguments, some being strongly in favor of “inculturation,” and others taking cheap shots at local church manifestations of inculturated liturgy.
You mean cheap shots like “somewhat overblown” and “puzzling”?
The parishes still wanted ‘em. OCP found a market by appealing to the basic levels of musicianship found in small and mid-sized parishes.
STRUM-strum-strum, STRUM-strum-strum, GA-ther us IN the musically CLUEless, GA-ther us in, the BANal and trite.
U.S. Seminarian —
First, I prefer to deal with people who are not anonymous. As a public representative of the Catholic Church, it might be good for you not to hide behind a pseudonym which seems designed primarily to express some kind of cred based on your position of power.
It is an entirely FALSE claim when you say that the Church teaches the liturgy is “primarily about God.” This amounts to a denial of the incarnation. The liturgy is about the worship of God and about God’s gift of himself to us. The gathered community is just as primary as God in the liturgy, or else liturgy would make no sense. God cannot have a liturgy without us, and truly God would want no such thing. Your view IS INDEED treating the liturgy in a binary way, almost like “culture war theology.” And that’s bad theology.
First of all, in speaking of the “largely puzzling interest in the Tridentine Mass” you are betraying an apparent lack of knowledge concerning one of the main theological thrusts of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate.
No, I’m quite familiar with the address you cited.
I think therefore that your saying about the Tridentine Mass comes off as offensive to those who are attached to it and receive great spiritual nurishment from it.
How? I think the interest in the Tridentine Mass is indeed overblown, i.e. not as widespread as the media and the Catholic blogosphere would have us believe. I think what little interest there is in this form of the Mass is puzzling, i.e. I do not understand it. I also find it interesting that the majority of people clamouring for this liturgy are schismatics and young U.S. seminarians. What significance that has, I will not venture a guess.
Thirdly, I do not think that Guitars are appropriate 99% of the time in the Sacred Liturgy. I would say they are never appropriate in the way I have heard them in every Mass I have been to in the United States with guitars. I would be willing to give you a more in-depth answer but I would rather email it to you or give it to you as a post than put it on a comment board. This is not merely a taste issue.
Why email it? This concern of yours is PRECISELY the topic of the post I made. Back up your claim.
First, we have to deal with the question of what if any culture exists in the United States. Secondly, I would say that most people are not against inculturation per se, so much as they are against the adding of elements that detract from the substantial unity of the Roman Rite which the Church says must not be compromised. Inculturation is much deeper than the binary you suggest as “for or against”.
1) Are you suggesting there is nothing distinctive about American culture? 2) The idea that the Roman Rite is this pure thing to which “other elements” are “added” through a process of inculturation is laughable because it denies that the Roman Rite itself is a product of inculturation.
Tony:
You mean cheap shots like “somewhat overblown” and “puzzling”?
How is that a “cheap shot?”
STRUM-strum-strum, STRUM-strum-strum, GA-ther us IN the musically CLUEless, GA-ther us in, the BANal and trite.
Ah so you have seen the mean-spirited site Donald referenced earlier. Pretty clever. Since you are pointing fingers at the “musically clueless,” would you care to describe for us the chord progression in “Gather Us In” and show us what in particular is trite about it? How would you describe the chord progression, structure, etc.?
BTW — In a few hrs. I’m leaving town for a few days so I won’t get back to any comments until next week. But I am very much looking forward to the seminarian’s theological explanation of why guitars are not sacred and Tony’s theoretical analysis of “Gather Us In.”
I also find it interesting that the majority of people clamouring for this liturgy are schismatics and young U.S. seminarians. What significance that has, I will not venture a guess.
This is an exceptionally offensive and uncharitable—not to mention patently false—statement.
“First, I prefer to deal with people who are not anonymous. As a public representative of the Catholic Church, it might be good for you not to hide behind a pseudonym which seems designed primarily to express some kind of cred based on your position of power.”
My name is Ted Martin. I didn’t think my name was really that important in the discussion. So your assumption of my supposed motivation is incorrect, I just didn’t put my name down. Secondly, I never knew seminarians were in a position of power… I am a lay person just as you are.
“It is an entirely FALSE claim when you say that the Church teaches the liturgy is “primarily about God.” This amounts to a denial of the incarnation. The liturgy is about the worship of God and about God’s gift of himself to us. The gathered community is just as primary as God in the liturgy, or else liturgy would make no sense. God cannot have a liturgy without us, and truly God would want no such thing. Your view IS INDEED treating the liturgy in a binary way, almost like “culture war theology.” And that’s bad theology.”
Part 2 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Article 1 is named “The Liturgy – The Work of the Holy Trinity”
“1085: In the liturgy of the Church, it is principally his own Paschal mystery that Christ signifies and makes present.”
If I wasn’t sufficiently specific and clear, I will try to be more specific and clear by saying that I think God is what is most important in the liturgy, and like I said in my first post, that doesn’t imply a degradation of the importance of the community worshiping God, rather, as Cardinal Ratzinger states in The Spirit of the Liturgy, the principal action of the liturgy is God’s action.
I think what you quoted takes what I said out of context, as I spoke of the community entering into the dynamic of Christ offering Himself to the Father, thus certainly not anti-incarnational as you claim. “First, the Church teaches that the Sacred Liturgy is about Christ the head, united to His Spouse offering Himself to the Father. In the Sacred Liturgy we enter into this dynamic, but it is primarily about God and not us” is what I said above.
“(What I said above) First of all, in speaking of the “largely puzzling interest in the Tridentine Mass” you are betraying an apparent lack of knowledge concerning one of the main theological thrusts of Pope Benedict’s Pontificate.”
“(Your response) No, I’m quite familiar with the address you cited.”
Familiarity doesn’t necessarily imply apprehension and/or understanding.
“(What I said above) I think therefore that your saying about the Tridentine Mass comes off as offensive to those who are attached to it and receive great spiritual nourishment from it.”
“(Your response) How? I think the interest in the Tridentine Mass is indeed overblown, i.e. not as widespread as the media and the Catholic blogosphere would have us believe. I think what little interest there is in this form of the Mass is puzzling, i.e. I do not understand it. I also find it interesting that the majority of people clamoring for this liturgy are schismatics and young U.S. seminarians. What significance that has, I will not venture a guess.”
I don’t know too many seminarians who are “clamouring” for this liturgy. I assume you are speaking of the extra-ordinary expression of the Roman Rite, which you are referring to as the Tridentine Mass. As I said, they are tired of poorly celebrated Masses in the last 40 years, that would be the ordinary form, not the extra-ordinary form. Speaking of the “Tridentine Mass”, I think the Holy Father has spoken well on the topic, “It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.” (Explanatory Letter on the Apostolic Letter Given Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” Pope Benedict XVI)
I hope to keep this discussion in a spirit of fraternal charity as we are united in the Church of Christ, which he won at the price of his blood.
Yours in Christ,
Ted Martin
“Or a sense of humor Todd.”
People who have an authentic sense of humor aren’t afraid when the humor shifts on themselves, nor do they cloak their web page in anonymity. Many such persons can’t take a joke, unless they deliver the punch line.
When I contacted the web page’s author and requested he remove it, he cloaked himself in the morality of the clergy who signed on to it, and seemed decidedly unamused. When I was in school, we also had people who imitated comedians, usually generating laughs at the expense of others. A sense of humor had nothing to do with it; they were bullies, pure and simple.
“Have these people that criticize Haugen or Haas ever opened the Bible and realized that their themes are taken from THE Book?”
Generally not. They usually take their clue from their blogging hero and align themselves behind accordingly.
Many traditionalists, whether they realize it or not, have bought into the Culture of Complaint endemic to the prevalent secularism of the West. They are of a kind: offer clever criticism, but decline when the opportunity presents itself to actually roll up their sleeves and work to build something.
Put such musical types all together and you get a hymnal by subtraction, a very thin and very blank little book.
Ugh. It’s sad that liturgical music, which ought to unite the faithful, is so divisive. Perhaps we have too many options. When I attended an eastern-rite church for some years, we sang the same ancient tones (with English words) every Sunday, and it was great. Now that I’m back with the Latins, I prefer the ‘low’ Mass.
SMB,
Absolutely right–there is something wrong whenever liturgical music becomes a dividing factor among the faithful.
Over at the New Liturgical Movement, Jeffrey Tucker has hit the nail on the head in regards to this issue:
Iafrate and some others seem to think Mass is about what we offer to GOD ! Typical post-Vatican 11 obfuscation!
If any musician, or choir, or musical composer thinks they, be it he or she, ads to the GLORY of GOD, then they have entered into the Catholic Church of the United States, a creation that has only really come about since 1982.
Leave us our buildings, and build your own !