Music in the new translation of the Mass

[Anthony_V]

Heresy

In all honesty, though, it’s pretty, but it’s just the Baroque equivalent of the same problem: it’s religious opera music, not sacred music. Anyway, he’s a Protestant, and in some Protestant “churches” he is considered a saint.

No worries! I was just being goofy But I didn’t know he was protestant
Have you ever heard Ennio Morricone’s “The Mission” soundtrack? The movie in itself is inspiring, but the music… wow. The movie should be used for Jesuit vocations! I’ve actually heard Gabriel’s Oboe played in a few ordination masses. Of course, I’m a sucker for it because I play oboe myself

 

[FrancisB]

No worries! I was just being goofy But I didn’t know he was protestant
Have you ever heard Ennio Morricone’s “The Mission” soundtrack? The movie in itself is inspiring, but the music… wow. The movie should be used for Jesuit vocations! I’ve actually heard Gabriel’s Oboe played in a few ordination masses. Of course, I’m a sucker for it because I play oboe myself

I’ve not, but I shall look into that. The film was good too?

I don’t play the oboe, but it is my favourite instrument in the orchestra. Good choice in instruments!

 

[Anthony_V]

I’ve not, but I shall look into that. The film was good too?

I don’t play the oboe, but it is my favourite instrument in the orchestra. Good choice in instruments!

Oh yes! The story line of the movie just pulls at your heart strings. Certainly one of the better Catholic movies in some time. Well, it was made in 1986, but you get my drift
You can get it in blu-ray, or you can rent the video from Amazon. But again, the music itself is just… wow. Beautifully played and arranged extremely well. You can also get the soundtrack from iTunes. It still sells!

 

[agapewolf]

This is a half truth. The half that is true is that it is not “referencing merely Gregorian chant”. The second half (“It is a generic term to over the music.”) is not true. Chant is a style of singing. Gregorian chant is a body of repertoire in a specific musical style. There are other forms of chant that are equally fitting: Ambrosian chant, Mozarabic chant, Old Roman chant, or even more modern forms like Gelineau psalmody, or the music published by Corpus Christi Watershed, and that’s just scraping the tip of the iceberg. Chant is a lot broader than people that don’t look into it every imagine. That said, it is not a “generic term”, but a rather specific musical one.

And when I said it was offensive to have songs in place of chant, I meant it. I explained that quite thoroughly. If you choose not to accept the fact that I backed that opinion up with facts, even quoting the GIRM when you tried to suggest that I didn’t know what I was talking about, then you are just not interested in what the church actually has said. This is not a matter of whose opinion is better. I didn’t say I like the way chant sounds better; I said it is the music of the church. I listen to plenty of other kinds of music the rest of the week, including plenty of folk rock while I’m playing my guitar with my elementary school students. I just spent the whole day to-day playing secular Christmas songs with the students. I don’t hate all of that music; it just isn’t music for the mass.

It is NOT a half truth. It is the truth when speaking about it in the GIRM. In the girm, the word chant was used to be a generic term to cover music, not simply to say that only chant is approrpriate. Other church documents back this up. I am interested in what the church says, not what someone’s agenda says.

 

[pilots13]

Liturgical designs? What is there to design? We’re Catholic. There are rubrics for that.

I meant for how the church and sanctuary look for various seasons of the year. I’m head of the Environment Committee at my church. When I’m sketching my designs or putting things together in the church, that’s when I’ll throw on the church hymns playlist.

Basically, we have different tastes in liturgical music. The Church obviously doesn’t have much issue with the folk music being written, since Fr Jan Michael Joncas is one of the composers in question, and last I checked they still let him say Mass every Sunday. I’m not going to force you to listen to folk music in Mass and I don’t expect you to force me to listen to chant. Different people, different cultures, different music.

 

[TheMc]

I’ve not, but I shall look into that. The film was good too?

I don’t play the oboe, but it is my favourite instrument in the orchestra. Good choice in instruments!

Oboe is awesome. French horn, too.

 

[pnewton]

Our transition to the new translation went very smooth. We went with the Mass of Creation and never had any problem with it. Of course, the Amen did not change, so I really don’t understand why that was an issue in the OP.

 

[FrancisB]

It is NOT a half truth. It is the truth when speaking about it in the GIRM. In the girm, the word chant was used to be a generic term to cover music, not simply to say that only chant is approrpriate. Other church documents back this up. I am interested in what the church says, not what someone’s agenda says.

Please cite them, then. I have never seen the word “chant” used in English to mean anything other than, well, chant. Again, not necessarily Gregorian chant, but some form of plainsong at any rate. If it were a generic term to cover all music, then it would be applied equally to instrumental music, which it is not. The GIRM does not speak of organ chant. Let us not be ridiculous here and try to redefine words to suit our own agenda.

I would feel quite differently if this were a French edition of the GIRM, where this distinction is made more difficult. The Latin, however, would be equally clear: cantus, not carmina, and in the church documents that is clear.

 

[FrancisB]

Basically, we have different tastes in liturgical music. The Church obviously doesn’t have much issue with the folk music being written, since Fr Jan Michael Joncas is one of the composers in question, and last I checked they still let him say Mass every Sunday. I’m not going to force you to listen to folk music in Mass and I don’t expect you to force me to listen to chant. Different people, different cultures, different music.

This drives me insane! We don’t just have different tastes and let’s not just leave it at that. Just because Fr. Joncas hasn’t been suspended or defrocked for writing music in the style in which he writes doesn’t mean that it is equally acceptable. He shouldn’t be in trouble for writing that music, it is perfectly acceptable music for a priest to compose; it is just not suitable for the mass. If you had a concert of Fr. Joncas’s music at church, it would be quite wholesome and seemly for Catholics to attend. I’m not saying he’s a bad man, just that he is not writing music that is suitable for mass. I hope you can see the distinction there.

We are different people, but we aren’t different cultures. I’m an American Catholic. That is substantially the same culture as you. The point of the church writing document after document about music is not so that they can be ignored; She wanted to make it clear that it isn’t an opinion contest. If it were about what mass setting I thought sounded the best, I’d be vote for the Electric Prunes Mass in F Minor, although the Stravinsky Mass might be a very close second. I listen to them both quite often, but that doesn’t mean that either one is exactly mass-appropriate. The Stravinsky is perhaps a little closer, but it is still essentially Classical music, and not ritual music, a distinction about which ethno-musicologists are quite clear.

The church has tried to make such a distinction, but it is regrettably less clear, greatly due to the fact that most of the field of study of ethno-musicology is from the last 15 years, and there has been little in the way of church documents about music in that span. That said, the documents, even the most recent edition of the GIRM are far from ambiguous, unless you choose to read ambiguity into them (c.f. above, about the meaning of the word “chant”).

I’m sorry that you have yet to develop a taste for the traditional music of the church. I promise you that learning to love chant is as easy and rewarding as learning to love icons. At first you will see the beauty, but it is easy to get bored by both if you are expecting them to entertain you. Once you remove that obstacle and understand that the purpose of icons and chant is to lift your mind to prayer and meditation rather than to make you feel good, you develop a whole different aesthetic. It will help you to understand other traditions better, and develop an understanding of mysticism, but it will probably never entertain you. At least so far for me, I can say I’ve never been entertained by chant, but I have often been uplifted by it.

And that is why I don’t drive around listening to chant very often; if I focus on praying in my car, I’ll have to rely on my guardian angel to keep me from getting into an accident. I’d rather have something that entertains me when I’m driving. We need something that takes us closer to God when we are praying.

 

[pnewton]

Please cite them, then. I have never seen the word “chant” used in English to mean anything other than, well, chant…

We have more than just the GIRM, and even then we often ignore the “G” part (general). We also have parish priest that carry the authority of the bishops, and the bishops, who maintain the primacy in their own diocese. With this in mind, I prefer that our own opinions take back seat to Church authority.

 

[FrancisB]

We have more than just the GIRM, and even then we often ignore the “G” part (general). We also have parish priest that carry the authority of the bishops, and the bishops, who maintain the primacy in their own diocese. With this in mind, I prefer that our own opinions take back seat to Church authority.

My opinion is taking the back seat to Church authority. I am following the pope and the USCCB. “General Instruction” does not mean it can be overridden. It means it may not contain the “specific instructions” required for every possible situation that may arise. Again, you are twisting the English language to suit your own needs, and thus your own opinion. I am following the words the bishops of the church have given us, not radically redefining them based on the perception that I have of their actions regarding the enforcement of these regulations.

 

[pilots13]

This drives me insane! We don’t just have different tastes and let’s not just leave it at that. Just because Fr. Joncas hasn’t been suspended or defrocked for writing music in the style in which he writes doesn’t mean that it is equally acceptable. He shouldn’t be in trouble for writing that music, it is perfectly acceptable music for a priest to compose; it is just not suitable for the mass. If you had a concert of Fr. Joncas’s music at church, it would be quite wholesome and seemly for Catholics to attend. I’m not saying he’s a bad man, just that he is not writing music that is suitable for mass. I hope you can see the distinction there.

We are different people, but we aren’t different cultures. I’m an American Catholic. That is substantially the same culture as you. The point of the church writing document after document about music is not so that they can be ignored; She wanted to make it clear that it isn’t an opinion contest. If it were about what mass setting I thought sounded the best, I’d be vote for the Electric Prunes Mass in F Minor, although the Stravinsky Mass might be a very close second. I listen to them both quite often, but that doesn’t mean that either one is exactly mass-appropriate. The Stravinsky is perhaps a little closer, but it is still essentially Classical music, and not ritual music, a distinction about which ethno-musicologists are quite clear.

The church has tried to make such a distinction, but it is regrettably less clear, greatly due to the fact that most of the field of study of ethno-musicology is from the last 15 years, and there has been little in the way of church documents about music in that span. That said, the documents, even the most recent edition of the GIRM are far from ambiguous, unless you choose to read ambiguity into them (c.f. above, about the meaning of the word “chant”).

I’m sorry that you have yet to develop a taste for the traditional music of the church. I promise you that learning to love chant is as easy and rewarding as learning to love icons. At first you will see the beauty, but it is easy to get bored by both if you are expecting them to entertain you. Once you remove that obstacle and understand that the purpose of icons and chant is to lift your mind to prayer and meditation rather than to make you feel good, you develop a whole different aesthetic. It will help you to understand other traditions better, and develop an understanding of mysticism, but it will probably never entertain you. At least so far for me, I can say I’ve never been entertained by chant, but I have often been uplifted by it.

And that is why I don’t drive around listening to chant very often; if I focus on praying in my car, I’ll have to rely on my guardian angel to keep me from getting into an accident. I’d rather have something that entertains me when I’m driving. We need something that takes us closer to God when we are praying.

So it’s OK for Fr Joncas to write Mass settings, so long as we don’t use them in the Mass… I’m thinking if a Catholic priest is writing a Mass setting, his intention is for it to be used in the Mass and not just to sell CDs. I understand your distinction between writing music for a retreat or religious concert and writing music for the Mass, I just don’t agree that the music is not fitting for the Mass. Music is there to accent the worship experience (like decorations, etc). For you, your worship experience is heightened by chant. For me, it’s heightened by folk (and this is not to say I don’t like organ, choir, or chant, just not chant and only chant). Obviously the Vatican, or even sitting bishops don’t have an issue or they would have condemned folk music years ago and made people go back to chant.

You are an American Catholic as am I. But we are obviously very different people, and there are many many different cultures within the United States. In my town alone I can go from a Latin Mass (as in Latin America), to a traditional, priest with his back to the people, Mass, to a polka Mass, to a “this is really Catholic” Mass, to a Hmong Mass, to a middle of the road folk Mass. All are allowed to go on, all styles are very well attended, and the range is there because some people like the traditional forms, and others like the progressive forms. But they all say the same prayers, they all read the same readings, concatenate the same Body and Blood, and they all have priests that report to the same Archbishop.

From Verbum Domini

As part of the enhancement of the word of God in the liturgy, attention should also be paid to the use of song at the times called for by the particular rite. Preference should be given to songs which are of clear biblical inspiration and which express, through the harmony of music and words, the beauty of God’s word. We would do well to make the most of those songs handed down to us by the Church’s tradition which respect this criterion. I think in particular of the importance of Gregorian chant.

Music is there to enhance the Mass, and as long as the songs are bibilcally inspired, you can use music and words (note music and words, not chant) to enhance the Mass. He does also note the historic importance of Gregorian chant, but doesn’t call for it’s exclusive use. That’s all I’m getting at. It’s not all about chant, Mass music can be much broader than that.

Oh, one last thing I stumbled on a while back. When the Pope recently came to say Mass in Washington DC, they used Haugen’s Mass of Creation as the Mass setting. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

 

[pnewton]

My opinion is taking the back seat to Church authority. I am following the pope and the USCCB. “General Instruction” does not mean it can be overridden. It means it may not contain the “specific instructions” required for every possible situation that may arise. Again, you are twisting the English language to suit your own needs, and thus your own opinion. I am following the words the bishops of the church have given us, not radically redefining them based on the perception that I have of their actions regarding the enforcement of these regulations.

I twist nothing. Interesting that you want to take such a literalist view on the word “chant” but not “general”. The bishop is the authority. It is he that interprets the GIRM. If it is his understanding that the word chant appears only to be a more accurate transliteration, and that nothing has changed in the GIRM, then who is any layman that they may challenge that. Indeed the GIRM we have today is the same one we have have for a while. It is only the translation that has been altered, not the substance.

 

[FrancisB]

I twist nothing. Interesting that you want to take such a literalist view on the word “chant” but not “general”. The bishop is the authority. It is he that interprets the GIRM. If it is his understanding that the word chant appears only to be a more accurate transliteration, and that nothing has changed in the GIRM, then who is any layman that they may challenge that. Indeed the GIRM we have today is the same one we have have for a while. It is only the translation that has been altered, not the substance.

I am taking a perfectly literal meaning of the word “general”. It doesn’t cover every possible instance of what could happen. “General” doesn’t imply non-universality of location. It is not “general” as opposed to “local”. It is “general” as opposed to “specific”. In other words, there are certain things that you will not be able to find in that document because it couldn’t possibly cover everything that would ever need to be known about saying the mass, and it wasn’t intended to be “exhaustive”.

Now please show me where the bishops have stated that the word “chant” means anything other than what I have suggested. I am not trying to debate the bishops; I have not seen this done. I am reading what they have translated and trying to understand it in plain English. If they have not given us plain English, they should make that clear by clarifying what they meant. Silence on the issue does not mean that “chant” means anything other than “chant”; liturgical abuse is widespread and silence is commonplace.

There seems to be a misunderstanding that tacit acceptance creates normative behaviour. This is not the case. That is why we have “general” documents to clarify what is normative, extraordinary, and abusive in most situations.

 

[pnewton]

INow please show me where the bishops have stated that the word “chant” means anything other than what I have suggested.

My bishop doesn’t do definitions. Thus an argument from silence is meaningless. The GIRM has not changed. Only the translation has.

liturgical abuse is widespread and silence is commonplace.

Thte type of music used is a liturgical abuse? Are you saying that you classify a parish that does not do chant, at least predominantly as commiting a liturgical abuse? If so, report it, if that is what you think. But then you have to accept the determination of that report if it does not support your opinion.

I think calling the choice of music liturgical abuse to be way off base. It runs counter to the Catholic tradition of subsidiarity.

 

[MarkThompson]

I am taking a perfectly literal meaning of the word “general”. It doesn’t cover every possible instance of what could happen. “General” doesn’t imply non-universality of location. It is not “general” as opposed to “local”. It is “general” as opposed to “specific”. In other words, there are certain things that you will not be able to find in that document because it couldn’t possibly cover everything that would ever need to be known about saying the mass, and it wasn’t intended to be “exhaustive”.

Now please show me where the bishops have stated that the word “chant” means anything other than what I have suggested. I am not trying to debate the bishops; I have not seen this done. I am reading what they have translated and trying to understand it in plain English. If they have not given us plain English, they should make that clear by clarifying what they meant. Silence on the issue does not mean that “chant” means anything other than “chant”; liturgical abuse is widespread and silence is commonplace.

There seems to be a misunderstanding that tacit acceptance creates normative behaviour. This is not the case. That is why we have “general” documents to clarify what is normative, extraordinary, and abusive in most situations.

Well, some time ago I laid out here my theory on people who were setting themselves up for a big disappointment by choosing to believe that the new translation of the GIRM would require “chant,” in the sense of Gregorian chant or other plainsong:
It is, however – one’s personal hopes and preferences are completely irrelevant here – pellucidly clear that those people are entirely mistaken and that there is not going to be any requirement for chant instead of hymns, etc. It’s hard to even count all the reasons:

• Before Vatican II you could use hymns at Mass just as we do today; why would the Church create a rupture with that continuous practice? One could imagine a gradated system along the lines of Musicam Sacram where if you are going to have incense and sing the Ordinary then you have to sing the Introit instead of an opening hymn, something like that. But “no opening hymns allowed” wasn’t the rule in November 1911, so who would ever think the Church is planning to make it the rule in November 2011?
• “Mandatory chant” isn’t the rule in any other country or language (Italy included, perhaps especially). Why would Rome intend to create a different rule – one not even applied in Rome or at papal liturgies – for English-speaking countries?
• The Church simply does not operate this way – slyly changing one word in a document, saying nothing about it, with the secret plan that this will in fact mandate a massive, costly, disruptive liturgical overhaul for everybody. When they want to announce huge changes that many people would hate, they will announce them and give the priests on the ground an opportunity to prepare for them in a pastorally sensible way.
• And to be sure, such a mandatory change – particularly sprung on people in such a way – would indeed be hugely unpopular. It would most likely fail and have to be retracted, making the bishops, and indeed the whole Church in English-speaking countries, look terrible. Even if it succeeded, it would require the outlay of a large amount of political capital which the bishops do not have and are certainly not prepared to expend on the pipe dream of chant everywhere, when most of them don’t even have it at their own cathedrals.
• What do you think is the chance that the bishops would plan such a change, but not bother informing any of the publishers – despite the fact that they are already working closely with them on the Mass revisions – instead letting them go ahead with printing a bunch of “revised” missals and missalettes that, according to the bishops’ secret plan, but unbeknownst to the publishers, are in fact full of now-useless hymns?

Certainly, the feeling of the Bishops’ Committee for Divine Worship is that the word “chant” includes “an appropriate hymn or song.” And certainly not, has anyone involved in the promulgation or translation of the GIRM proposed otherwise.

 

[30miller]

… In the girm, the word chant was used to be a generic term to cover music, not simply to say that only chant is approrpriate. Other church documents back this up…

I’ve been reading articles arguing for chant to take it’s proper place in the NO for years - no, make that decades now - all successfully rebuffed by the folk/pop crowd. The number of articles is easily in the hundreds.
Ever since Vatican II gave it “pride of place” as music for the liturgy it has been essentially overruled and ignored by the folk music and pop spiritual song crowds.
In all that time I have never heard the novel suggestion that “chant” really means all music. The very idea that this “approach” surfaces from out of nowhere 40+ years after the council makes this the unquestioned leader for the “depends on what the meaning of the word is…is” award. Talk about reaching at straws.

 

[agapewolf]

I’ve been reading articles arguing for chant to take it’s proper place in the NO for years - no, make that decades now - all successfully rebuffed by the folk/pop crowd. The number of articles is easily in the hundreds.
Ever since Vatican II gave it “pride of place” as music for the liturgy it has been essentially overruled and ignored by the folk music and pop spiritual song crowds.
In all that time I have never heard the novel suggestion that “chant” really means all music. The very idea that this “approach” surfaces from out of nowhere 40+ years after the council makes this the unquestioned leader for the “depends on what the meaning of the word is…is” award. Talk about reaching at straws.

It’s not reaching at straws…the word just changed this year in the translation, which is why you haven’t heard it. I’ve heard it all over…and NOT just from a certain “crowd”. From the diocese…an orthodox diocese included.

Do not lump me in a “crowd”. I like chant and wished my pastor would go for more of it, but someone said it was “offensive” to not use it, and then now its a liturgical abuse—that is not accurate or fair.

 

[30miller]

Certainly, the feeling of the Bishops’ Committee for Divine Worship is that the word “chant” includes “an appropriate hymn or song.” And certainly not, has anyone involved in the promulgation or translation of the GIRM proposed otherwise.

Just as certainly, attendance at the high point of the week for every Catholic - the one hour out of the 168 hour week - the Sunday Mass - has plummeted during the 40+year post Vatican II Pop/Folk masses (during which chant has been for all intents and purposes banned) from 75% of nominal Catholics to 25%. Of course one has nothing to do with the other. Of course.
The idea that the mass is not about them simply never occurs to the Pop/Folkies and they refuse to even consider it. The decline in the mass attendance doesn’t bother them in the least.

 

[30miller]

It’s not reaching at straws…the word just changed this year in the translation, which is why you haven’t heard it. I’ve heard it all over…and NOT just from a certain “crowd”. From the diocese…an orthodox diocese included.

Do not lump me in a “crowd”. I like chant and wished my pastor would go for more of it, but someone said it was “offensive” to not use it, and then now its a liturgical abuse—that is not accurate or fair.

I think I’ll stick with reading and learning from Jeffrey Tucker and his writings at musicasacra.com and in the Wanderer on the topic of chant.
You’ll have to take your “…the word just changed this year…” idea elsewhere. Unbelievable. Chant is chant! Get over it. “He Holds the Whole World in His Hands” is not chant. It’s a nice song. It’s just not chant.