Music in transition: Lumen Christi missal

[jwinch2]

that’s not a problem with the chants, that’s just a problem with the people. Not to be harsh, but it’s the truth. Either they are purposefully being silent, or simply not trying. Either way, that should change what we do because people are “protesting” sacred music.

If they wanted to learn them, they could. It’s not hard. the parish over from mine sings them heartily.

Or, its a problem with the parish. Does the parish spend anytime teaching people how to read chant? Do they work on these things? It isn’t likely to happen by accident.

 

[superamazingman]

Or, its a problem with the parish. Does the parish spend anytime teaching people how to read chant? Do they work on these things? It isn’t likely to happen by accident.

Even without that, if you’ve been singing them since advent, they should be easily picked up by rote, just by listening. My congregation I cantor for had many of them almost down in 4 or 5 weeks, and they had never done chant before.

 

[jwinch2]

Even without that, if you’ve been singing them since advent, they should be easily picked up by rote, just by listening. My congregation I cantor for had many of them almost down in 4 or 5 weeks, and they had never done chant before.

Agreed. It really isn’t that hard. However, it certainly could help to spend a little time working on it. What is there to lose?

 

[Elizium23]

The #1 obstacle to corporate singing is unfamiliarity. I have heard this reported time and time again. Your #2 obstacle will probably be disliking the selections. See if you can’t overcome #1 first. It is critical to provide the assembly with at least the words for the sung parts. It is strongly encouraged to provide the music too; not everyone can read it, but those who can will give a boost to those who can’t. Try to start small. Don’t expand your repertoire by dozens of songs in a month. Also, rehearse with the assembly. Before Mass starts, have your director announce the tune and where to find it (worship aid, hymnal, missal). Then sing through it two or three times. This will encourage people to learn it and encourage them to come a bit early if they want to participate more fully.

Unfortunately, the pew copies of Lumen Christi don’t have all the music for all the antiphons, so it will just be a matter of rote memorization for the assembly to become accustomed to the chants. But they are designed to be easy to sing, and we are using a small selection of seasonal chants for offertory and communion. I expect it might take 2-3 years to come back up to speed, but we will get there.

 

[Cat]

Even without that, if you’ve been singing them since advent, they should be easily picked up by rote, just by listening. My congregation I cantor for had many of them almost down in 4 or 5 weeks, and they had never done chant before.

I disagree. I think chant is really really REALLY hard to learn.

I’m 55, play piano (I’m really good at it), and I’m an experienced accompanist. I read music as easily as I read CAF.

Last year, for about six months before the new translation of the OF Mass was adopted, our parish music minister tried to get the congregation to do a chant setting.

And I tried my darndest to learn it.

I never did pick it up. It was so frustrating.

I’m not an ear singer at all. I wish I was, but I’m not.

The congregation never picked it up either, even after several months. It got to the point where only the cantor and perhaps a few brave people were singing, while the rest of the congregation stood silent. Even my husband, who is always correct about his Mass participation (correct gestures, responses, etc.), and who is also a good music reader and singer, gave up and just stood there silent.

It was awful. Not at all worshipful to see so many people standing silent.

I’m very grateful that the music director decided to not use chant after all. We’re now using a contemporary setting, and it’s pleasant, and most people have learned it.

I’m not sure I understand why the phrase “this is what the Church wants” keeps coming up. We are in an extremely conservative diocese with wonderful bishops. But there has been no “push” to eliminate the hymns and "contemporary settings and move towards chant. I don’t believe that our bishops are ignoring what Holy Mother Church wants. So what’s the story here? Why does the OP say, “this is what the Church wants”?

 

[Elizium23]

Cat, as a church musician I hope you are familiar with the documents of the Church which are germane to our ministry. In particular, I use Sacrosanctum Concilium and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.

Here is a list of the preferences in the GIRM. This excerpt is for the Entrance, but it is also repeated for the Communion rite.
GIRM:

1. This chant is sung alternately by the choir and the people or similarly by a cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the antiphon with its Psalm from the Graduale Romanum, as set to music there or in another setting; (2) the antiphon and Psalm of the Graduale Simplex for the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year, similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

Now, in order to understand this properly, ‘chant’ here means any song type. Rome has not prohibited hymns at all. These options are listed in order of preference. The Church has published these proper and common antiphons in her own books. Clearly they are highly recommended and worthy of consideration before other hymns are brought in.

Now here is the document on which the GIRM is based.

30. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.

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.

But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action, as laid down in Art. 30.

Taken together, it is clear that we should make every attempt to introduce chant into the liturgy and all strive to learn and teach it so that others may sing with facility. That doesn’t mean to abolish polyphony or other hymns. Even my parish does not envision a 100% chant liturgy. We plan to retain traditional hymns from Adoremus for the Entrance and Recessional. Personally, I would sorely miss polyphony if we never did it again. I sing baritone and I greatly enjoy harmonizing with the other choir members!

So in sum, a parish that chooses contemporary hymns above Gregorian chant isn’t doing anything wrong or bad, it can be a valid pastoral decision to retain these things, especially during a transitional period. But the exhortations of Vatican II and the regulation of the Roman Missal are clear in their priorities, and my bishop and pastor have chosen to adhere strictly to these recommendations in order to offer a reverent liturgy with a distinctly sacred feel.

 

[Elizium23]

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. I took some time off the forums due to increasing pressure in my persona life. And a lot has changed in my parish since then!

I came early to attend Spanish music rehearsal and heard the news: our choir director was being replaced. The Latinos took it extremely hard. One woman was crying. They loved this guy very much and they think it was very unfair to let him go. It was extremely abrupt. At his announcement, he was to play the next weekend and then leave. He said they had a new hire, who had had an important church music position just prior, and offered to bring in experienced opera students to sing. Well, that started to annoy me. Any parish that thinks it has to bring in “ringers” to bolster a volunteer choir has jumped the shark, in my opinion. Also, opera singers are not exactly equipped for choral work. In the opera, you sing solos and you train to stand out with a big voice. In choral singing, you listen to others and blend your voice for a unifying effect. I started to fret about whether the new director would just fire all the volunteers in favor of his super-choir of opera singers. I really had some misgivings right from the start. I ran to the pharmacy and bought a nice humorous “THANK YOU!” card for the outgoing director, and had everyone sign it. At the weekend Masses, neither priest said a blessed thing about “thank you” or “let’s have a round of applause” for his two-plus years of service to the parish. Nothing was said, goodbye and good luck.

So now I was even more annoyed with the pastoral decisions going on here. Last Friday the 16th was the day we swapped out all the hymnals for the new Missals. I personally did most of the work. I had two people helping me. I had specifically requested to do it, because it was a great symbolic gesture for me. Did our pastor take the time to preach a little bit about the features of the Missal and why we intend to use it? Nope, he said not a thing about it, except to explain before the readings that that was where to find them printed now, since our worship aids no longer contain reproductions of the readings, just a page number in the LCM.

And last Tuesday was the evening Mass where I serve. I had a short powwow with our lector and the woman who was delegated to announce a hymn for the entrance, and I explained how we can now use the proper antiphon for the weekday and how to look it up. I said it would be good if we could chant it, but we can begin by reciting it. They made funny faces and she said “maybe I will just do nothing at all.” Then I asked Father about it, and he explained that we have been getting “pushback” about abolishing the hymnals and that we should henceforth use the seasonal missallettes as a hymn source for daily Mass. So… there’s six days out of the week when the LCM is worthless to us.

Then there was Mass this evening. One of the much-vaunted opera singers was there with his big trained voice stomping over everyone else. We had a hymn for the Entrance and a hymn and a solo-anthem for Communion. These anthems particularly annoy me because they do it in my other parish, and the GIRM is rather clear on the fact that if you do a second song for Communion, it is to be sung by the whole assembly. It is not a “meditation song” like so many people think. For the psalm, the director made something up because he didn’t like the proper chant.

For offertory we chanted the antiphon, but the director messed around on the piano for the whole of it. This is beginning to drive me up the wall. Gregorian chant is a cappella! If you insist on playing an accompaniment, play the organ softly and don’t stomp over the melody line with a lot of improv. It really sounds horrible when we’re competing with the piano in this fashion. It just destroys the whole sacred moment for me. It’s a train-wreck and our director loves it.

In summary, I am starting to think we just suffered a bait-and-switch here. Our last director was faithfully, if slightly ineptly, implementing the chants in the Missal as best he could. And he wasn’t even Catholic. The new director is giving us hymns (and some really bad ones - so far we’ve screeched through “Eye Has Not Seen (Haugen)” and “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” (worst rendition of Psalm 23 I’ve ever heard)) and mangled chant. He can’t even leave the Ordinary alone, he plays organ underneath the Gloria, the Memorial Acclamation, the Sanctus, the Our Father, and the Agnus Dei, where they were previously unadorned beautiful chanted pieces. The Daily Mass crowd has summarily rejected them; I can’t tell you how upset that makes me. Daily Mass people are the most faithful people you can find. I just feel betrayed. The Missal is basically worthless if we are going to do a three-hymn sandwich plus a single antiphon chant somewhere. Why not just print up copies off the net and save thousands of dollars and keep the old horrible Gather hymnals that everyone seems to love so much?

Perhaps this is the kind of transition period that can be expected when the pastor makes a huge change. Perhaps it will take a couple of years to iron out the difficulties and get our music back on track again the way the Church truly wants it. I thought this would be a change for the better. I wanted to trust the pastor in his decisions, but some really bad ones are coming down the pipe on me now and I really need some prayers.

 

[Cat]

Well, it’s been a while since I posted. I took some time off the forums due to increasing pressure in my persona life. And a lot has changed in my parish since then!

Perhaps this is the kind of transition period that can be expected when the pastor makes a huge change. Perhaps it will take a couple of years to iron out the difficulties and get our music back on track again the way the Church truly wants it. I thought this would be a change for the better. I wanted to trust the pastor in his decisions, but some really bad ones are coming down the pipe on me now and I really need some prayers.

Well, I hate to tell you “I told you so,” but…“I told you so.”

A lot of people on this forum think I’m some kind of curmudgeon. Yes, I am, but I speak the hard truth. It sounds like you are starting to figure it out, too.

What you have to try to grasp is that for the last 40 years or so, music education in the United States has been abysmal, and the majority of people simply do NOT know how to sing and many people do NOT “appreciate” (understanding of and respect for) any form of music other than "popular."

Same thing has happened with physical education–it’s been dumbed down in many schools so that the kids get very little exercise during the school day. If the children were called out and asked to run/walk a mile, many would not be able to do it.

Think about it…let’s say that reading had not been taught in the public or even private schools for the last 40 years, and the majority of people did not know how to read. How would the people react if they were handed “books” and told to “read?” You can’t just start reading if you don’t have a clue how!

The Church in Europe has a 2000-year-old history of ancient music, and the people may (or may not) at least have some appreciation (understanding of and respect for) of chant as a musical style. But here in the United States, many of us have never been exposed to chant other than in movies. There’s no background in this music, and no appreciation (understanding of and respect for) of it.

Note–when I use the word “appreciation” in regards to music, I do NOT mean “like it.” I mean UNDERSTANDING OF AND RESPECT FOR. ** I would like to ask that no one respond to my post by accusing me of demanding Mass music that I or others personally “like.” ** We can APPRECIATE music without necessarily liking it, but here in the United States, for many years (decades), most children have not been taught to APPRECIATE music, hence the difficulties with trying to implement such a drastic change in Mass music.

In order for chant to be implemented in the Mass in the United States, there will have to be a long-term and carefully-designed “strategy.” Simply dropping the books into the pews will not work and will create resentment, sadness, and eventually attrition from the Church. One thing that we all need to recognize and come to terms with is that in the United States, MUSIC is incredibly important to people. I agree, music should not determine our religions, but truth is–it does. Evangelical megachurches understand this, and they make use of it to become megachurches. We are foolish if we think that people will come to Mass out of love for Christ. I wish that were true, and it IS true for some of us. But for the vast majority of under-educated Americans, the church music may well keep them away from church. Sad–like I said, we need an all-emcompassing strategy that will probably take many years to implement. This isn’t a question of replacing the hymnals.

BTW, this “strategy” will cost money, and that’s another issue. Parishes can’t expect educated musicians to come to their parish and start teaching everyone all about chant for free. Musicians expect to be paid, and the Catholic Church in the U.S.is notorious for not paying musicians.

Also, like it or not, many musicians have great sympathies for those who advocate homosexuality, and many musicians stay away from the Catholic Church. This is a whole 'nother thread, and must be dealt with. It has wreaked havoc in our parish.

Finally, many Catholic families are not paying for their children to take music lessons from qualified teachers, or the parishes are following the lead of the secular schools and not paying for a full-time music teacher. Last weekend, I had a desperate call from my organ teacher asking if I could sub for him in a Lutheran church (I couldn’t, as I was out of town)–there were not ANY organists or pianists available to sub, as they all play for churches. Very very sad.

Music things don’t and won’t happen for free. Some major bucks will have to go into this. Ouch. It’s hard for parishes to think of spending a ton of money on “music” rather than on helping the poor and doing all kinds of other worthwhile and beautiful missions. But if the Church wants chant in the Mass, it won’t come for free, even if kind people put out all kinds of helpful websites.

And then there’s the question of the charlatans. Whenever there is money to be made, they move in and take advantage of those who don’t know much, and in regards to music, very few people in the U.S .know much . It’s fertile ground for con artists. So sad.

Again, I know these are very hard truths and Catholics don’t like to hear them and would prefer to bash me and accuse me of “modern” thinking. Yes, I’m modern–this is 2012, and we have to deal with reality, not pretend it doesn’t exist.

 

[Cat]

*If at all possible, see if you can go to the CMAA Colloquium next year. It’s an amazing week long intensive for Catholic musicians trying to sing and play as the church wants. Ask anyone who has attended, it’s amazing.*Actually, attending a CMAA Colloquium is a LIFE-CHANGING experience. Cannot recommend it too highly.Was at Salt Lake last summer, you’ll love the cathedral, directors, liturgies, and most of all, your fellow attendees.

To continue the thoughts in my post, I would like to issue a challenge to parishes who are hoping to bring chant back to their Masses–**send a committee of parishioners (obviously the church musicians) to this conference. Pay their expenses, and don’t skimp. **

Don’t just send one person. That won’t work. Sending lots of people means that they will all return with different perspectives and skills. The parish organist will learn different stuff than the parish school music teacher or the parish choir members or the parish youth director or the parish Senior Citizens activities director.

If this conference is really that “life-changing,” then it should give the parishioners the tools and the inspiration to come back to their parishes and being making the changes in positive ways that will be well-received by the congregation.

Like I said: it’s time to ante-up. We have forty years of poor music education to make up for, and it won’t happen for free.

 

[Enim]

I support Adam’s work . We eased the parish into chant over the past five years using the chanted ordinaries, then propers set to psalm tones sung by the choir before or after the hymns. We also favored chant hymns like Ubi Caritas, and Veni Creator. Currently we sing the Simple English Propers, and Fr. Columba Kelly’s Communion Antiphons from the Missal which match the text of the Today’s Missal OCP in the pews.
Frequently when the antiphon is a short text, the congrgation chants right from the Missallete using the Meinrad tones.. During the third year of chanting we were ready to completely omit the entrance hymn and sing a real introit (choir only), during Christmas Midnight Mass.
No organ, no trumpets or bells or whistles! Amazing how profound and prayerful watching the processions can be.Instead of being overloaded with a hymn functioning as an overture to a show, or becoming frustrated trying to actively participate using perhaps two hymnals, we are actively listening to a prayer and gently riding on its coat-tails into a deeper progressing participation in the Holy Mass.
We will also mesh popular refrains from our OCP hymnal with antiphons from the Gradual when there is an obvious modal similarity. Most of our music is acapella, even the responsorial psalm chanted from the ambo, yet during the offertory or recessional I always includes our popular favorites like “Be not Afraid,” “Take Lord Receive,” “Christ be our Light.” with organ or guitar.
Here are some of our liturgies and most of our Schola’s binder.

 

[Cat]

I support Adam’s work . We eased the parish into chant over the past five years using the chanted ordinaries, then propers set to psalm tones sung by the choir before or after the hymns. We also favored chant hymns like Ubi Caritas, and Veni Creator. Currently we sing the Simple English Propers, and Fr. Columba Kelly’s Communion Antiphons from the Missal which match the text of the Today’s Missal OCP in the pews.
Frequently when the antiphon is a short text, the congrgation chants right from the Missallete using the Meinrad tones.. During the third year of chanting we were ready to completely omit the entrance hymn and sing a real introit (choir only), during Christmas Midnight Mass.
No organ, no trumpets or bells or whistles! Amazing how profound and prayerful watching the processions can be.Instead of being overloaded with a hymn functioning as an overture to a show, or becoming frustrated trying to actively participate using perhaps two hymnals, we are actively listening to a prayer and gently riding on its coat-tails into a deeper progressing participation in the Holy Mass.
We will also mesh popular refrains from our OCP hymnal with antiphons from the Gradual when there is an obvious modal similarity. Most of our music is acapella, even the responsorial psalm chanted from the ambo, yet during the offertory or recessional I always includes our popular favorites like “Be not Afraid,” “Take Lord Receive,” “Christ be our Light.” with organ or guitar.
Here are some of our liturgies and most of our Schola’s binder.

Five years–that’s a much more realistic time-frame than many seem to expect.

And the phrased “eased the congregation into chant” is so sensible.

Finally the phrase “actively listening to a prayer and gently riding on its coat-tails in a deeper progressing participation in the Holy Mass” is very telling. Changing the Mass music also means changing the hearts and minds of the congregation through an extensive and consistent program of catechesis. Many people mistakenly think of the Mass as a “show,” and have little understanding of what is actually happening at Mass.

 

[superamazingman]

To continue the thoughts in my post, I would like to issue a challenge to parishes who are hoping to bring chant back to their Masses–**send a committee of parishioners (obviously the church musicians) to this conference. Pay their expenses, and don’t skimp. **

Don’t just send one person. That won’t work. Sending lots of people means that they will all return with different perspectives and skills. The parish organist will learn different stuff than the parish school music teacher or the parish choir members or the parish youth director or the parish Senior Citizens activities director.

If this conference is really that “life-changing,” then it should give the parishioners the tools and the inspiration to come back to their parishes and being making the changes in positive ways that will be well-received by the congregation.

Like I said: it’s time to ante-up. We have forty years of poor music education to make up for, and it won’t happen for free.

I would whole-heartedly donate generously to do that in my parish, if there was a need for it…

 

[Elizium23]

Well, I have been on vacation for Christmas and away from my parish. My visiting parish also underwent some personnel changes, but we pulled it together for Christmas. The new regime is unfortunately even more of a slave to OCP, and nearly abandoned Adoremus. I knew I had cursed Adoremus when I decided to purchase two copies of it for myself and a friend. Now nobody is using it anymore.

Anyway, as to my home parish, the director has clearly expressed his disdain for neume notation in general and the Lumen Christi Missal in particular. It is ironic that our pastor would spend a large chunk of cash to put it in all the pews, and then fire the guy who was implementing it, and hire a guy who hates it, but that is neither here nor there. I am particularly annoyed because the pastor has asked my KofC council to foot the bill for the missal.

So, I plan to closely track the implementation of LCM and see just how many antiphons are chanted at each Mass. So far, it’s zero. At this weekend’s Mass, the LCM was sprinkled liberally on the song sheet, and we sang the Gloria in Latin from one of its settings, and sure, the Sanctus and Memorial Acclamation and Agnus Dei were in there - but those have been the same for years prior; and we used the psalm response from LCM but curiously not the psalm verses. As I understand it, the LCM draws directly from the Lectionary, which is licit, but using a paraphrased setting is reprobated, and that always annoyed me about using settings from Gather, because they were all awful paraphrase settings instead of lock-step with the Lectionary as in Respond & Acclaim.

We are still primarily using hymns. And it is ironic we threw out our copies of Gather, because the new director loves Gather almost as much as he loves OCP. So luckily I salvaged all the Choir Editions from the dung heap, and I lug around both my copy of Gather and my shiny barely-used copy of Choral Praise, of which about twenty copies were purchased under a previous director and I shepherded a copy home for future use. Pastor won’t let me have a LCM unless I pay for it, and I won’t bother because we have like 900 at church, and there is no need to practice with it if we aren’t doing any antiphons…

So I have faith that our pastor will over time exert the proper pressure to get the LCM implemented, but so far that is an uphill battle.

I will balance this out by saying that I also have good things to say about the new choir director. He is very experienced, a faithful Catholic, and liturgically knowledgeable. Our rehearsals have been excellent exercises in voice coaching. He really knows how to get the best out of his singers. And he has drawn additional talent that would not be accessible to us otherwise. And I had a lady comment to me that the music is more “God-centric” whatever that means.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Well, I have been on vacation for Christmas and away from my parish. My visiting parish also underwent some personnel changes, but we pulled it together for Christmas. The new regime is unfortunately even more of a slave to OCP, and nearly abandoned Adoremus. I knew I had cursed Adoremus when I decided to purchase two copies of it for myself and a friend. Now nobody is using it anymore.

Anyway, as to my home parish, the director has clearly expressed his disdain for neume notation in general and the Lumen Christi Missal in particular. It is ironic that our pastor would spend a large chunk of cash to put it in all the pews, and then fire the guy who was implementing it, and hire a guy who hates it, but that is neither here nor there. I am particularly annoyed because the pastor has asked my KofC council to foot the bill for the missal.

So, I plan to closely track the implementation of LCM and see just how many antiphons are chanted at each Mass. So far, it’s zero. At this weekend’s Mass, the LCM was sprinkled liberally on the song sheet, and we sang the Gloria in Latin from one of its settings, and sure, the Sanctus and Memorial Acclamation and Agnus Dei were in there - but those have been the same for years prior; and we used the psalm response from LCM but curiously not the psalm verses. As I understand it, the LCM draws directly from the Lectionary, which is licit, but using a paraphrased setting is reprobated, and that always annoyed me about using settings from Gather, because they were all awful paraphrase settings instead of lock-step with the Lectionary as in Respond & Acclaim.

We are still primarily using hymns. And it is ironic we threw out our copies of Gather, because the new director loves Gather almost as much as he loves OCP. So luckily I salvaged all the Choir Editions from the dung heap, and I lug around both my copy of Gather and my shiny barely-used copy of Choral Praise, of which about twenty copies were purchased under a previous director and I shepherded a copy home for future use. Pastor won’t let me have a LCM unless I pay for it, and I won’t bother because we have like 900 at church, and there is no need to practice with it if we aren’t doing any antiphons…

So I have faith that our pastor will over time exert the proper pressure to get the LCM implemented, but so far that is an uphill battle.

I will balance this out by saying that I also have good things to say about the new choir director. He is very experienced, a faithful Catholic, and liturgically knowledgeable. Our rehearsals have been excellent exercises in voice coaching. He really knows how to get the best out of his singers. And he has drawn additional talent that would not be accessible to us otherwise. And I had a lady comment to me that the music is more “God-centric” whatever that means.

Why would your pastor hire a slave to OCP? Counter-productive, yes?

Btw, I JUST realized you were a man. DUH! I always read your screenname and thought “Elizabeth.”

 

[Christine778]

I agree with the person who said the Lumen Christi Missal has been quite a troubling experience. It was announced 3 years ago, yet approximately 80% of the project remains incomplete (cantor scores, audio files, keyboard accompaniments, etc.) so any parish buying it may be throwing their money away. According to the musica sacra forum, the current company running the Lumen Christi Missal is only one person, and if he goes away, the entire project will remain unfinished … I just received my “Simple Gradual” musical book, but most of the scores from the actual Missal appear to be missing, and there are no accompaniment scores in it.