Fr. Zuhlsdorf answers the question, "Why Gregorian chant is better than 'Gather Us In' "

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That is the opinion of one Priest, one who obviously does not like, or appreciate, contemporary music.

Hate to inform you, but at one time, Gregorian Chant was also new, and perceived to be “different” and “unsuitable”.

Just because it is old, does not make it more liturgical, or more suitable.

The participation of the people is a LOT more important than whether or not a piece of music has a long history with the church.

Do we go back to those days, when, “The difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics don’t sing”?

I pray every day that the “traditionalists” never get sway over the Church again. If they do, they will drive out a very large proportion of the Roman Catholic faithful.
 
The_Old_Medic said:
That is the opinion of one Priest, one who obviously does not like, or appreciate, contemporary music.

Hate to inform you, but at one time, Gregorian Chant was also new, and perceived to be “different” and “unsuitable”.

Just because it is old, does not make it more liturgical, or more suitable.

The participation of the people is a LOT more important than whether or not a piece of music has a long history with the church.

Do we go back to those days, when, “The difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics don’t sing”?

I pray every day that the “traditionalists” never get sway over the Church again. If they do, they will drive out a very large proportion of the Roman Catholic faithful.
Click to expand...
The Roman Catholic Church is one big line of tradition. A break from tradition is wrong. We are an inherently conservative institution, holding on to what our holy forefathers passed down to us. Singing and belting out tunes is not the height of active participation; actually, I’d call it a perfidious distraction to real prayer. Hymns like “Gather us in” are so sappy it’s a choke-hold on the faithful, putting them in the frame of a concert, or theater green room gathering for coffee, rather than being in the presence of mysterious and holy God.

Gregorian chant is hard for most to understand, but the ephemeral floating quality of the single melismatic line always shakes people to the core. Traditionalists don’t like Gregorian chant because it’s old, but because it’s a connection with so many of the saints. We feel as if we’re one in worship with all the past, hearing the same simple, angelic chant without need for instruments or tolerant, gushy, happy feelings. Gregorian chant was never considered “different” by the world. Ambrosian chant preceded it, Byzantine chant preceded that, and ancient Jewish and Roman chant preceded Byzantine. It is a very ancient tradition to sing to our God without need for instruments, but with a mysterious voice of ineffable joy.

If traditionalists got “hold” of the Church again, I dare say all the people who rely on happy-clappy hymns, guitar masses, and nonsense music would leave. If they were there only for the sense of “community” and not a sense of the terrible righteousness and awe of almighty God, they probably didn’t fit anyway. We need to evangelise all people, and we ourselves need to be evanglised… teary-eyed modernist music doesn’t put depth into anything or anyone. Neither does Gregorian chant, inherently, but it moves the soul to a non-harmonic world where only the One Voice of the saints and angels combines. It’s 100% different from hymns influenced by chorales and popular songs.
 
The_Old_Medic said:
That is the opinion of one Priest, one who obviously does not like, or appreciate, contemporary music.

Hate to inform you, but at one time, Gregorian Chant was also new, and perceived to be “different” and “unsuitable”.

Just because it is old, does not make it more liturgical, or more suitable.

The participation of the people is a LOT more important than whether or not a piece of music has a long history with the church.

Do we go back to those days, when, “The difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics don’t sing”?

I pray every day that the “traditionalists” never get sway over the Church again. If they do, they will drive out a very large proportion of the Roman Catholic faithful.
Click to expand...
Actually, it is not the opinion of one priest. Nor is it the opinion of traditionalists.

It is the opinion of the Roman Catholic Church from (yes, folks, believe it or not) the Second Vatican Council:
  1. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.
  2. In order to preserve the heritage of sacred music and genuinely promote the new forms of sacred singing, “great importance is to be attached to the teaching and practice of music in seminaries, in the novitiates and houses of study of religious of both sexes, and also in other Catholic institutes and schools,” especially in those higher institutes intended specially for this. Above all, the study and practice of Gregorian chant is to be promoted, because, with its special characteristics, it is a basis of great importance for the development of sacred music.

    ​
  3. All other things being equal, Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy.

    ​
 
Sigh just waiting for the rest of the ones who hate when someone states their opinion in the TC forum, I can see one already arrived. Gregorian chant might have been new at one point in time, but it has stood the trials of time to end up the preffered choice of music for the Latin Rite.
 
GloriousOrder said:
The Roman Catholic Church is one big line of tradition. A break from tradition is wrong. We are an inherently conservative institution, holding on to what our holy forefathers passed down to us. Singing and belting out tunes is not the height of active participation; actually, I’d call it a perfidious distraction to real prayer. Hymns like “Gather us in” are so sappy it’s a choke-hold on the faithful, putting them in the frame of a concert, or theater green room gathering for coffee, rather than being in the presence of mysterious and holy God.

Gregorian chant is hard for most to understand, but the ephemeral floating quality of the single melismatic line always shakes people to the core. Traditionalists don’t like Gregorian chant because it’s old, but because it’s a connection with so many of the saints. We feel as if we’re one in worship with all the past, hearing the same simple, angelic chant without need for instruments or tolerant, gushy, happy feelings. Gregorian chant was never considered “different” by the world. Ambrosian chant preceded it, Byzantine chant preceded that, and ancient Jewish and Roman chant preceded Byzantine. It is a very ancient tradition to sing to our God without need for instruments, but with a mysterious voice of ineffable joy.

If traditionalists got “hold” of the Church again, I dare say all the people who rely on happy-clappy hymns, guitar masses, and nonsense music would leave. If they were there only for the sense of “community” and not a sense of the terrible righteousness and awe of almighty God, they probably didn’t fit anyway. We need to evangelise all people, and we ourselves need to be evanglised… teary-eyed modernist music doesn’t put depth into anything or anyone. Neither does Gregorian chant, inherently, but it moves the soul to a non-harmonic world where only the One Voice of the saints and angels combines. It’s 100% different from hymns influenced by chorales and popular songs.
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It appears that according to his post the Church did not begin until after Vatican 2. The old church according to his post seems to claim was a bad institution that did not allow people to participate because it appears the signing is what is counted as participating in mass, not joining your prayers with the priest.
 
archangel04 said:
It appears that according to his post the Church did not began until after Vatican 2. The old church according to his post seems to claim was a bad institution that did not allow people to participate because it appears the signing is what is counted as participating in mass, not joining your prayers with the priest.
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Bishop Slattery’s take on the subject:

I know that for two generations now, Catholics have been expected to sing an opening hymn at Mass and in many parishes the faithful are regularly browbeaten to “stand up and greet this morning’s celebrant with hymn #so-and-so” which, depending upon the parish, might be taken from the red hymnbook, or the blue hymnbook, or the nicely disposable paperback missalette. So deeply has this ‘opening hymn mentality’ shaped our consciousness that most Catholics would be astounded to hear me say that hymns have no real place in Mass.

Hymns belong in the Liturgy of the Hours and in the common devotions of the faithful, but the idea that the parish liturgy committee should sit down sometime early in the month and look through a hymn book, trying to find pretty hymns which haven’t been overdone in the past three or four months, which explore the themes of the Sunday Masses and which brings the people together as a singing community is an idea completely alien to the spirit of the Catholic liturgy.

It is alien first of all because the singing of hymns as Sunday worship was a Protestant innovation, better suited to their non-Sacramental worship than to the Mass, and alien secondly because an opening hymn introduces - at the very inception of the sacred action - that element of creative busy-ness, which is, as we have seen, antithetical to the nature of salvation as a gift we receive from God.
 
I am in the fortunate position that I listen to Gregorian in Latin since 3 years in the Masses. This is what I like, and I am grateful for that.

However here a couple of thoughts:
  • English (or any ‘swa’ language, where the length and value of the vowel depends on the position of the syllable inside the word) is not proper to sing Gregorian On Holy Saturday our deacon (at my territorial Church) tried to squeeze the English words to the melody of the Exsultet iam angelica turba coelorum, and that was a disaster.
  • the Apostolic See approved for Hungarians their traditional hymns (some since the 17th Century) as hymnal for the Mass, and that made that hymnal sacred, ordered as part of the Mass.
So the Americans has two choice:
  • the Cantors learn how to sing the official chants of the Mass in Latin, and people became listeners
  • the USCCB takes the pain and gets approval to a proper hymnal There are some good hymns, which are good as music and lyrics, and fit the Catholic theology ; even as some of the is sung in protestant churches too. My favorite is the ‘O Jesus, remember me, when you coming to your Kingdom’
This later resolution would be better for the majority, they can participate.
 
I’d rather see the following done:
  1. Abolish the “suitable song” option where ever it appears in the General Instruction, leaving only three legitimate options: Roman Gradual, Simple Gradual, and Roman Missal.
  2. Approve a literal translation of the hymns for the Liturgy of the Hours, such as the Mundelein Psalter.
This way, it should be clear that there really ought to be no hymns at Mass (except perhaps the Recessional), and the Divine Office preserves the ancient hymns even in English translation.
 
I agree with Fr Z…

but what really matters is that Pope Benedict also has the same view, so did VII 🙂
 
Some earlier Fr Z on the subject 🙂
Gather Us In …to the tune of, that is!]

Here in this place, our comfortable parish,
All of the statues carried away,
See in each face a vacuous visage,
Brought here by guilt or by R.C.I.A.

Gather us in, by Beemer or Hummer,
Gather us in, so we can feel good,
Come to us now in this barren Zen temple,
With only a shrub and an altar of wood.

We are the young, our morals a mystery,
We are the old, who couldn’t care less,
We have been warned throughout all of history,
But we enjoy this liturgical mess.

Gather us in, our radical pastor,
Gather us in, our unveiled nun,
Call to us now, with guitars and bongos,
Hang up your cellphones and join in the fun!
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wdtprs.com/blog/2009/11/parody-song-alert-gather-us-in/
 
Not a big fan of Gregorian chant,
and not a big fan of “Gather Us In” either,
but my question is, for all of you who want only Gregorian chant at Mass,
do we tell all the Franciscans that Francis was wrong and totally unorthodox?🤷
 
The_Old_Medic said:
I pray every day that the “traditionalists” never get sway over the Church again. If they do, they will drive out a very large proportion of the Roman Catholic faithful.
Click to expand...
Does that include folks like Pope Paul VI.

In 1974, he ordered the creation of a common missal, consisting of chant and sacred polyphony. Copies were sent to every diocese in the world.

Here are His Holiness’ instructions on the subject.
Would you therefore, in collaboration with the competent diocesan and national agencies for the liturgy, sacred music and catechetics, decide on the best ways of teaching the faithful the Latin chants of Jubilate Deo and of having them sing them…. You will thus be performing a new service for the Church in the domain of liturgical renewal”
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So if one claims to follow Vatican II and be a part of the liturgical renewal as invisioned by Pope Paul himself, would you not promote the missal he himself promulgated to all the bishops in the world as part of the liturgual renewal of Vatican II.

Below are some free MP3’s from that missal, so you too can become a post Vatican II Catholic.

Or would doing so be too traditional for you?

adoremus.org/JubilateDeo.html
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Not a big fan of Gregorian chant,
and not a big fan of “Gather Us In” either,
but my question is, for all of you who want only Gregorian chant at Mass,
do we tell all the Franciscans that Francis was wrong and totally unorthodox?🤷
Click to expand...
What did Francis say?
 
Interesting from, of all places, the USCCB :eek::
  1. “The Church recognizes Gregorian chant as being specially suited to the Roman Liturgy. Therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.” Gregorian chant is uniquely the Church’s own music. Chant is a living connection with our forebears in the faith, the traditional music of the Roman rite, a sign of communion with the universal Church, a bond of unity across cultures, a means for diverse communities to participate together in song, and a summons to contemplative participation in the Liturgy.
  2. The “pride of place” given to Gregorian chant by the Second Vatican Council ismodified by the important phrase “other things being equal.” These “other things” are the important liturgical and pastoral concerns facing every bishop, pastor, and liturgical musician. In considering the use of the treasures of chant, pastors and liturgical musicians should take care that the congregation is able to participate in the Liturgy with song. They should be sensitive to the cultural and spiritual milieu of their communities, in order to build up the Church in unity and peace.
  3. The Second Vatican Council directed that the faithful be able to sing parts of the Ordinary of the Mass together in Latin. In many worshiping communities in the United States, fulfilling this directive will mean introducing Latin chant to worshipers who perhaps have not sung it before. While prudence, pastoral sensitivity, and reasonable time for progress are encouraged to achieve this end, every effort in this regard is laudable and highly encouraged.
  4. Each worshiping community in the United States, including all age groups and allethnic groups, should, at a minimum, learn Kyrie XVI, Sanctus XVIII, and Agnus Dei XVIII, all of which are typically included in congregational worship aids. More difficult chants, such as Gloria VIII and settings of the Credo and Pater Noster, might be learned after the easier chants have been mastered.
  5. “The assembly of the faithful should participate in singing the Proper of the Mass asmuch as possible, especially through simple responses and other suitable settings.” When the congregation does not sing an antiphon or hymn, proper chants from the Graduale Romanum might be sung by a choir that is able to render these challenging pieces well. As an easier alternative, chants of the Graduale Simplex are recommended. Whenever a choir sings in Latin, it is helpful to provide the congregation with a vernacular translation so that they are able to “unite themselves interiorly” to what the choir sings.
 
Oneofthewomen said:
Fransicans do not use Gregorian chant, Francis forbid it’s use.

Br. JR has posted on this a lot!😃
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Citation please?

On edit: I ask for a citation because if I mention that St Francis forbid the use of Gregorian chant in the Franciscan order, it’s not like can cite another anonymous poster on a message board as an authority.

(BTW, I would be perfectly happy with polyphony as well…don’t want to be too much of a stick in the mud :p)
 
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