Music in Church

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Arlene

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I am a little hesitant to start this thread because I have seen similiar threads and I know that many people on this forum feel very strongly about this…

At the risk of being blasted, may I ask why?

I grew up in the 70’s. I was confirmed in 1974. I played guitar at Masses where there were three rows of us all strumming (some)secular songs in unison. I’ve been to Masses where someone would bake bread to be “broken together” I believe there is a song that goes…“let us break break together on our knees.”

I do undertand that some of this was the pendulum swinging way too far on the liberal side, with liturgical abuses all over the place.

In my small town we lose many of our Catholic kids to the nearby mega non demon church. These kids are all on fire for the Lord, and what gets them in the door is the music. I get it that there is some music that is OK for praise and enjoyment, and other music that is OK for Mass, but how/who decides which is which. There are some great songs out there that we don’t/can’t sing at Mass. Why?

The other day I was thinking about an issue that I have had to confess repeatedly, about my uncharitable attitude toward certain people. A song popped into my head that we used to sing at Mass. It fit perfectly, and really spoke to me. I wondered why we don’t sing it anymore. I did a Google search…oh, my gosh, its a Glen Campbell song. So because it is secular, it is off limits???

Can’t a secular singer create a song that would be appropriate for Mass? Who sets that criteria?
By the way, the song is Less of Me.

Lots of questions, please be charitable in your answers.

Thanks

Arlene
 
I’ll give this one a shot…

My take on secular music in the church has less to do with the musicality of it and more to do with why it was written. When Someone sets out to write a sacred song they do so with an attitude of reverence and respect for the environment in which it will be used (or at least they should). The purpose of this music focuses the individual inward to the spiritual self and outward towards the sacrament and sacrifice of the mass. I’ll give you an example… Turn Turn Turn. It’s a great tune, and I love it. It’s even a biblical text (well… mostly). I don’t believe it would be appropriate to use in a liturgical setting though. Popular music is written with the mindset of “This is what I have to say about it, so I’m putting it down in song.” The focus is on the individual and what he or she wants to feel or get out of something. On the contrary, when a song is written with the intent on use during the liturgy it is written with the focus on what God wants us hear. This is a type of litmus test that I like to use to determine the appropriateness of a song for liturgy. Where is the focus? Also, when a song is used heavily in the secular realm it is, in my mind anyway, a bit tainted.

I’m fairly young, mid 20’s, and I love the mass and celebrating it. I also love contemporary worship services and went to quite a few at the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at my college (a non-demoninational, mostly born-again type group). I think there is a place for this type of praise service in our spiritual lives. I don’t believe, though, that this type of music serves to put my spiritual and emotional state into the proper disposition for celebrating the sacrifice of the mass and the reception of Christ in Holy Communion.

Analogy time… A rock band sounds great in a gym for a school dance, but an orchestra would sound awful in that acoustic setting.
 
I too grew up going to the Charismatic Catholic Mass on College Campus.

Of course there was alot good music that was purely Christian.
We used all sorts of music, guitars, drums and more.

Also music of religious nature is also often used in non religious areas.

I wish at times todays churches ( and mine does) include some of the music from the 70’s masses that I learned to love so much.
 
Ok, as somebody not that much older and a church organist, I’ll chime in.

If a church were just a place to gather together as a group and praise God (such as a Protestant church), then music of any kind which “felt good” would be fine.

A Catholic Church is, or should be, a “sacred” place. One can gather together and praise God anywhere, but when one praises Him in a “sacred” place of any kind, there is another dimension to everything, something “above” the five senses, which demands that what we do and experience with those senses be “sacred” as well.

Thus, we go “beyond” what sounds good, what looks good, what feels, smells, and tastes good, and what is “sacred”.

One needn’t be a “gloomy gus”, but “joy” for example, while a “happy” emotion, if it is sacred it is a “solemn”, a “reasoned”, emotion. Otherwise, it becomes more focused on ITSELF instead of being more focused on God.

Secular music, while it may sound wonderful, while it may have many “Christian” points, is at bottom focused on something TEMPORARY. . .a “temporary” feeling, a feeling that is tied up with earthly things, earthly loves, earthly matters.

Sacred music is at bottom focused on something ETERNAL, which is God. The feelings it evokes are tied up with heavenly matters, eternal love of God, and spiritual things.

It is of course very easy to confuse the two. If, while listening to a “secular song” I experience feelings of charity, if I close to God and my fellow humans, is it the “song” that has created feelings, or it is my self which has used the song to build a feeling in me? Remember, two people listening to any song, be it Bach or the Beatles, can have entirely opposite feelings. So it doesn’t look as though the “song” creates a given feeling (otherwise it would be the same feeling for all).

Being a church musician has its own little hurdles. Ideally, we are using our talent for GOD and not for ourselves.

The kids going to mega churches are not going solely because “the songs are better”. Really, think what you said here. You’re basically saying these kids are so shallow and so clueless about God that they are making spiritual decisions based not on what a Church teaches but upon “the songs”. That is one part, and one part only, of any church.

In my years in music ministry, I have played much music that I personally do not care for as a musician (songs in the key of ZZZZZZZZZZZZ, for example, or songs which are bad theology, badly arranged, unsingable, overused, etc.). So long as they are approved according to Rome, I will play them with all my heart and soul and skill, as the sacred music they are. If they are not approved, then my playing of them is limited to my own home or the homes of others, and NOT the church.

Nobody says you can’t play Glen Campbell–at home, out in the woods, even in your church’s school or at a church function (I love our yearly shows when I can belt out Broadway). But there is a time and a place for ALL things, music among them. For awhile we had throughout the U.S. a sort of “anything goes” approach which permeated everything from music to art to liturgy itself. Now we are carefully examining whether things surrounding liturgy are truly and authentically sacred FOR the liturgy, not just somethings that somebody liked the look, sound, taste, smell and feel of. That’s a good thing.

This is Lent, and it does help to remember that sometimes we have to “sacrifice” our feelings or our desires or our wills and be obedient to God.

Obedience is I believe THE hardest hurdle for the average Catholic today, especially if that Catholic is involved in ANY sort of ministry. Especially because this country is founded on “individualism” and tends to sneer at people for “giving in to” others, or call them “sheep” or stupid. But true obedience leads to a kind of freedom from all the P.C. or “cause of the week” ideology and really turns the mind to God. IMO anyway. God bless.
 
I’ll give you an example… Turn Turn Turn. It’s a great tune, and I love it. It’s even a biblical text (well… mostly). I don’t believe it would be appropriate to use in a liturgical setting though.
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Well, in my church in the 70’s, we sang that song quite a bit. :o

I understand your point, though. But the early Christians took pagan things and turned them around for God. Maybe secular songs with a good message could also be used. One of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies is Sister Act. There was a thread a while back that blasted that movie, but what I love about it was the use of secular music to draw in people who would not otherwise go to church. And I love the use of secular songs to be about God.

Just a difference in upbringing I suppose.

Arlene
 
I understand what you are saying. It makes a lot of sense. Not being snide, but does Rome really have a list of what songs are OK and what are not? How does one get on that list? Does being a litugical songwriter automatically qulify you (which might explain those key of zzzzzz songs)? Does being a secular songwrited disqualify you? Please undertand that I am not being snotty when I ask this. I figured as a church musician you might know about this process.
The kids going to mega churches are not going solely because “the songs are better”. Really, think what you said here. You’re basically saying these kids are so shallow and so clueless about God that they are making spiritual decisions based not on what a Church teaches but upon “the songs”. That is one part, and one part only, of any church.
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What I see is that the music and upbeat atmosphere is what makes them ask their parents to go. And because the parents are poorly catechized and/or lukewarm Catholics, they agree. I could probably name 1-2 dozen families at that church who are baptized Catholics. They either never went to church at all and now see it as having found a church home, or they were sucked into the upbeat atmosphere and don’t understand what they have turned their back on.
 
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Fr_Chuck:
I too grew up going to the Charismatic Catholic Mass on College Campus.

Of course there was alot good music that was purely Christian.
We used all sorts of music, guitars, drums and more.

Also music of religious nature is also often used in non religious areas.

I wish at times todays churches ( and mine does) include some of the music from the 70’s masses that I learned to love so much.
Click to expand...
Last Monday (March 6), Bishop Slattery of Omaha, Nebraska, wrote an article in his diocesan newspaper, the Eastern Oklahoma Catholic, regarding sacred music for use in the liturgy.

Bp. Slattery calls for moving the choir and cantor back out of the sanctuary, and away from view of the congregation. He states that this has been a “terrible distraction”.

The good bishop also tells his flock in no uncertain terms to reintroduce latin chant back into the liturgy “with some dispatch”, having the congregation sing “the simpler chants of the Kyriale, Gloria, Sanctus, Pater Noster, and the Agnus Dei.”

This article can be read in pdf format here, beginning on page 3 and ending on pg. 12.

Fr. Chuck,

My understanding is that you belong to a splinter group known as the Unity Catholic Church, which is not associated with the Roman Catholic Church. Is that correct?

If this is true, then it appears that your requirements for liturgy are somewhat different than those of us in the RCC.
 
“One of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies is Sister Act. There was a thread a while back that blasted that movie, but what I love about it was the use of secular music to draw in people who would not otherwise go to church. And I love the use of secular songs to be about God.”

I happen to agree that Sister Act is a good movie… but not from any kind of theological or spiritual standpoint. It’s a funny comedy with some good music.

I also think more secular sounding music could be good to draw people in. I would save this type of music for a praise & worship type service, however, and not for the sacrifice of the mass. As far as I know, there’s nothing to prevent you from asking to have a contemporary worship service at your parish. Anything we can do to bring a faithfilled life to others is great, and if having a worship service that has a praise band and lots of glitz gets people in the door, great. However, lets not forget that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, and as such must be approached with the appropriate solemnity and reverence.
 
euphoniac said:
“One of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies is Sister Act. There was a thread a while back that blasted that movie, but what I love about it was the use of secular music to draw in people who would not otherwise go to church. And I love the use of secular songs to be about God.”

I happen to agree that Sister Act is a good movie… but not from any kind of theological or spiritual standpoint. It’s a funny comedy with some good music.

I also think more secular sounding music could be good to draw people in. I would save this type of music for a praise & worship type service, however, and not for the sacrifice of the mass. As far as I know, there’s nothing to prevent you from asking to have a contemporary worship service at your parish. Anything we can do to bring a faithfilled life to others is great, and if having a worship service that has a praise band and lots of glitz gets people in the door, great. However, lets not forget that the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, and as such must be approached with the appropriate solemnity and reverence.
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I’ve been thinking about this a lot tonight, and one of the things that strikes me about the local mega church is that they do EVERYTHING in the sanctuary. Things that we use our hall for. They don’t have the same reverence and respect as we do for the actual church building. It is only a building, and the importance comes from what is going on in it at any given time. Whereas our church, because the Blessed Sacrament is always there, is always a place of respect. So I get that we have church functions and hall functions. So I guess there is church music and hall music. That makes sense. Since they don’t seperate their functions it is all the same. I do still have lingering questions about how music can get to be on the liturgy list. (According to Tantum ergo it comes from Rome)

Arlene
 
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Arlene:
I am a little hesitant to start this thread because I have seen similiar threads and I know that many people on this forum feel very strongly about this…

At the risk of being blasted, may I ask why?

I grew up in the 70’s. I was confirmed in 1974. I played guitar at Masses where there were three rows of us all strumming (some)secular songs in unison. I’ve been to Masses where someone would bake bread to be “broken together” I believe there is a song that goes…“let us break break together on our knees.”

I do undertand that some of this was the pendulum swinging way too far on the liberal side, with liturgical abuses all over the place.

In my small town we lose many of our Catholic kids to the nearby mega non demon church. These kids are all on fire for the Lord, and what gets them in the door is the music. I get it that there is some music that is OK for praise and enjoyment, and other music that is OK for Mass, but how/who decides which is which. There are some great songs out there that we don’t/can’t sing at Mass. Why?

The other day I was thinking about an issue that I have had to confess repeatedly, about my uncharitable attitude toward certain people. A song popped into my head that we used to sing at Mass. It fit perfectly, and really spoke to me. I wondered why we don’t sing it anymore. I did a Google search…oh, my gosh, its a Glen Campbell song. So because it is secular, it is off limits???

Can’t a secular singer create a song that would be appropriate for Mass? Who sets that criteria?
By the way, the song is Less of Me.

Lots of questions, please be charitable in your answers.

Thanks

Arlene
Click to expand...
Faith will not always feel good. Many of those kids who go to those megachurches won’t go to church at all when they have to move somewhere that has no church around with that kind of music. Granted, the music should be inspiring, and there is no reason to avoid more contemporary music (so long as it’s not heretical, isn’t shallow, and you are sympathetic to the needs of the parishioners), but there needs to be knowledge of doctrine, of scripture and of Tradition as well- to keep people in the Faith even when it really doesn’t feel good.
 
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Arlene:
Well, in my church in the 70’s, we sang that song quite a bit. :o

I understand your point, though. But the early Christians took pagan things and turned them around for God. Maybe secular songs with a good message could also be used. One of my favorite, favorite, favorite movies is Sister Act. There was a thread a while back that blasted that movie, but what I love about it was the use of secular music to draw in people who would not otherwise go to church. And I love the use of secular songs to be about God.

Just a difference in upbringing I suppose.

Arlene
Click to expand...
 
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