106 years later, has anything changed?

[benedictgal]

At our church, we’ve been fortunate to have received a new pastor only a couple weeks ago and one issue that concerned him was the state of the music at what’s traditionally our “youth Mass.” At a liturgy meeting, someone suggested that we purchase some copies of Spirit & Song (I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but it’s basically a collection of pop tunes set to diluted Christian lyrics) and use that. I found the idea so uninspiring and trite. *Anyone *can sing pop tunes. And so I went out on a limb and suggested that we introduce Latin chant to our church’s youth, offering as much help as I possibly could with instruction and teaching, organization, practices, workshops, rehearsals, etc.

If you could have seen the faces of 10 dazed and confused adults staring at me! It was a sight to behold.

Needless to say, my idea was totally shot down and one factor that kept coming up was that it is very difficult to sing on pitch without an instrumental accompaniment, as in the style of traditionally sung chant.

Actually, the 10 adults confirmed what has been said in other threads. It’s as though they are only thinking about what they like as opposed to what the Church requires. Incidentally, your pastor pretty much echoed the same concerns that were expressed by the Fathers of the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist:

In other responses some lamented the poor quality of translations of liturgical texts and many musical texts in current languages, maintaining that they lacked beauty and were sometimes theologically unclear, thereby contributing to a weakening of Church teaching and to a misunderstanding of prayer. A few responses made particular mention of music and singing at Youth Masses. In this regard, it is important to avoid musical forms which, because of their profane use, are not conducive to prayer. Some responses note a certain eagerness in composing new songs, to the point of almost yielding to a consumer mentality, showing little concern for the quality of the music and text, and easily overlooking the artistic patrimony which has been theologically and musically effective in the Church’s liturgy.

So, he has every right to be concerned. Incidentally, my parish uses Spirit and Song for the 1PM Mass, which is supposedly the Youth Mass. However, the choir that sings is middle-aged. Whenever I’ve had to go to that particular Mass, it is a severe penance for me to have to endure the music. Suffice to say that I would rather wear a hair shirt than to listen to that dribble. Most, if not all, of the songs are unsuitable for the Mass. Even though some folks will say that it is scriptural, the particular genre is just incompatible with the Mass. Most of the music is me/we-centered.

Incidentally, regarding bands, here is what Pope St. Pius X wrote in his MP:

1. It is strictly forbidden to have bands play in church, and only in special cases with the consent of the Ordinary will it be permissible to admit wind instruments, limited in number, judiciously used, and proportioned to the size of the placeprovided the composition and accompaniment be written in grave and suitable style, and conform in all respects to that proper to the organ.

1. In processions outside the church the Ordinary may give permission for a band, provided no profane pieces be executed. It would be desirable in such cases that the band confine itself to accompanying some spiritual canticle sung in Latin or in the vernacular by the singers and the pious associations which take part in the procession

Oddly enough, the founder of WYD, Pope John Paul II, was in perfect agreement with most, if not all, of what Pope St. Pius X had to say on music. He, too, lamented the state of music in the Church in this age.

 

[dzheremi]

No, absolutely nothing has changed, at least not from what I’ve seen in the few parishes I’ve been a part of in Oregon and California. I’ve asked about this before when I was living in Oregon and was told that Latin Mass was offered once a month at a particular church in another nearby location, so I should go to that if I want more traditional worship services.

Deflections like these do not answer the concerns of the faithful regarding this issue and/or issues related to it, I don’t think.

 

[Phemie]

I’ve always found that it’s not the kids who impose that music on the parish but the adults who assume that the kids they work with don’t want/can’t sing the traditional stuff.

How do you explain the wonderful children/youth choirs in other churches that do traditional stuff beautifully? Because nobody starts by assuming that they can’t.

 

[Victorious]

So, he has every right to be concerned. Incidentally, my parish uses Spirit and Song for the 1PM Mass, which is supposedly the Youth Mass. However, the choir that sings is middle-aged.

I’ve always found that it’s not the kids who impose that music on the parish but the adults who assume that the kids they work with don’t want/can’t sing the traditional stuff.

A bunch of 45-year-olds with '80s coifs trying to relive their garage band days is not a “youth” band. Three Jefferson Airplane rejects surrounded by a dozen clueless teenaged girls in short skirts is not a “youth” band. Mass is not an appropriate venue for bands anyway, as somone has pointed out.

By the way, allow me to anticipate someone pointing out that Tra le Sollecitudini states that women are to be excluded from the choir. I am a woman, and I sing in my parish’s choir. But if I am ever asked to stand down on account of the teaching of the above document, I will do so.

 

[passus]

By the way, allow me to anticipate someone pointing out that Tra le Sollecitudini states that women are to be excluded from the choir. I am a woman, and I sing in my parish’s choir. But if I am ever asked to stand down on account of the teaching of the above document, I will do so.

Please allow me to point out that Tra le Sollecitudini is from 1903. More recent legislation specifically allows females to serve in the church choir.

Musicam Sacram says:

The choir can consist, according to the customs of each country and other circumstances, of either men and boys, or men and boys only, or men and women, or even, where there is a genuine case for it, of women only (22).

 

[Victorious]

Please allow me to point out that Tra le Sollecitudini is from 1903. More recent legislation specifically allows females to serve in the church choir.

Makes no difference. If we are asked to stand down, we should. Our unwillingness to cease serving is a big part of this whole problem, and raises the question just whom it is we are serving.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’d object to anybody enforcing their ideas on the music of the mass. There was a time when even chant was practically unknown, since that mainly came ouf of the monastic order.

Music changes, like language, and any attempt to strait jacket musical styles will backfire.

Moreover there are other nationalities - some Asian music tends to be pentatonic. Indian music has its own scale structure etc.

Personally I regard the poor quality of the homilies a bigger problem than the music standards. But both need attention.

 

[passus]

Makes no difference. If we are asked to stand down, we should.

Well, that’s very righteous of you. Thanks for sharing.

I, on the other hand, don’t much like being bossed around.

Our unwillingness to cease serving is a big part of this whole problem, and raises the question just whom it is we are serving.

This is really backward. More often than not, the problem is that there are not enough people to serve. I would never discourage people from serving or tell them that they shouldn’t.

As far as whom we’re serving goes…why is it so difficult to accept that some people are very devoted to their service of the Lord?

 

[JimG]

During my grade school years, the children’s choir, which included just about anybody who got to Mass before school began, used nothing but the Laudate hymnal. I’m not sure if it is even published anymore. We did ok with Latin hymns as well as chant. Nobody thought we were doing anything particularly extraordinary.

 

[Victorious]

Well, that’s very righteous of you. Thanks for sharing.

I, on the other hand, don’t much like being bossed around.

Ah, the arrogance of youth! I wish I knew as much now as I did when I was your age! But here’s something you haven’t learned yet: obedience is a virtue. So is humility.

This is really backward. More often than not, the problem is that there are not enough people to serve. I would never discourage people from serving or tell them that they shouldn’t.

As far as whom we’re serving goes…why is it so difficult to accept that some people are very devoted to their service of the Lord?

Part of service is the willingness to be dispensed with. If you think you are indispensable, then you are lacking in humility. If you’re not willing to stand down when asked to do so, then it is not the Lord you are serving, but yourself.

 

[Victorious]

I’d object to anybody enforcing their ideas on the music of the [M]***.

That’s exactly the problem: people enforcing their own ideas of music (or “music”) in the Mass, instead of abiding by the Church’s teaching.

 

[FrDavid96]

Putting exclusive limits on a set book of hymns to which we would henceforth limit ourselves would somehow encourage sacred music?

Yes, it would.

What if someone composes a…new hymn? It would never see the “light of day” as far as use in the liturgy is concerned. How is that a good thing?

That’s not a fair or true statement to make. Far from prohibiting new hymns, the Church encourages this. There’s nothing prohibiting new hymns, so why imply that there would be?

JPII already answered that:

12 …I know well that also today there are numerous composers who are capable of making their indispensable contribution in this spirit, increasing with their competent collaboration the patrimony of music at the service of a Liturgy lived ever more intensely. To them I express my confidence, together with the most cordial exhortation to put their every effort into increasing the repertoire of compositions worthy of the exalted nature of the mysteries celebrated and, at the same time, suited to contemporary sensibilities.

Here’s what JPII had to say in his Chirograph

1. The music and song requested by the liturgical reform - it is right to stress this point - must comply with the legitimate demands of adaptation and inculturation. It is clear, however, that any innovation in this sensitive matter must respect specific criteria such as the search for musical expressions which respond to the necessary involvement of the entire assembly in the celebration and which, at the same time, avoid any concessions to frivolity or superficiality. Likewise, on the whole, those elitist forms of “inculturation” which introduce into the Liturgy ancient or contemporary compositions of possible artistic value, but that indulge in a language that is incomprehensible to the majority, should be avoided.

In this regard St Pius X pointed out - using the term universal - a further prerequisite of music destined for worship: “…while every nation”, he noted, “is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music, still these forms must be subordinate in such a manner to the general character of sacred music, that nobody of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them”[16]. In other words, the sacred context of the celebration must never become a laboratory for experimentation or permit forms of composition and performance to be introduced without careful review.

 

[ibkc]

I always have to wonder why the people who are so set on rock bands and the like, HAVE to have that music in the mass. It’s not like “youth music” can’t be played at other church functions - youth group and the like. Why does it have to be imposed on the liturgy?

 

[FrDavid96]

There are 3 stereotypes employed by people who do not want the Church to reign-in inappropriate compositions:

1. “There would not be any new music” or “We can only sing old hymns” This is simply not true, not at all. The Church does not forbid new music, quite the contrary, the Church encourages new music. Both of the letters from St Pius X and John Paul II encourage new musical compositions.
2. “Young people demand to be entertained at Mass” This stereotype takes many forms. They claim that youth demand such music, or that such entertainment-style music is the only way to “bring them in or keep them in the Church.” The stereotype says that if we don’t provide cheap entertainment, young people will feel excluded and will leave the Church. In reality, the greatest proponents of this untruth are the “young people” who want to re-live their glory days of the 60s hippie movement (either because they took part in it, or because they now look back and regret not having done so–either way, it’s their own nostalgia speaking). It’s a circular argument because the people who want the youth to be entertained are the ones preventing the youth from being introduced to authentic Catholic worship forms in the first place. They isolate the youth (with such things as youth Masses or the lifeteen program). They ensure that the youth will know nothing of the authentic spirit of the Liturgy, and then they say that authentic worship would be too foreign to young people. It’s like parents who raise their children by feeding them nothing but junk food, and then when someone comes along and says “feed them nutritious foods” the parents’ response is “they don’t like that and won’t eat it.”

The truth is that young people are hungering for authentic Catholic worship forms. That’s right folks, they’re hungering for it, and they’re demanding it.

Young people today are much more sophisticated than previous generations (at least in some sense). They have the ability to research and expand their horizons in ways that were never available before in all of human history. They have the ability to verify what they’ve been taught like never before. At the same time, they are also immersed in the mundane and trivial and materialistic like never before. Cheap, superficial entertainment pervades every aspect of their lives. They satisfy that need anytime they choose, on a moment’s notice. They carry music players capable of giving them a choice of tens of thousands of songs from popular culture music literally at their fingertips.

They realize that there is a spiritual void in the entertainment-rich, on-demand, completely customizable world which is also devoid of any deeper meaning, and most unfortunately, any moral foundation or even moral standards. They come to church in search of something different. And what do they find when they come to church? Older people trying to live-out the glory days of the 60s vicariously through the young people. In other words, they find themselves being used. They’re being used by the same generation that reveled in burning their draft cards, but now wave their social security cards.

When young people are introduced to authentic Catholic worship, the response is not to turn away, as so many retired hippies claim. Instead, they are inspired by it and hunger for more. Go to a traditional Latin Mass and look around. The vast majority of people attending there are not old people who want to re-live the days before Vatican II. No, the pews are filled with young parents and teenagers hungering to fill the spiritual void of society and replace the trivial frivolities of the youth Mass with the authentic and solidly-grounded spirituality of authentic Catholic worship. They don’t want to sit through the 60 year old priest wearing tye-dyed vestments who uses hand puppets to give a homily when they can just as easily turn on their personal entertainment devices and watch a movie anytime they choose.

It’s time we stopped isolating our young people and insulating them from authentic Catholic spirituality and morality. This isn’t being done to serve the youth, it’s being done to use them.

Too many older people fear that our youth might be introduced to true Catholic spirituality, because they fear the loss of control that will inevitably result.

1. “Chant style music is to difficult to learn” This is simply not true. Not true at all. Chant style music is very easy to learn. That’s the very nature of this music. It was designed to be used by people who can’t read music (and indeed for people who could not even read the words). It was designed for a time when no one but the choir even had access to the texts of the hymns. Throwaway paperbacks weren’t used when every manuscript had to be copied by hand one letter at a time. Chant is easy to learn. There is a certain “natural flow” to the music which makes it easy, not difficult, to pick-up very quickly.

 

[Victorious]

There are 3 stereotypes employed by people who do not want the Church to reign-in inappropriate compositions:

1. “There would not be any new music” or “We can only sing old hymns” This is simply not true, not at all. The Church does not forbid new music, quite the contrary, the Church encourages new music. Both of the letters from St Pius X and John Paul II encourage new musical compositions.
2. “Young people demand to be entertained at Mass” This stereotype takes many forms. They claim that youth demand such music, or that such entertainment-style music is the only way to “bring them in or keep them in the Church.” The stereotype says that if we don’t provide cheap entertainment, young people will feel excluded and will leave the Church. In reality, the greatest proponents of this untruth are the “young people” who want to re-live their glory days of the 60s hippie movement (either because they took part in it, or because they now look back and regret not having done so–either way, it’s their own nostalgia speaking). It’s a circular argument because the people who want the youth to be entertained are the ones preventing the youth from being introduced to authentic Catholic worship forms in the first place. They isolate the youth (with such things as youth Masses or the lifeteen program). They ensure that the youth will know nothing of the authentic spirit of the Liturgy, and then they say that authentic worship would be too foreign to young people. It’s like parents who raise their children by feeding them nothing but junk food, and then when someone comes along and says “feed them nutritious foods” the parents’ response is “they don’t like that and won’t eat it.”

The truth is that young people are hungering for authentic Catholic worship forms. That’s right folks, they’re hungering for it, and they’re demanding it.

Young people today are much more sophisticated than previous generations (at least in some sense). They have the ability to research and expand their horizons in ways that were never available before in all of human history. They have the ability to verify what they’ve been taught like never before. At the same time, they are also immersed in the mundane and trivial and materialistic like never before. Cheap, superficial entertainment pervades every aspect of their lives. They satisfy that need anytime they choose, on a moment’s notice. They carry music players capable of giving them a choice of tens of thousands of songs from popular culture music literally at their fingertips.

They realize that there is a spiritual void in the entertainment-rich, on-demand, completely customizable world which is also devoid of any deeper meaning, and most unfortunately, any moral foundation or even moral standards. They come to church in search of something different. And what do they find when they come to church? Older people trying to live-out the glory days of the 60s vicariously through the young people. In other words, they find themselves being used. They’re being used by the same generation that reveled in burning their draft cards, but now wave their social security cards.

When young people are introduced to authentic Catholic worship, the response is not to turn away, as so many retired hippies claim. Instead, they are inspired by it and hunger for more. Go to a traditional Latin Mass and look around. The vast majority of people attending there are not old people who want to re-live the days before Vatican II. No, the pews are filled with young parents and teenagers hungering to fill the spiritual void of society and replace the trivial frivolities of the youth Mass with the authentic and solidly-grounded spirituality of authentic Catholic worship. They don’t want to sit through the 60 year old priest wearing tye-dyed vestments who uses hand puppets to give a homily when they can just as easily turn on their personal entertainment devices and watch a movie anytime they choose.

It’s time we stopped isolating our young people and insulating them from authentic Catholic spirituality and morality. This isn’t being done to serve the youth, it’s being done to use them.

Too many older people fear that our youth might be introduced to true Catholic spirituality, because they fear the loss of control that will inevitably result.

1. “Chant style music is to difficult to learn” This is simply not true. Not true at all. Chant style music is very easy to learn. That’s the very nature of this music. It was designed to be used by people who can’t read music (and indeed for people who could not even read the words). It was designed for a time when no one but the choir even had access to the texts of the hymns. Throwaway paperbacks weren’t used when every manuscript had to be copied by hand one letter at a time. Chant is easy to learn. There is a certain “natural flow” to the music which makes it easy, not difficult, to pick-up very quickly.

:clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping::clapping:

:yyeess:
:yeah_me:

 

[thunderballs75]

1. “Chant style music is to difficult to learn” This is simply not true. Not true at all. Chant style music is very easy to learn. That’s the very nature of this music.

Very good post overall Father! Indeed, being 16 years old myself, I must say that I wish dearly to be able to attend a traditional liturgy often. I love the EF, and wish I could attend that every day!

But I really want to support this part. Chant is extremely easy to learn and sight-read. Honestly, I find it harder to read the newer hymns. The difference is that chant flows in a step-wise motion. There are no big jumps or leaps between notes and no large intervals. It is specifically melodic and beautiful. I hope that compositions for the new missal will be chant-like.

 

[Frosty]

1. “Young people demand to be entertained at Mass” This stereotype takes many forms. They claim that youth demand such music, or that such entertainment-style music is the only way to “bring them in or keep them in the Church.” The stereotype says that if we don’t provide cheap entertainment, young people will feel excluded and will leave the Church. In reality, the greatest proponents of this untruth are the “young people” who want to re-live their glory days of the 60s hippie movement (either because they took part in it, or because they now look back and regret not having done so–either way, it’s their own nostalgia speaking). It’s a circular argument because the people who want the youth to be entertained are the ones preventing the youth from being introduced to authentic Catholic worship forms in the first place. They isolate the youth (with such things as youth Masses or the lifeteen program). They ensure that the youth will know nothing of the authentic spirit of the Liturgy, and then they say that authentic worship would be too foreign to young people. It’s like parents who raise their children by feeding them nothing but junk food, and then when someone comes along and says “feed them nutritious foods” the parents’ response is “they don’t like that and won’t eat it.”

The truth is that young people are hungering for authentic Catholic worship forms. That’s right folks, they’re hungering for it, and they’re demanding it.

Young people today are much more sophisticated than previous generations (at least in some sense). They have the ability to research and expand their horizons in ways that were never available before in all of human history. They have the ability to verify what they’ve been taught like never before. At the same time, they are also immersed in the mundane and trivial and materialistic like never before. Cheap, superficial entertainment pervades every aspect of their lives. They satisfy that need anytime they choose, on a moment’s notice. They carry music players capable of giving them a choice of tens of thousands of songs from popular culture music literally at their fingertips.

They realize that there is a spiritual void in the entertainment-rich, on-demand, completely customizable world which is also devoid of any deeper meaning, and most unfortunately, any moral foundation or even moral standards. They come to church in search of something different. And what do they find when they come to church? Older people trying to live-out the glory days of the 60s vicariously through the young people. In other words, they find themselves being used. They’re being used by the same generation that reveled in burning their draft cards, but now wave their social security cards.

When young people are introduced to authentic Catholic worship, the response is not to turn away, as so many retired hippies claim. Instead, they are inspired by it and hunger for more. Go to a traditional Latin Mass and look around. The vast majority of people attending there are not old people who want to re-live the days before Vatican II. No, the pews are filled with young parents and teenagers hungering to fill the spiritual void of society and replace the trivial frivolities of the youth Mass with the authentic and solidly-grounded spirituality of authentic Catholic worship. They don’t want to sit through the 60 year old priest wearing tye-dyed vestments who uses hand puppets to give a homily when they can just as easily turn on their personal entertainment devices and watch a movie anytime they choose.

It’s time we stopped isolating our young people and insulating them from authentic Catholic spirituality and morality. This isn’t being done to serve the youth, it’s being done to use them.

Too many older people fear that our youth might be introduced to true Catholic spirituality, because they fear the loss of control that will inevitably result.

.

Such a sweeping generalization ! You may recall, Fr. David that when Peter Seewald asked then Cardinal Ratzinger, “How many ways are there to God?” the Cardinal immediately replied, “As many ways as there are people.” The suggestion that those who sponsor Lifeteen or Youth Masses and those young people who attend them are only looking for entertainment and not authentic Catholic worship is nothing but subjective judgement, to say the least. I do admit that there is probably some truth in it in some circumstances but to say that it is the norm, I can’t accept. If I misunderstood you, I apologize.
I’m not sure how you can say that young people are being isolated from authentic Catholic worship when parishes do sponsor these youth Masses. Are the young people being forced to attend them? Do parishes put up notices saying that young people are not welcome at the regular Masses but must attend Lifeteen? In the city where I live, there are only two parishes that have Lifeteen Masses, one of which is the Cathedral. Neither of the two Masses feature rock bands or electric guitars and drums or priests wearing tye-dyed chasubles (something I’ve never seen except in pictures). In fact, the Lifeteen Mass at the Cathedral has a choir consisting solely of teen-agers from the local Catholic High Schools. Both of these Masses are packed every Sunday evening with young people. If these young people are so thirsting for what you call authentic Catholic worship, why is it that so few of them are not present for one of the regular Sunday Masses? Particularly at the Cathedral where the choir does sing Gregorian chant, the Mass is celebrated strictly according to the rubrics and the homilies are challenging and thought provoking orthodox Catholic teaching. I don’t know the minds and hearts of those young people so I am not willing to even speculate on their reasons for preferring to attend those Lifeteen Masses.
I do know the people who are responsible for overseeing the Lifeteen programme and they are not aging, or wanna-be hippies who are attempting to live out someone’s idea of the glory days of the 1960’s. No, they are all much younger than I (who did come of age during those days) and are dedicated, hard-working Catholics who are nit interested in entertaing the youth but in bringing them even closer to God and His Church.
As for the notion that the TLM is filled wuth teenagers and young families, perhaps in some areas that is true. The TLM has been celebrated in my diocese for many years. I have attended it several times over the years and while there may be a smattering of younger people, the majority of the congregation has always been people of my age or older. Of course, those Masses are always Low Masses and thus have no choir or singing so perhaps one could make the inference that young people are not attracted to it because there is no music to entertain them?

 

[Victorious]

Such a sweeping generalization ! You may recall, Fr. David that when Peter Seewald asked then Cardinal Ratzinger, “How many ways are there to God?” the Cardinal immediately replied, “As many ways as there are people.”

That is not a license to mess with the Liturgy.

If these young people are so thirsting for what you call authentic Catholic worship, why is it that so few of them are not present for one of the regular Sunday Masses? Particularly at the Cathedral where the choir does sing Gregorian chant, the Mass is celebrated strictly according to the rubrics and the homilies are challenging and thought provoking orthodox Catholic teaching.

So you concede that the rubrics are frequently violated at LifeTeen Masses?

As for the notion that the TLM is filled wuth teenagers and young families, perhaps in some areas that is true. The TLM has been celebrated in my diocese for many years. I have attended it several times over the years and while there may be a smattering of younger people, the majority of the congregation has always been people of my age or older. Of course, those Masses are always Low Masses and thus have no choir or singing so perhaps one could make the inference that young people are not attracted to it because there is no music to entertain them?

Have you attended enough extraordinary rite Masses to have a fair idea of how many young people attend them on average? Even if it is true that few young people attend or want the extraordinary rite – which I doubt – might that not have something to do with the tide of propaganda against the extraordinary rite?

There are objective standards for what is appropriate and what is not appropriate at Mass. These standards are based on the fact that the Mass is Calvary. We are literally at the foot of the Cross at Mass, every bit as much as the Blessed Mother and the Magdalen and the Beloved Apostle. As soon as this reality sinks in, it becomes apparent that much of what goes on at “youth Masses” is simply inappropriate.

 

[allhers]

Such a sweeping generalization ! You may recall, Fr. David that when Peter Seewald asked then Cardinal Ratzinger, “How many ways are there to God?” the Cardinal immediately replied, “As many ways as there are people.” The suggestion that those who sponsor Lifeteen or Youth Masses and those young people who attend them are only looking for entertainment and not authentic Catholic worship is nothing but subjective judgement, to say the least. I do admit that there is probably some truth in it in some circumstances but to say that it is the norm, I can’t accept. If I misunderstood you, I apologize.
I’m not sure how you can say that young people are being isolated from authentic Catholic worship when parishes do sponsor these youth Masses. Are the young people being forced to attend them? Do parishes put up notices saying that young people are not welcome at the regular Masses but must attend Lifeteen? In the city where I live, there are only two parishes that have Lifeteen Masses, one of which is the Cathedral. Neither of the two Masses feature rock bands or electric guitars and drums or priests wearing tye-dyed chasubles (something I’ve never seen except in pictures). In fact, the Lifeteen Mass at the Cathedral has a choir consisting solely of teen-agers from the local Catholic High Schools. Both of these Masses are packed every Sunday evening with young people. If these young people are so thirsting for what you call authentic Catholic worship, why is it that so few of them are not present for one of the regular Sunday Masses? Particularly at the Cathedral where the choir does sing Gregorian chant, the Mass is celebrated strictly according to the rubrics and the homilies are challenging and thought provoking orthodox Catholic teaching. I don’t know the minds and hearts of those young people so I am not willing to even speculate on their reasons for preferring to attend those Lifeteen Masses.
I do know the people who are responsible for overseeing the Lifeteen programme and they are not aging, or wanna-be hippies who are attempting to live out someone’s idea of the glory days of the 1960’s. No, they are all much younger than I (who did come of age during those days) and are dedicated, hard-working Catholics who are nit interested in entertaing the youth but in bringing them even closer to God and His Church.
As for the notion that the TLM is filled wuth teenagers and young families, perhaps in some areas that is true. The TLM has been celebrated in my diocese for many years. I have attended it several times over the years and while there may be a smattering of younger people, the majority of the congregation has always been people of my age or older. Of course, those Masses are always Low Masses and thus have no choir or singing so perhaps one could make the inference that young people are not attracted to it because there is no music to entertain them?

So, what kind of music is done at these lifeteen Masses?

I think music needs to lift you spiritually, speak to you, does the music do that?

Do you have any idea what is played there?

 

[passus]

That’s not a fair or true statement to make. Far from prohibiting new hymns, the Church encourages this. There’s nothing prohibiting new hymns, so why imply that there would be?

Requiring exclusive use of an “approved” hymnal sure doesn’t sound like it lends itself to the use of newly composed sacred music in the liturgy. The new compositions would have to be approved or cleared. Then they would need to be published in these hymnals. Also, as I said before, anything that could be condensed into a single volume would be hardly representative of the breadth of good, acceptable liturgical music out there.