Just out of curiousity, have you ever read any of the documents, or, are you just relying on personal opinion? Reading the documents helps us to form our consciences so that we can learn to think with the Church.
Perhaps, if you had read the Holy Father’s book, “The Spirit of the Liturgy” or heard or read any of his comments, you woiuld find that he, too, uses the word “banal” rather frequently, as far as Sacred Music is concerned…What did OCP ever do to you for you to badmouth them so?
In your opinion. Anyone else’s opinion doesn’t seem to count, or is wrong in your overexalted estimation.
P.S. Is “banal” your favorite word?
*“Dear God, do You know the greatest grief one of Your creatures can bear? It is the thought that she can never love You enough. ” *- St. Gemma Galgani
Yes, always start by assuming the worst about the other side.
I don’t need to assume the worst about the “other side.” Their own words betray them.
The “traditionalists” will probably claim another motivation, such as trying to follow the actual documents of the Church and writings of recent popes, and rectifying the actual problems which have been decried by those recent popes.
That is the key - there really are problems in the Church today regarding sacred music. Certainly as far as the liturgy is concerned we cannot say that one song is as good as another.
I have never said that one song is as good as the other. There are dreadful songs written 10 years ago, 20 years ago, 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 200 years ago. Many posters here and in similar recently closed threads have had nothing good to say about anything written in the last 50 years. They are wrong.
The Christian community must make an examination of conscience so that the beauty of music and song will return increasingly to the liturgy. It is necessary to purify worship of deformations, of careless forms of expression, of ill-prepared music and texts, which are not very suited to the grandeur of the act being celebrated. Not all that which stands outside the temple (profanum) is fit to cross the threshold. If it does not at once possess the sense of prayer, of dignity and beauty, music – instrumental and vocal – by this fact is precluded from admission into the sacred and religious realm.
This leaves a broad spectrum of music because what possesses “the sense of prayer, of dignity and beauty, music – instrumental and vocal” is highly subjective. What you feel fills those qualifications might not fill the qualifications of the next person. And it doesn’t matter if “you” are a pope or a janitor.
The category of “sacred music” today has undergone such a broadening of meaning as to include repertoire that cannot enter into the celebration without violating the spirit and the norms of the Liturgy itself. Not all expressions of the figurative arts and of music are capable of adequately expressing the Mystery worshipped in the fullness of the Church’s faith.
True. I have heard Christian “rap” but I pray it never sets foot in Church.
As a consequence, not all musical forms can be considered suitable for liturgical celebrations. There can be no music destined for the celebration of the sacred rites that be not first true art. A composition for Church is sacred and liturgical insofar as it approaches Gregorian melody in flow, in inspiration, and in flavor, and so much less is it worthy of the temple insomuch as it is recognized as departing from that supreme model. Only an artist profoundly immersed in the sensus Ecclesiae may try to perceive and translate into melody the truth of the Mystery that is celebrated in the Liturgy.
What is “true art” is subjective. Is there not a Metropolitan Museum of Art and a Museum of Modern Art? With all due respect to the two most recent popes, both of whom highly beloved by all, including myself, they both were/are extremely old men with different musical tastes than many younger people. I also don’t think that either were liturgical musicians. I do not denigrate Gregorian Chant, but it is not the only form of music which can be sacred and worthy of the Liturgy.
The words above are not my words. They are direct citations from our two most recent popes. So I guess you will conclude that they never learned to worship either.
Since I already call JPII “St. JP II”, and since it’s obvious with B16, yes, both have learned to worship. But what moves them to worship might not be what moves me or John or Sally or Bob or Jose or Helga to worship. For the Church to be universal, all its members must be considered and no one form of music mandated as the only way to worship because no one form of music is the only way to worship.
You say that if the choir is singing something and the congregation is not, then it is “a performance”. I assume by that you mean it is for show, for the congregation (which becomes its “audience”), rather than an act of worship unto God? I disagree.
Gee, I remember all of those songs from '62. We could get them on convenient 45 rpm records at our local grocery store. 'Course, then too in October of that year we had a large number of 'duck and cover" drills and I, being in New Orleans, with my school next to the railroad tracks, got the added thrill of seeing tanks and missle launchers moving on the rail cars. Funny thing though. I don’t remember hearing anything remotely resembling those hits in church.
Or we could just quote John Paul II regarding music and say “not worthy of the great act that is being celebrated”.BTW, would you prefer we use the word “mundane” or “pedestrian” instead of “banal”.
Let’s see. I have been a member of a cathedral choir for the last 25 years. From 1983 to 1992 we sang just outside of the sanctuary and facing the congregation. Far too often, particularly on major feast days, there was applause. It did nothing for any of us. We were embarrassed. Singing in the choir is indeed a ministry - a ministry I take most seriously. Non nobis Domine. Not to us Lord. In 1992 we reconstructed the choir loft and built a brand new pipe organ. We have not looked back nor have we had any further applause even though we sing a choral Introit, the Offertory and Communion chants, hymns, motets, anthems, etc. Our song is prayer not performance and if I can deepen the prayer of anyone out in the congregation I will have done my part.
Why can “Christian rock” by used in Church but not “Christian rap”? Anyway, I would leave the determination of what possesses the necessary characteristics of sacred music to the Church, to the Congregation for Divine Worship (or whichever branch deals with sacred music).
Does personal taste in music then allow for personal taste in prayer? If I don’t like one of the prayers of Mass can I say my own instead? Or change the words a bit? As universal as the Catholic Church is, Her public corporate worship is not ours individually, it is Hers, and, by extension, God’s.
Can’t do that MIke. It goes against ‘I’m OK’; you’re OK - let’s focus on the Eucharist".
Can’t do that, Mike. It would violate the “I’m OK; you’re OK - let’s just focus on the Eucharist” philosophy. Everything’s relative.
It’s even worse than that. It’s “you’re extremely old and I’m young!”
That swishing sound you hear is the Magisterium going down the pipes.
Like in Pipe Organ?
By golly, Mike! You’re right. I am an old fogey. I gotta get with the flow. But wait! Was it not my generation that started the flow? At 18 I was an old fogey. Must have been those 33 1/3 rpm vinyl records that I bought back then. Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass is no better or worse than the Monkees.
May I ask who the builder was, if you happen to know?
That’s where we must look at the tradition and history of sacred music in the Church, and we must think with the mind of the Church. A composer who understands why the Church calls Gregorian chant the permanent standard and supreme model, and why she considers sacred polyphony also especially suited to the liturgy, such a composer will understand how to compose modern music which draws on those very qualities which make chant and polyphony the pinnacle of Catholic liturgical music.
Rest assured that nobody is calling for an end to contemporary music. But people are calling for contemporary music that is more in line with what the Church desires. For one thing, she desires that the actual texts of the Mass be sung as the ideal (including the Propers as well as the Ordinary), rather than singing songs at Mass. The 4-hymn Mass is not the Catholic ideal and never has been, and we should move away from it (note I don’t say abandon it).
Unless the Lord build the choir loft, they labour in vain that build it.
