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cheese_puff
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Well, whatever high quality is, the new versions used in the new interpretation of the Mass, isn’t it! LOL
ok, that’s my opinon only
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ok, that’s my opinon only
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MartyrForJesus
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Seems to me that too many people are complaining that the secular music that is in so many parishes is finally getting thrown out. I like the changes. They are replacing the Gloria from being a rock song, or being some chant-dubstep remix, or being a folk song into having a much more reverent style.
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Phemie
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My understanding, from a conversation with someone who worked on “Celebrate in Song” is that the CCCB commissioned those 3 composers to compose settings for the new translation.
So, for now, we don’t have the option to use anything but the settings included in “Celebrate in Song”. In fact, when I mentioned that I already had a free setting from Richard Rice, the diocesan liturgy person made it clear that we were to use only the Canadian composers. At that point I had to bite my tongue in order to not say 'Isn’t quality more important than origin?"
Apparently, the chant Gloria in “Celebrate in Song” is not even the ICEL one because they thought we were too dumb to learn that one.
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David89
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I love singing the mass. But the Gloria takes like what feels like 10mins…
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roadsend
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Can’t you folks up north always use the chant options?
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ProVobis
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Pope Paul made Jubilate Deo available for free for every parish.
I agree with you that it’s a waste of money to pay publishers for the music. Also for the work required to TRY TO authenticate over 500 one-size-fits-all translations which are all subjective and have to be revised periodically anyway.
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LoyalViews
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WHAT DO YOU MEAN? “Gather Us In Around the Food Table” IS high quality Sacred Music
Of course I am joking.
The CCCB thought we were too illiterate and too musically challeneged to learn simple chants, with one melody line. So, they made 3 illustrious settings, one of which includes a rock guitar and drums, and sounds like something from a broadway musical. Another one includes a sappy piano and a swaying voice, the other is just…I don’t know.
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system
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Mark, I appreciate the thoughtful response, but some are saying that the music is prescribed.What people normally call “hymns” – the songs you would sing as an entrance hymn, Communion hymn, recessional hymn – haven’t changed at all. So I assume you are talking about the commonly sung portions of the Mass text itself: the Gloria (“Glory to God in the Highest”), the Sanctus (“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord”), the Memorial acclamation and the Amen, and the Agnus Dei (“Lamb of God”).
As you may or may not know, the Church prescribes the words to be sung for these parts of the Mass, but it does not write the tunes itself. (I’ll set aside the case of using the traditional Gregorian Chant melodies.) It is up to individual composers to set the words to music in a suitable way, and there are dozens if not hundreds of musical settings of the various Mass parts which have been composed. It is the job of the pastor (and the music director, usually) to pick one that they like; most parishes rotate several settings throughout the year to keep it from getting monotonous.
So, what has changed? The Church has not said, “You must stop singing a nice setting, here is a lousy setting you must sing instead.” It has simply corrected the texts of the Mass parts, the lyrics. Naturally, this means that musical compositions based on the old lyrics can no longer be used, unless they are revised to take the corrected words into account – which many have been, actually. If a parish has been using a musical setting that has been updated for the new wording, then it can continue using it, and all that you would notice would be a slight change in the musical structure (e.g., to account for the different number of syllables in “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to people of good will” as opposed to the old “… and peace to His people on earth”).
If a parish has adopted a completely new musical setting – as it sounds like your parish has done – this is the responsibility of your parish staff. They could just as easily have adopted one that you liked better as one that you liked less. For instance, I prefer the new setting of the Gloria that we’ve been using at my parish to many of the old ones that had been in our rotation. Anyway, there are quite a lot of musical settings out there for the revised words of the Mass, and more will continue to be written. If you really dislike the one your parish has chosen, you ought to to talk to your pastor or music director and give him feedback (preferably in a friendly and constructive way, of couse
All I know, is it is a big let down. The quaility of the experience of the Mass has been diminished. Our poor Priest was trying to sing along with the songs, everyone else in the congregration just looked depressed or bored.
So they changed a couple words. Who cares. This new campaing to bring in non-catholics - how are they going to respond when they come in to this weakened Mass experience? The church is their own worst enemy here, as they have been so many times in the past.
What is that old saying, “first do no harm.” Wish they had remembered this.
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prettiefly
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I must say that this is one of the many benefits of worshiping Our Lord via the Extraordinary Form - nothing has changed~
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Phemie
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To be fair, they have provided us with a chant setting along with the three settings they commissioned. All four are in Celebrate in Song. The chant Gloria they include is not the one that ICEL chose because they felt it was too difficult for us to sing.
That said, which of the three setting do you dislike the least? I found out that in our parish we will be using the Angeles setting. In the the parish I visited a few weeks ago they’ve opted for the Dawson setting. I’m not fond of either, though I must admit to liking the Dawson Kyrie. Our director said that Guimont was more than our choir could handle and admitted that she had never even looked at any of the chants.
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E.E.N.S
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adoremus.org/JubilateDeo.html
In April 1974 Pope Paul VI sent to every bishop in the world a booklet of some of the simplest selections of Gregorian Chant, much of it drawn from the Graduale Romanum. This booklet, called Jubilate Deo, was intended as a “minimum repertoire of Gregorian chant”. It is, in other words, an official Latin “core repertoire” for the Roman Rite. It was prepared, the Pope said, in order “to make it easier for Christians to achieve unity and spiritual harmony with their brothers and with the living tradition of the past. Hence it is that those who are trying to improve the quality of congregational singing cannot refuse Gregorian chant the place which is due to it” (Voluntati Obsequens).
Code:
Pope Paul VI gave permission for the selections in *Jubilate Deo* to be freely reprinted. The booklet was accompanied by a letter in which the Holy Father made this request of the bishops:
“Would you therefore, in collaboration with the competent diocesan and national agencies for the liturgy, sacred music and catechetics, decide on the best ways of teaching the faithful the Latin chants of *Jubilate Deo* and of having them sing them…. You will thus be performing a new service for the Church in the domain of liturgical renewal” ([*Voluntati Obsequens*](http://www.adoremus.org/VoluntatiObsequens.html)).
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mfrances
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Amen!
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PacoG
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At my parish, we sing the Celtic Mass for all the parts except the Angus Dei (which we chant the Jubilate Deo version). During Lent and Advent, we switch over to chanting the Jubilate Deo versions of the Kyrie, Sanctus, and (when Father is feeling adventurous) the Pater Noster.
You know that Jubilate Deo is pretty catchy for Gregorian Chant…often catch myself singing the Angus Dei.
You know that Jubilate Deo is pretty catchy for Gregorian Chant…often catch myself singing the Angus Dei.
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E.E.N.S
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Agreed.
I haven’t heard the recent changes, but I have a hard time imagining them being any worse than that banal noise the OCP subjected us to.
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Ohana
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I think we are all going to be a bit uncomfortable for a while. We have been given permission ot sing the new Gloria since we won’t be doing that during Advent. It feels a bit strange. However, I like to look at this as just change, and judging from past experience, I will soon get used to it - and probably be humming parts! I am not fond of the new Hosanna we are singing and find myself singing the old one as kind of a counterpoint. Ah well. Change is a constant.
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MarkThompson
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Well, I can’t speak for Canada, I suppose; they’re always doing weird things up there. I’m 100% sure, through, that in my own parish the new musical settings were chosen by the pastor and the music director. This will be the case in the vast majority of American parishes (I guess I tend to assume that everybody on this forum is American unless they specify otherwise
).I have to say, I have a totally different outlook on the basic causes and merits of revising the translation. The current translation was published hurriedly in 1973, and literally since about the late '70s it has been understood that it would have to be corrected for accuracy. That this has taken 25 years is just the result of how slow the Church does everything. It has nothing to do with attracting non-Catholics; it’s about strengthening and deepening the experience of worship in the Mass for people who are already there.
Of course, the vast majority of the changes are not in the people’s parts, they are in the words the priest prays. In many cases, the 1973 translation took Latin prayer with very deep meaning and stripped out the great majority of the theology, images, and poetry. What we have been using is generally extremely vanilla in comparison with the Latin – and with the existing translations into other languages like Spanish, German, or Portuguese, which are far, far closer to the Latin than the '73 English. Here’s an example, the Prayer Over the Gifts from the Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time:
God our Creator, may this bread and wine we offer as a sign of our love and worship lead us to salvation.
That’s the current (old) translation. Take some time to digest what it means. Now look at the new, corrected translation:
O God, who provide gifts to be offered to your name and count our oblations as a token of devoted service, we ask of your mercy, that what you grant as the source of merit you may also bestow upon us as a prize.
You see how the '73 has the same general gist, but removes the majority of the concepts (“mercy,” “devoted service,” etc.) and winds up written at an extremely basic, second-gradeish level. Or take the Prayer After Communion from the 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time. Old translation:
Almighty Father, may the body and blood of your Son give us a share in his life.
New translation:
Humbly we entreat your majesty, O Lord, that, as you feed us with the nourishment that comes from the most holy Body and Blood of your Son, you may make us sharers of his divine nature.
Have we been missing something? Is the version we’ve been using really worth even bothering to open up a book to read? Or look at perhaps the worst-written prayer in all of the current translation, the mind-numbingly bland Prayer After Communion from the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Lord, bring to perfection within us the communion we share in this sacrament. May our celebration have an effect in our lives.
“May it have an effect”? Gee, let’s not get too specific, shall we. Now look at the revised translation:
May your Sacraments, O Lord, we pray, perfect in us what lies within them, that the things we now celebrate in signs we may one day possess in truth.
It seems to me that this, at least, is a prayer that is worth expending the priest’s breath to pray.
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roadsend
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In our parish the “banal noise the OCP subjected us to” is simply being replaced with new banal noise brought to us by the friendly folks at OCP.
The only real difference is that the words have changed (for the better).
Just need to keep turning my hearing aids on mute and imaging that I am listening to real Catholic music, while I read the words in the missalette and thank God for the new translation.
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ProVobis
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Must be catchy. I noticed that today at the EF when some new faces didn’t know when to stand or kneel but recognized and sang the Agnus Dei.
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LoyalViews
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Okay, I thought the chants weren’t in the Celebrate in Song. Thanks for letting me know. I’m still yet to get my copy.
Of the three, like you, I dislike the Dawson the most. Our whole diocese is using the Fr Angeles (Mass Setting “A”). We have no way of opting out, it seems.
I don’t know how we’re EVER going to play the Angeles one. We only have an organ and congregation!
Out of the three, Guimonts was the nicest. It was more…“Mass-like”. Though, replace the piano with an organ. We have no option to look at the chants, unfortunately. That’s what most of the parishes here use, too --the chants.
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pnewton
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I love the new settings. I have always preferred more literal translations and am pleased that Mass of Creation has tightened things up and is going word for word to the proper language.
The music for the Mass is not about producing a concert, but in making a theological statement.
The music for the Mass is not about producing a concert, but in making a theological statement.
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