Catholic Liturgical Music

[down_under]

I have to agree with anamchara, (no I am not reading through 10 pages of this) the songs mentioned on page 1 are really not bad. I get upset when they break out the banjo and the drum set and start banging in the middle of mass. I would be thrilled if they would just stick to the missal. instead we get drum solo’s like it was a concert. I mean really stop complaining and count your blessings. It really could be worse. and is for some of us.

 

[brotherhrolf]

So, all of us who were teenagers during Vatican II…I have posted that while there were many of us who wanted the a’strummin’ and a’grinnin’ hootenany Mass there was and equal and oposite who where quite content with the music which we kenw from childhood. The question is whether or not the Holy Father knows what he is doing. Has anyone noticed that he has retired Pope Paul VI crucifix?

 

[benedictgal]

So, all of us who were teenagers during Vatican II…I have posted that while there were many of us who wanted the a’strummin’ and a’grinnin’ hootenany Mass there was and equal and oposite who where quite content with the music which we kenw from childhood. The question is whether or not the Holy Father knows what he is doing. Has anyone noticed that he has retired Pope Paul VI crucifix?

He has also retired that awful looking white chair, at least for the Papal liturgical celebrations.

I do think that he will have something to say (perhaps privately) about the musical selections. At least it will show him how bad we have it. Too bad he couldn’t bring the director of the Sistene Chapel choir to help with the musical selections.

 

[lvschant]

Anamchara and Down Under… I think you probably represent a great many Catholics with your enjoyment of the music that was listed on the list to begin with…

The thing is… for various reasons (perhaps even related to problems with individual songs – either text or musical) many people, while they might enjoy hearing and/or singing them in a general sense, don’t think they are proper to the Mass. The text used in the pieces should (properly) be the texts that are listed as those ‘proper’ to the particular day of the year according to the Latin rite. While some modern pieces in the vernacular may try to come close to that goal, they all seem to fall short in one way or another – either by changing the text or by forgettable musical settings.

The other thing is… sacred music for the Holy Mass should be different, more reverent, than the catchy tunes you can hear on a Christian radio station. There isn’t anything wrong with them, necessarily… they just have such pop-music connotations that they tend to draw attention to themselves and the emotional response they ellicit rather than to the miracle occurring at the altar.

Many would like to see a movement toward using the music that is to have ‘pride of place’ in the liturgy – Gregorian chant… but that takes time and work to make it possible. The art of singing it well has nearly died out in many areas of the world. And, if it isn’t done well, I can almost guarantee you won’t like it or may think it boring… and if you are too young to remember hearing it at Mass before Vatican II, whether you are of Protestant or Catholic background, you will probably find it ‘foreign’ initially.

So, while I would like to hear “I am the Bread of Life” less often and Gregorian chant more, I realize it can’t (and shouldn’t) happen overnight. It must be a project that the entire parish takes part in and grows into…

The fact is… we are likely to see many, many more years with the music list at the top of the thread sung in Catholic churches… While this is not a particularly happy prospect to me and many others, I would just ask that those of you who are happy with that please try to be a bit open-minded if/when you hear someone trying to sing some of the ‘propers’ at Mass. It may not sound so good initially (especially if they are new to it). If it is in Latin, read the translations and try to see the beauty of the text… give it a chance to grow on you… and for the skill of the singers to increase.

Maybe, especially if you haven’t ever had the chance, go to a Latin Mass if you can find one in your area… just to experience it. And, it doesn’t have to be the extraordinary form, btw… a reverent Novus Ordo Mass in Latin is also very wonderful.

We are all blessed every time Mass is said… we have to remember that the miracle of the Holy Eucharist is there for us, whether the music is to our taste or not… we are fortunate that we have the luxury of being able to worship freely… attend at many convenient times… every day if we wish. That is the essential thing. Then, if we, through our actions, can make it more beautiful and give glory to God, all the better.

janet.

 

[Guitar]

No hidden hand is going to have any control we don’t give it. (this includes the bishops we serve) I think wise stewardship calls me to move in a gradual way, being sensitive to the people I serve. A full church a few years from now with great music is better than an empty one with great music next week. I have seen how divisive a heavy hand can be, and I think a steady hand on the rudder, charting a gradual course toward good music rather than a sudden shift, is the way to go. I am gradually replacing tunes with bad and misleading lyrics with ones with solid, orthodox theology, and adding music from the church’s rich musical heritage. I’m also looking for contemporary music that embraces rather than obscures Catholic doctrine. I think there is a real opportunity now for a publisher of Catholic music to fill the gap between the far extremes of the spectrum, covering the best (in every sense) music for Catholic worship.

Exactamvndo.

Some folks are for correcting all error instantly and what they risk is what you describe. Sometimes they even repel folks who would otherwise support them, as that kind of mindset generally shows. Music for some of them doesn’t serve God, music is their god. Clubbing people over the heads with good music is wrong. The approach you describe (one I am taking myself) is far better in many circumstances and in the long run you end up with people who would have rejected sudden change supporting you instead, once they have a chance to digest change. I now have people singing traditional hymns with enthusiasm that once regarded them as old hat. We used occasions such as the Triduum over many years to make sure the congregation knows how to chant the basic Mass responses. When we start on the next phase of chant introduction and re-introduce a little bit of Latin, they’ll be behind us. If I had just dug in and sung trad hymns wall-to-wall, they’d have stopped singing altogether. We’re also dropping the items that should die the death, at most only using them when directly requested to for, say, a funeral.

Some folks don’t consider that what for them is a return home is to others a foreign place. It would be good if we can sort out the current mess without whipping the mat out from under a whole new set of people, yet again.

Some folks readily write off the musicians in a parish when they hear hymns they don’t approve of, without knowing there actually is a ten-year plan to clean things up going on in the background.

And I am pleased to see I am no longer the only one who thinks some of the fire should be directed at the publishers. I took extreme issue in my neck of the woods once with a letter in the local organ society magazine where an “performer” organist who ocasionally played in church was patronisingly dismissive of the efforts of unpaid suburban amateur “incompetents” who chose to play rubbish like X, Y and Z, how could you demean the art of the organ by stooping so low … when at the time X, Y and Z was all you could buy here in a book, if you didn’t want to go to overheads. (Which are IMO an abomination before the Lord.) A busy amateur volunteer cannot be bashed for choosing to play the only published material they can purchase. Do something productive and assemble a traditional mob of angry villagers armed with torches and pitchforks outside the publishers office instead. At the time I appeared to be the only person who thought the publishers were culpable.

 

[deSalingAway]

“Some folks don’t consider that what for them is a return home is to others a foreign place. It would be good if we can sort out the current mess without whipping the mat out from under a whole new set of people, yet again.”

And some people were raised under the banner of the so called “Spirit of Vatican II” and have grown tired of the growing lack of reverence, casual jokes during Mass, pagan music about rivers and eagles, and the continued push for the expansion of women’s roles in Mass (ie altar service) which has destroyed the apprenticeship toward religious vocation and resulted in our current shortage of priests.

I’m only 27, but the reverence, focus, and great sense of humility experienced during the Extraordinary Form is a far greater worship to me than any guitar Mass could provide.

We’re not all 60+ year olds “returning home”. We’re also young ones who have found our way.

 

[lvschant]

I wish I had found the way at age 27… I’ve lost a lot of time

Janet.

 

[Guitar]

And some people were raised under the banner of the so called “Spirit of Vatican II” and have grown tired of the growing lack of reverence, casual jokes during Mass, pagan music about rivers and eagles, and the continued push for the expansion of women’s roles in Mass (ie altar service) which has destroyed the apprenticeship toward religious vocation and resulted in our current shortage of priests.

I’m only 27, but the reverence, focus, and great sense of humility experienced during the Extraordinary Form is a far greater worship to me than any guitar Mass could provide.

We’re not all 60+ year olds “returning home”. We’re also young ones who have found our way.

Note I did not say that all, I said some, and some definitely do not consider it. Or if they do, it’s “well that’s what was done to us so others can just lump it in their turn.”

By “whipping the mat” I am not referring to getting rid of what is outright unacceptable - pagan and heretical music and rampantly secular styles. I’m all for a zero tolerance policy there, which is what my parish has. Not all those things you mention are musical, and so are not what I am referring to anyway.

You can outlaw pagan music (and by the way I am continually surprised to read on this forum that things that died the death round my way in about 1975 still seem to be doing the rounds in other places) but once you have eliminated the theologically defective and the outright inappropriate, you will enter territory that is a little greyer and will take some folks a while to understand why it isn’t appropriate. You can see that clearly in the debates even here, and there’ll be more of it out there in the parishes. Education and bringing back more of the good oil, which over time will show lesser music for what it is, seems to me to be the way to go. And the fact that a wrong was done in the past in one direction doesn’t justify, IMO, the same thing being done in the opposite direction to rectify things.

(Lest any assumptions are being made here, deSA, for the record Guitar was born after Vatican II and Guitar is also an organist, cantor, early music and Gregorian chant enthusiast who where feasible prefers her chant unaccompanied, please, hold the anachronistic cholesterol-laden Victorian-style mensural accompaniments on mine, thanks very much. )

 

[down_under]

“Some folks don’t consider that what for them is a return home is to others a foreign place. It would be good if we can sort out the current mess without whipping the mat out from under a whole new set of people, yet again.”

And some people were raised under the banner of the so called “Spirit of Vatican II” and have grown tired of the growing lack of reverence, casual jokes during Mass, pagan music about rivers and eagles, and the continued push for the expansion of women’s roles in Mass (ie altar service) which has destroyed the apprenticeship toward religious vocation and resulted in our current shortage of priests.

I’m only 27, but the reverence, focus, and great sense of humility experienced during the Extraordinary Form is a far greater worship to me than any guitar Mass could provide.

We’re not all 60+ year olds “returning home”. We’re also young ones who have found our way.

this is what I was refering to. I was born after VII and I would just like to see the irreverent and heritcal go away. I don’t mind many of the songs really. but we are not talking about contemperary christian singing like on the radio in the middle of mass. you can keep the drum solos. we just want to worship. there is this one song they sing that starts “do do do doooo do do” and does not say an actual word for an entire verse. how does this forward the liturgy? how does this help you immerse yourself in the holy rite of the mass? but the last couple of years all we get is dittys. little cute words to an old beat. why can’t we just sing the traditional song with the traditional words everyone knows and likes? instead it is constant stream of new songs that are not really all that edifing or that well thought through.

 

[patches]

Some folks readily write off the musicians in a parish when they hear hymns they don’t approve of, without knowing there actually is a ten-year plan to clean things up going on in the background.

I’m right with you. I my case, I know I’ve reached a proper balance when I spend equal time ducking arrows from both directions! We’re all in agreement that things done in the name of Vatican II have been devastating in countless ways, not the least of which being in the area of music. (skeptics should try teaching CCD)

 It's clear to me that when "obedience" and "authority" became dirty words, an  assumption took hold that the church should be every bit as egalitarian as the political world. --And it wasn't long before St. Paul's "itchy ears" types started working overtime in the music department. But we cannot let this obscure the fact that Vatican II's concerns *were* legitimate, and the things it sought to correct  necessary.  It's just that those unable or unwilling to understand saw it as license to superimpose their own faulty ideas, blazing the trail for the cafeteria-style "opinion as gospel" approach that now plagues the church.  But neither side of the spectrum seems to be immune to this disease, as some who resisted the legitimate changes became disobedient in their own direction.  Still, too many used the "spirit of Vat II" as a pretext to effect musical changes that ran directly counter to both the Council's intent and the mind of the church.  

   We need to be patient; a mess 50 years in the making isn't going to be cleaned up overnight.  Even with a great captain, the barque of Peter tends to drift a little off course from time to time. We should take comfort in the knowledge that those leaning too hard toward port or starboard eventually fall out of the boat.

 

[Phemie]

Some folks readily write off the musicians in a parish when they hear hymns they don’t approve of, without knowing there actually is a ten-year plan to clean things up going on in the background.

And some of us see the writing on the wall when a Gloria by Carey Landry makes its appearance at Easter, complete with a return to the Glory & Praise hymnals that hadn’t been used in 10 years.

 

[deSalingAway]

 But we cannot let this obscure the fact that Vatican II's concerns *were* legitimate, and the things it sought to correct  necessary.  It's just that those unable or unwilling to understand saw it as license to superimpose their own faulty ideas, blazing the trail for the cafeteria-style "opinion as gospel" approach that now plagues the church.  But neither side of the spectrum seems to be immune to this disease, as some who resisted the legitimate changes became disobedient in their own direction.  Still, too many used the "spirit of Vat II" as a pretext to effect musical changes that ran directly counter to both the Council's intent and the mind of the church.

I totally agree that that Vatican II’s concerns were legitimate. The problem I have is with the droves of bishops, priests, and lay people who seem to have never read a word of Vatican II and believe these urban legends that Vatican II called for tearing down high altars and communion rails, and opened up nearly every aspect of the liturgy to the interpretation and/or preference of the parishoners. During a visit to a church in another city, the priest announced that they had turned the pews at a 45 degree angle toward the altar to be more “in line” with Vatican II. These priests think they know something about Vatican II and pretend to try and implement it, but they can hardly get through a Mass without some kind of liturgical abuse like changing or skipping the profession of faith or other prayers.

The problem isn’t with Vatican II, it is with the absolute lack of education, knowledge, and understanding by many of those who were chosen to implement it (bishops and priests), which has left parishes without the proper leadership to guide them away from the liberalization, political correctness, and secularization which has greatly damaged our Church.

On a side note:

While many things may have been eradicated in other diocese, ours is plagued with priests who push “new age spirituality”, and were led by a bishop who, because he was retiring in a few months, refused to address the issue that entire congregations were sitting during the consecration. He also had the bishops chair in the Cathedral built out of the communion rail and placed dead-center between the high altar and peoples altar, his mitre completely blocking the tabernacle. Our diocesan library is stocked with books promoting enneagrams and “Sophia”, and our RCIA programs are taught heresy by people who are uneducated, unqualified, and uninterested in teaching Catholic doctrines.

So while many diocese are free from this disgusting display of internal destruction, ours is not. God bless our new bishop, whomever he is.

 

[pnewton]

I’m right with you. I my case, I know I’ve reached a proper balance when I spend equal time ducking arrows from both directions!

I have an open policy that I learned from my priest. When someone complains about the need to do one thing or another, I open the door for them and tell them they are welcome to jump in and do it. That’s how I handle such things like complaints that we need a children’s musical program or more music for weddings and funerals. I actually get almost no complaints about music selection. At one time I even gave out an open ended survey. I received no negative feedback and no new song ideas. I have had to glean all my new songs myself.

 

[scott1228]

First, have to say Ave Verum Corpus is my favorite all-time religious work.

Second, we don’t have GandP, but a red, hard-bound book. I don’t know who published it, but our parish will have to make a decision when the new English mass wording comes out. Hopefully we will keep the same format but that would be a huge cost.

 

[benedictgal]

First, have to say Ave Verum Corpus is my favorite all-time religious work.

Second, we don’t have GandP, but a red, hard-bound book. I don’t know who published it, but our parish will have to make a decision when the new English mass wording comes out. Hopefully we will keep the same format but that would be a huge cost.

The red-bound hymnal is Worship III, which is published by GIA. The older version of Worship III is far superior to the newer one because the translations are much better. At least you have a far surperior hymnal than what OCP publishes.

 

[ac_claire]

The red-bound hymnal is Worship III, which is published by GIA. The older version of Worship III is far superior to the newer one because the translations are much better. At least you have a far surperior hymnal than what OCP publishes.

I like the red-bound Worship hymnals because, among other things, it’s where I was first introduced to the LOTH. (In the prayers section.)

Now, this OCP thing I keep hearing about…Is that the smaller book with the exact dates for the readings and the newsprint-y white and yellow pages and the nightmarish cover artwork?

 

[benedictgal]

I like the red-bound Worship hymnals because, among other things, it’s where I was first introduced to the LOTH. (In the prayers section.)

Now, this OCP thing I keep hearing about…Is that the smaller book with the exact dates for the readings and the newsprint-y white and yellow pages and the nightmarish cover artwork?

Yes, and they include the nightmarish hymns, as well. There are quite a few parishes in your neck of the woods. But, the parish on the Drag (to those of you unfamiliar with UT, that’s how we call Guadalupe Street), used to use the red Worship III until they switched to RitualSong, which is not as good.

OCP not only publishes those ghastly misalettes, but, they have song books such as Spirit and Song, Glory and Praise, JouneySongs, Flor y Canto, and One Voice/Una Voz.

 

[down_under]

And some of us see the writing on the wall when a Gloria by Carey Landry makes its appearance at Easter, complete with a return to the Glory & Praise hymnals that hadn’t been used in 10 years.

for those of us more ignorant than others could we get the link to the distressing wording of carey landry so we know why we should run when we hear this name.

 

[scott1228]

I believe OCP is Oregon Catholic Press.

I agree with my pastor’s view that the word of God should be put on disposable missalettes. And I was never a fan of G&P, although I have a heard a few songs done well.

The sad thing is that the Catholic Church is the recipient of many of the greatest treasures in music, and yet we neglect those in favor of many simple, more sentimental tunes.

My kids always say that one particular song reminds them of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. No one ever said that of Mozart or Bach.

 

[Phemie]

for those of us more ignorant than others could we get the link to the distressing wording of carey landry so we know why we should run when we hear this name.

Always run when you hear his name. He’s the composer/lyricist of “Hail Mary/Gentle Woman”. [Edited by Moderator]

As for his Gloria, I don’t want to copy too much from the Adoremus site but they analyze it here.