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

  • Thread starter Thread starter marthaferretti
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Fr.Z:
The ditties mentioned above, and their like, foster a purely immanent sense of God and what goes on during liturgical worship, suppressing the essentially important dimension of God’s mystery and transcendence.
Click to expand...
This prompts my question, is God’s dimension of mystery and transcendence evoked by the melody or the words?
 
The origins of Gregorian Chant are debatable and to use Wikipedia as a source is questionable.

Current research shows the history we believed regarding Gregory the Great and Gregorian Chant and its roots in the synagogues may not be entirely accurate. Is it a matter of salvation? No, so no big deal. We have to practice some humility, though, and be willing to change our hard-wired worldview if new information demonstrates that what we believed was true is, in actuality, not.

Vatican II says chant should be held in highest regard and be the prime form of music used in the Church, but stops short of saying it should be used exclusively.
 
ProVobis said:
OUCH!

Actually Canto may be right.

music-for-church-choirs.com/gregorian-chant.html
Click to expand...
I agree that chant was alive and well from far before Christian times, but surely we cannot call that “Gregorian,” can we? St. Gregory’s biographer, John the Deacon (c. 872) attributes to him a “patchwork antiphonary”.

newadvent.org/cathen/06779a.htm

Further, several popes before St Gregory helped to develop chant. Later, after AD 900, Ordinaries and Propers were written.

maternalheart.org/library/chant_history.htm
 
Spirithound said:
How ancient? Many hymns from Christian Prayer don’t seem that old.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I should have been clearer. Not in Christian Prayer, but the Liturgia Horarum. The English official editions opted for the use of fresh compositions as allowed in the General Instruction; I can see the merit in the decision for vernacular celebrations, so the official English breviaries do not contain a one-to-one translation of the hymns.

The typical edition Liturgia Horarum, however has restored the ancient hymns to the pre-Urban VIII versions. It is here that you will find the ancient hymnody proper to the Roman Rite.

Hymns, generally speaking, are alien to Mass. Hymns in the Roman Rite more properly belong to the Divine Office.
 
Spirithound said:
No it doesn’t. Gregorian Chant was codified in the 10-13th centuries and was named after Pope St. Gregory the Great as a marketing ploy. It likely arose from a Carolingian synthesis of Roman and Gallican chant.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregorian_chant#History
Click to expand...
Agreed, mostly. The chant must be older than the tenth century; it’s by about the 900s that we start to have written records of it, but it was clearly established before then (your date range covers the composition of most of the specific chants we have, but the basics precede it). Nevertheless, obviously, I don’t think there would be any serious scholar who believes that Gregory himself wrote the first Gradual or anything like that.

And while I’m sure that Gregorian chant did, in some traceable way, develop out of the Jewish practice of chanting the Psalms, there is a very good chance that Apostolic-era Jewish chant sounded much more like what we currently think of as “Eastern” (or “Middle Eastern”) chant, not the simple and restrained forms of Gregorian chant. The best evidence we have of what even the Old Roman chant (pre-Gregorian, but post-Apostolic by several centuries) sounded like shows a lot of similarities to things like Byzantine chant – and not so many similarities to, say, Missa de Angelis.
 
heathernoel said:
I’m only in RCIA, due to be confirmed on Pentecost 🙂 but I’m really intimidated by posts like these.

Gregorian chant is beautiful! It fills my soul, but I don’t understand a word of it. I can’t imagine going to Mass and not being able to be in communion with my brothers and sisters because I don’t know how to sing it or know what it means to boot 😦

I don’t know if you all mean to purposely tear apart “Gather Us In” or if you mean any of the songs in the Red Worship Book in general, but I feel that would be throwing the baby out with the bath water. I happen to like “Gather Us In”, and other songs found within that book.
Click to expand...
Years ago, Masses were in Latin everywhere (in the Latin Rite). Not everyone had their own missals (they didn’t have them in the pews- whoever wanted one bought and brought their own). The literacy rate was much lower then too. Still, those people were inspired by the Mass. Also, even when you do have a missal and can understand the words, many of the priest’s prayers are said softly and you can’t hear them. That’s ok- that’s not what the Mass is about.
 
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...
In my opinion, the Church was more beautiful when those “traditionalsts” sway over the Church. Our traditions are what make the Church beautiful. Also, I think that since Vatican II, when most of our traditions were taken away, many people had forgotten what it meant to be Catholic. We don’t even know the Church’s teachings anymore.
 
ajpirc said:
In my opinion, the Church was more beautiful when those “traditionalsts” sway over the Church. Our traditions are what make the Church beautiful. Also, I think that since Vatican II, when most of our traditions were taken away, many people had forgotten what it meant to be Catholic. We don’t even know the Church’s teachings anymore.
Click to expand...
Our traditions have not been lost, they have just been refound. Layers of unnecesssary covering was removed to discover the root of the mass as celebrated by the earliest church fathers.
It’s not that people don’t know the Church’s teaching, many have chosen to reject them. The reason have little to do with the form of the mass or so called lost traditions.
 
FAB said:
I disagree with Fr. Z, I know he is popular in some circles, but it doesn’t mean his opinion is always correct.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the clarification. Do you believe music has any place in the liturgy? If so, for what purpose?
 
Spirithound said:
Thank you for the clarification. Do you believe music has any place in the liturgy? If so, for what purpose?
Click to expand...
Yes I do know that music has a place in liturgy, which is the reason why the Church encourges many different forms to be used, not just the Chant. The main purpose for the praise and glory of God. Music lifts the hearts and spirit of men and women to be able to experiance God in the liturgy.
I have nothing against the the chant, as director of liturgy I am having my choirs learn it so it can be used in our worship. But I also recongize that it’s not the only music available and that the mass is a communial celebration. the Chant if not done properly, can detract from worship, just as much as it can add to worship. The same, of course, is true for any music. There can be a balance in the music used in the liturgy, the use od all of one or of an another eventually will also detract from whorship.
 
FAB said:
Yes I do know that music has a place in liturgy, which is the reason why the Church encourges many different forms to be used, not just the Chant. The main purpose for the praise and glory of God. Music lifts the hearts and spirit of men and women to be able to experiance God in the liturgy.
I have nothing against the the chant, as director of liturgy I am having my choirs learn it so it can be used in our worship. But I also recongize that it’s not the only music available and that the mass is a communial celebration. the Chant if not done properly, can detract from worship, just as much as it can add to worship. The same, of course, is true for any music. There can be a balance in the music used in the liturgy, the use od all of one or of an another eventually will also detract from whorship.
Click to expand...
Actually, the Church encourages mostly chant and polyphony because it is more sacred. The music at Mass should make it feel sacred, not like it’s social time. If you want to be social with your fellow parishioners, wait until after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
 
ajpirc said:
Actually, the Church encourages mostly chant and polyphony because it is more sacred. The music at Mass should make it feel sacred, not like it’s social time. If you want to be social with your fellow parishioners, wait until after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Click to expand...
The church sys the chant should hold a place of honor in the liturgy, it does not say that it should be the only music used.
Even though the mass is not “social Time” it is a communial, not individual celbration, the music used needs to be such that the all members are able to particiapate in raising their voices in song. The day of the choir singing from the loft and the congreation being silent are gone, and no church document is trying to bring that back.
 
FAB said:
…The days of the choir singing from the loft and the congregation being silent are gone…
Click to expand...
Many more of these musical-debate threads and I am ready for the both the choir and congregation to be silent…
 
JHow said:
Many more of these musical-debate threads and I am ready for the both the choir and congregation to be silent…
Click to expand...
the type of music often comes down to personal peference. There are songs in my parish hymnal that I do dislike, but musicians and choir members who love them.
Part of being a community is accepting the difference between us, including our likes and dislikes.
 
FAB said:
Our traditions have not been lost, they have just been refound. Layers of unnecesssary covering was removed to discover the root of the mass as celebrated by the earliest church fathers.
Click to expand...
This was tried before. It was called the Reformation.
I understand we don’t really know what the earliest masses were like, so what we have is a modern fabrication, a pick-and-mix, which is slowly being revised. Again.
Your proposition implies that 1600 years of development were somehow wrong.

‘Unnecessary layering’: you mean like Chant, feasts on the proper days, exquisite prayers, beautiful vestments, unvested laity staying the pews where they belong?

Give me yet more unnecessary layering, I think.
 
FAB said:
…The days of the choir singing from the loft and the congregation being silent are gone…
Click to expand...
The congregation can join in the Chant at the Masses I go to. I don’t think that’s ever been prohibited.

Your posts made me thing of something:

‘I want music I like’ + ‘I want music I can understand’ + ‘I want music we can easily sing’ + ‘Everybody join in’ = boring, droning, cheesy hymns. Every Sunday. For the rest of your life.
 
ajpirc said:
In my opinion, the Church was more beautiful when those “traditionalsts” sway over the Church. Our traditions are what make the Church beautiful. Also, I think that since Vatican II, when most of our traditions were taken away, many people had forgotten what it meant to be Catholic. We don’t even know the Church’s teachings anymore.
Click to expand...
You said in another thread that you’re 16. How is it that you remember “when those traditionalists held sway over the Church.” How do you know what it was like before Vatican II? How can you talk about it as though you know all about it?

I suggest that you talk to older people who DO remember because they lived through it. Yes, you will find that some of them do long for a return to more traditional Masses.

But you will also find that many older folks hated the Latin Mass and the ancient music and they’re glad that the Mass has been modernized. I know older people who state that if the Latin Mass is ever rein-stated, they would leave the Church–that’s how strongly some people feel against it. I’m not saying they’re right to have that attitude. I’m just saying that those people who actually experienced it are not nearly as enamored and starry-eyed over the “traditions” as some younger people who never actually lived it out day after day and year after year.

As for your statement about “we don’t even know the Church’s teaching anymore,” a few posts later, you mention that Mass isn’t a social time. This, to me, demonstrates that you don’t understand what “Christian fellowship” is. Of course you don’t, as you are very young. As you grow older, you will learn more about the Church and fellowship. Christian fellowship has little or nothing to do with “socializing.” It is much deeper than that. Right now, you and I are experiencing Christian fellowship in the course of this discussion.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top