Do We Have to Sing Along During Mass?

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I think it’s unfair to call others “non-cheerful” because they choose not to sing at mass. It doesn’t make one a bad Catholic. If choosing not to sing makes one a bad Catholic then one could also argue that receiving communion on the hand can make one a bad Catholic, but obviously this isn’t so. I think the question to this was simple, and the answer is also simple, which is no you are not required to sing, but if you do have the talent to sing then go for it there is a reason why God gave you that gift. I don’t see whey this thread need to continue if the question has already been answered.
 
BTW if you do sing you have to use common sense regardless if you have talent or not. If you are out-staging everyone then you’re breaking the “harmony” of the mass and possibly doing it out of pride, noticed I said possibly. Man the things I have to do to make sure I don’t offend. 😃
 
archangel04 said:
I think it’s unfair to call others “non-cheerful” because they choose not to sing at mass.** It doesn’t make one a bad Catholic.** If choosing not to sing makes one a bad Catholic then one could also argue that receiving communion on the hand can make one a bad Catholic, but obviously this isn’t so.** I think the question to this was simple, and the answer is also simple, which is no you are not required to sing, **but if you do have the talent to sing then go for it there is a reason why God gave you that gift. I don’t see whey this thread need to continue if the question has already been answered.
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  1. No one has called anyone a “bad Catholic” here. 🙂
  2. The answer was provided at post 7, and is actually quite surprising, and little known. The GIRM requires the congregation to be united in singing. So, in essence, singing is required of all members of the congregation, where possible. Just as kneeling, standing and joining in the responses is required - where possible. The reason the thread has continued past post 7 is because some of us do not accept that requirement, and others who do accept it, or have practiced it without knowing that its a requirement, have been sharing our personal experiences and thoughts on the matter.
 
Edmundus1581 said:
  1. No one has called anyone a “bad Catholic” here. 🙂
  2. The answer was provided at post 7, and is actually quite surprising, and little known. The GIRM requires the congregation to be united in singing. So, in essence, singing is required of all members of the congregation, where possible. Just as kneeling, standing and joining in the responses is required - where possible. The reason the thread has continued past post 7 is because some of us do not accept that requirement, and others who do accept it, or have practiced it without knowing that its a requirement, have been sharing our personal experiences and thoughts on the matter.
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The tone of some responses seem to imply that one can be a bad Catholic.
The GIRM does not require it, it merely assumes that everyone will be signing. It does not say “one ought or must sign in order to fully participate in the mass” nor does it say one must sing to fulfill their Sunday obligation. Active participation is internal, and is where the heart is and that’s what matters. We are not all talented in signing and frankly I dislike signing and could not sign if my life depended on it, I highly doubt God would hold that against me, and I am sure I fulfill my Sunday obligation. I may not like to sign, but I sure do love to dance lol.
 
  1. Moreover, they are to form one body, whether in hearing the Word of God, or in taking part in the prayers and in the singing, or above all by the common offering of the Sacrifice and by participating together at the Lord’s table. This unity is beautifully apparent from the gestures and bodily postures observed together by the faithful.
“They are to form one body” certainly implies everyone participates “whether in hearing the Word of God, or in taking part in the prayers and in the singing, or above all by the common offering of the Sacrifice and by participating together at the Lord’s table.”

Furthermore

“This unity is beautifully apparent from the gestures and bodily postures observed together by the faithful.”

So standing together, kneeling together, praying together and singing together sounds like like a requirement.
 
triumphguy said:
  1. Moreover, they are to form one body, whether in hearing the Word of God, or in taking part in the prayers and in the singing, or above all by the common offering of the Sacrifice and by participating together at the Lord’s table. This unity is beautifully apparent from the gestures and bodily postures observed together by the faithful.
“They are to form one body” certainly implies everyone participates “whether in hearing the Word of God, or in taking part in the prayers and in the singing, or above all by the common offering of the Sacrifice and by participating together at the Lord’s table.”

Furthermore

“This unity is beautifully apparent from the gestures and bodily postures observed together by the faithful.”

So standing together, kneeling together, praying together and singing together sounds like like a requirement.
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Well I guess my butt is going to hell for disobedience.
 
I dunno - I guess we’re all struggling to make sense here.

But if only your butt is in hell you’re not doing too bad.😛
 
liturgyluver said:
It’s very inspiring to read these success stories that buck the trend. Well done - part of me thinks there might be great value in sharing these practical examples more,formally so we can learn and implement. Anything to break those miserable stony faces!
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In the 50’s I remember many Masses where the priest, facing the altar, would start with a “Come Holy Ghost” or “Immaculate Mary” or a Polish hymn, and almost everyone would sing and everyone knew the words. No GIRM, no cantors, many times no organ, and no one to tell them to sing. Is that success story enough? 🙂
 
ProVobis said:
In the 50’s I remember many Masses where the priest, facing the altar, would start with a “Come Holy Ghost” or “Immaculate Mary” or a Polish hymn, and almost everyone would sing and everyone knew the words. No GIRM, no cantors, many times no organ, and no one to tell them to sing. Is that success story enough? 🙂
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Success indeed. But most people don’t seem to know those songs anymore. My two favorites are O Sacred Head Surrounded and Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence. Truly awe inspiring. But, they changed the words to the former and no one knows the latter.😦
 
Edmundus1581 said:
  1. No one has called anyone a “bad Catholic” here. 🙂
  2. The answer was provided at post 7, and is actually quite surprising, and little known. The GIRM requires the congregation to be united in singing. So, in essence, singing is required of all members of the congregation, where possible. Just as kneeling, standing and joining in the responses is required - where possible. The reason the thread has continued past post 7 is because some of us do not accept that requirement, and others who do accept it, or have practiced it without knowing that its a requirement, have been sharing our personal experiences and thoughts on the matter.
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But that’s wrong, or at least misleading, as explained elsewhere in the thread.
 
ProVobis said:
In the 50’s I remember many Masses where the priest, facing the altar, would start with a “Come Holy Ghost” or “Immaculate Mary” or a Polish hymn, and almost everyone would sing and everyone knew the words. No GIRM, no cantors, many times no organ, and no one to tell them to sing. Is that success story enough? 🙂
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That’s the way it should be be, one of the most moving sights and sounds is everyone joining in the Salve Regina at the end of mass, with joy and in unison. My neighbour took me to their Polish mass recently and no-one - and I mean literaly no-one - sang a note. Same in the Italian church apart from one Christmas hymn - but understandable as there is no tradition of Italian hymnody, and the mass settings are ghastly!
 
ProVobis said:
In the 50’s I remember many Masses where the priest, facing the altar, would start with a “Come Holy Ghost” or “Immaculate Mary” or a Polish hymn, and almost everyone would sing and everyone knew the words. No GIRM, no cantors, many times no organ, and no one to tell them to sing. Is that success story enough? 🙂
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Many, many of us have no such experience. There was never dialogue Mass in my part of the world. The first time we were allowed to speak during Mass was after Vat. II and that was so foreign to the older people that many couldn’t bring themselves to do it out loud.

Nobody sang but the choir and it’s still that way in many of the parishes in that area – you might get invited to join in on a special occasion but without hymnals in the pews it’s not something that’s expected on a regular basis.
 
I don’t know if this will be helpful or not.

First, remember that our parish has and has had liturgically-correct OF Masses for years because of the diligence of our bishop.

Because our priest was “promoted” to bishop, we have a different priest. And this Sunday, I learned a little more about him. I was playing piano, and he made a request of me and the choir director about the song (it happened to be a “gospel-style” song, and it’s in the Catholic hymnal)–he made the request because he wanted EVERYONE to join in the singing. He told us that we have to do something in this parish to get people singing!

(He’s in his 40s, BTW, so not a young guy, and not an older man who was trained "in the spirit of Vatican II.)

So we get back to disobedience vs. obedience.

I’ve said it over and over–if a priest selects a congregational hymn, that means that he wants the congregation to sing the hymn–that is the purpose of a congregational hymn. Congregational hymns are meant to be sung by the congregation. They are not meant to be sung by the choir, or the cantor, or the priest–they are the “work of the people.”

If the priest doesn’t want the people to sing, he will select an antiphon, or an anthem, or something else other than a congregational hymn. But if he selects the “Hymn Sandwich” option for his Masses, which he has EVERY RIGHT to do, then he expects his people to sing if they can.

I don’t understand the rebellion to this. If we can’t obey the priest when he asks us to sing, then no wonder we can’t obey the priest when he asks us to refrain from sex outside of marriage, or homosexuality, or abortion, or stealing, etc. Faithfulness in little things, especially in little things that we hate doing, leads to faithfulness in bigger things.
 
Phemie said:
Many, many of us have no such experience. There was never dialogue Mass in my part of the world. The first time we were allowed to speak during Mass was after Vat. II and that was so foreign to the older people that many couldn’t bring themselves to do it out loud.

Nobody sang but the choir and it’s still that way in many of the parishes in that area – you might get invited to join in on a special occasion but without hymnals in the pews it’s not something that’s expected on a regular basis.
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But surely people sang hymns at low mass? This was allowed from 1947 onwards !
 
Cat, I agree with everything you say in your post. The GIRM is very clear on the expectations when we attend mass with regards to participation, so the “pick and choose” approach that people use to justify collective and stony faced silence makes no sense.
 
liturgyluver said:
But surely people sang hymns at low mass? This was allowed from 1947 onwards !
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No. If there was no choir there were no hymns and if the choir was there they were the only ones who sang. There was one student who could sing the responses so if Thérèse was at daily Mass she sang the responses. Nobody else ever said a word.

There are still no hymnals in the pews in many of the parishes where I grew up, particularly the French parishes – the English ones are a bit better because English Canadians have had the various editions of the Catholic Book of Worship (the national hymnal) since 1972. There was nothing similiar available for French parishes until 2002 when ‘D’une même voix’ was published and many parishes have simply not availed of that hymnal because they’re happy with the status quo: choirs sing, people listen. I’m not saying that all parishes are that way, but they are in the majority where I grew up.

I know that if I go to Mass in my birth parish I can be treated to 3 different Mass settings in three weeks. You know how often a Mass setting has to be repeated before it becomes ingrained in people. If the choir switches every week, nobody ever gets familiar enough with a particular setting to join in. From the choir director’s attitude I’ve come to believe that that’s deliberate.
 
TheRealJuliane said:
Gather us in - the rich and the haughty,
gather us in - the proud and the strong.
Give us a heart so meek and so lowly,
give us the courage to enter the song.

😃

Give us the courage to not sing this sooooong…
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What is it you specifically object to above?
 
“We are not obligated to sing”.

You’re also not obligated to receive the Eucharist or go to Confession every week.

You’re also not obligated to receive the Eucharist on the tongue, while kneeling.

You’re also not obligated to adhere to the fasting regulations set forth in the Canon of 1983, you can do more.

You’re also not obligated to do the Rosary.

You’re also not obligated to do the LOTH.

You’re also not obligated to attend an Extraordinary Form Mass.

Most would argue that it would be beneficial to go beyond the mere “obligations”. In fact, for all that I said above, some in this thread would go so far as to demand these practices be done. At the very least, most would say the above practices are beneficial.

You’re not obligated to participate in the music at Mass. But yur spiritual life will likely be the richer for it if you do.
 
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