Liturgical Music regulations

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dranzal

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In the absence of an official “Do not use these songs for Liturgy” list, please comment on the appropriateness of the following songs…and please state why or why not (appropriate for liturgy according to official Vatican documents).

City of God

Gather us In

Shine Jesus Shine

Awesome God

Lord of the Dance

We Will Serve the Lord

We are One Body

Table of Plenty

Thanks.
 
dranzal said:
In the absence of an official “Do not use these songs for Liturgy” list, please comment on the appropriateness of the following songs…and please state why or why not (appropriate for liturgy according to official Vatican documents).

City of God

Gather us In

Shine Jesus Shine

Awesome God

Lord of the Dance

We Will Serve the Lord

We are One Body

Table of Plenty

Thanks.
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If they’re in the hymnal or missalette approved by your dioceses, then they are appropriate. The Bishop has the authority on this matter, not participants of this forum.

Jim
 
Have you perused Pope Benedict’s exhortation Sacrament of Charity where the talks about music ?
 
JimR-OCDS said:
If they’re in the hymnal or missalette approved by your dioceses, then they are appropriate. The Bishop has the authority on this matter, not participants of this forum.

Jim
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Jim’s post X-2. We seem to have “borrowed” some Protestant hyms since Vatican II. If they’re not contrary to Doctrine, there really isn’t a problem.
 
diligamus said:
Maybe, maybe not.

The 1903 Motu Proprio defines some general principles.

BTW does anyone know if there is a forum specifically for Catholic music and musicians?
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That was written before Vatican 2 in 1903. Don’t you think it’s a little outdated?? Interesting that it’s provided by publisher of old, traditional hymns.
III. The liturgical text
7. The language proper to the Roman Church is Latin. Hence it is forbidden to sing anything whatever in the vernacular in solemn liturgical functions – much more to sing in the vernacular the variable or common parts of the Mass and Office.
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Do you have any response to the OP’s question??
I’d love to hear VALID liturgical/ doctrinal reasons (free of personal opinions) why these songs are not appropriate for mass.

A music/ musicians forum would be a good idea.
 
VAC said:
Why would a song’s presence in this hymnal make the song more appropriate than a song found in another hymnal?
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I think the answer to this questions is the same answer that a non-Catholic Christian would give when asked, “How do you know that your interpretation of Scripture is correct?”
 
Cat said:
I think the answer to this questions is the same answer that a non-Catholic Christian would give when asked, “How do you know that your interpretation of Scripture is correct?”
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Cat, I don’t get it… How would they answer??
 
The general rule is to see whether the songs conform with the mind of the Church, not just in terms of lyrics but also in terms of musical style.

I don’t know some of these listed songs, but:
dranzal said:
Gather us In
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I find it plain ugly, musically speaking. Moreover, can someone please explain, “Give us the courage to enter the song”?
Shine Jesus Shine
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I wouldn’t use this song for Mass; its style resembles secular music and is more appropriate for prayer meetings. It was not composed for use in liturgy.
Awesome God
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No; again, for style. But moreover, its textual composition is too casual. Liturgical music’s objective is to raise our minds to heavenly realities; this calls for the use of sacred language as well as sacred music.

“When he rolls up his sleeves, he ain’t just puttin’ on the ritz” doesn’t count as sacred language for me.
Lord of the Dance
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No. I find the lyrics just plain terrible. Moreover it just puts weird images in my head.
We Will Serve the Lord

We are One Body
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I don’t know enough about these two to comment.
Table of Plenty
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Well, I can somewhat tolerate it. I would still prefer hymns that have more imagery of sacrifice, heaven, as well as the meal aspect. This hymn focuses only on the meal aspect, but fails to point out that the Mass is a SACRIFICIAL meal, and not just any meal, which, unfortunately, this song fails to convey.
 
Liturgical music’s objective is to raise our minds to heavenly realities; this calls for the use of sacred language as well as sacred music
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When he rolls up his sleeves, he ain’t just puttin’ on the ritz" doesn’t count as sacred language for me.
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Can you define sacred language?
Would this also eliminate some of the old spiritual hyms which are written with poor grammer? Or must the sacred language be in formal modern English, or Old English? How would this apply to hymns written in other languages?
 
VAC said:
Can you define sacred language?
Would this also eliminate some of the old spiritual hyms which are written with poor grammer? Or must the sacred language be in formal modern English, or Old English? How would this apply to hymns written in other languages?
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Sacred language can be characterized as proper and formal, i.e. not slang or casual. Both archaic (e.g. King James/Douay) and modern English (i.e. modern liturgical translations) are suitable for good prayerful language.

As for old spiritual hymns with poor grammar, I’m not aware of any.

Similar principles apply to other languages, as all living languages have both formal and colloquial forms.
 
porthos11–

I love Gather Us In. Our Bishop, one of the best in the U.S., uses it as the theme song for his weekly radio show. (Thomas Doran, Bishop of the Diocese of Rockford.)

You would understand the line “Give us the courage to enter the song” if you were not a Catholic.

My husband and I converted to Catholicism after over 40 years of evangelical Protestantism. The song, Gather Us In had a lot of meaning for us the first time we heard it, and it still has a lot of meaning for us.

As we became more and more convinced that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus established, we knew that we should renounce our Protestant church and become Catholic.

But we were afraid! After all, we had been safely evangelical all our lives. Evangelical Christianity teaches an “easy” salvation–just ask Jesus into your heart to be your personal Savior, and you’re all set. All your sins are forgiven past present and future, and it doesn’t matter what you do because it is the righteousness of Christ that is repudiated to you, and His perfection “covers” your sinfulness so that it is Christ that God see, not you.

Also, all of our “friends” were evangelical, and we knew how to “be” evangelical.

The words “Give us the courage to enter the song” are a perfect description of what we longed for–courage to leave all that we knew and enter the unknown. Eventually the Lord did help us to find that courage and “enter the song.”

The “song” is a allegorical representation of the Catholic Church. I wrote a song called “Part of the Story,” where I used the allegory of the “story” to describe Christian faith. Perhaps the allegory doesn’t make sense to you, but it makes perfect sense to me–I know exactly what the lyricist meant when he described the Church and Christian faith as “the song.”

As for “ugliness” of melody, I disagree. I find Gather Us In extremely melodic, almost like a dance (and I’m not talking about cha cha, I’m talking about “dance” in the classical sense, in the way that the classical composer used the dance terms like “Gavotte” etc. to title their compositions. They weren’t meant to be danced to, but they were like dances.)

In fact, the “Celtic” arrangement of the song that Bishop Doran uses on his radio program is hauntingly beautiful. As a Protestant, I used to listen to his show and I always loved the music and assumed that it was some ancient Celtic Catholic song. It was quite a nice surprise for me to discover that this beautiful song was modern, had words, and was sung frequently in Mass.

porthos11, your statements are your opinions and they are valid and you are entitled to them. As you can see, others have vastly differing opinions that are also valid.

VAC asked me to explain my comment. My comment meant that “sacred music” is sacred because someone’s “opinion” is that it is sacred. It has nothing to do with documented “lists” of “sacred music” or “Vatican-approved” music. It’s all a question of opinion, just like non-Catholic Christians believe that a certain interpretation of Scripture is “correct” because that is their opinion, and they want to believe it’s the absolute truth.
 
I will not comment on the value of “Gather Us In” but I will say that I don’t understand why, “Give us the courage to enter the song,” is so hard for people to understand.

If it doesn’t make sense then people ought to read, “The Music of the Ainur,” from Tolkien’s The Silmarillian and see how our lives as humans in general, and as Catholics in particular, are part of the great musical work which is God’s creation.

If Marty Haugen’s line is confusing it is because it seems to imply that we have a choice as to being part of the song at all. We don’t. Our choice is whether to create harmony or to create dissonance.
 
SMHW said:
If Marty Haugen’s line is confusing it is because it seems to imply that we have a choice as to being part of the song at all. We don’t. Our choice is whether to create harmony or to create dissonance.
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The “Song” is the faith, and we do have a choice. God doesn’t force himself on us.

Jim
 
Sorry for the delay. Had to work.

I believe that there is another interpretation of “Give us the courage to enter the song.”

Again, “the song” is the Church, where we find our salvation.

I think that a lot of Christians sit in Mass week after week and really don’t have a clue. At least they still come to Mass, and that’s good.

But there’s so much more to the beautiful Catholic Church! It’s like a giant castle full of rich treasure.

I think a lot of Catholics are afraid to walk through the castle. They stay in the lobby or the anteroom or the mudroom, getting graces from the Mass, but missing so many more graces from the rest of the castle!

May God give them the courage to enter “the song” or if you prefer, the castle!
 
And here is one more interpretation.

There are strong Catholics who are close to the Lord.

They know their Church and their faith, are faithful to pray and give to the Lord, and are filled with praise and thanksgiving to God.

When we go to Mass, we are going to a “sacrifice.” (A priest from India was a guest in our parish last week and made this comment about sacrifice.)

Our Lord asks us to join with Him in His sacrifice, to come forward and give ourselves to Him even as He gives Himself to us.

So often we just glibly march up and take Holy Communion without even thinking about a sacrifice on our part.

But there are times when God calls us to accept a sacrifice. Perhaps it will be a medical diagnosis, or a sad phone call, or the loss of a job, or the betrayal by a friend.

Do we, as faithful Catholics, have “the courage to enter the song” of suffering and grief, to carry our own cross even as Jesus carried His cross?

You see, there’s a lot to Gather Us In if you look at it through different eyes than your own. Same for all these so-called “irreverent contemporary songs.” Personally, I find many of them much deeper than the ancient songs that basically just restate in the Queen’s English (or the Caesar’s Latin) what the Bible says–God is awesome and here’s a list of the reasons why and the Names that He is called…"
 
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