(Prayers for my daughter, hard times which kept me from posting yesterday. We were blest to
venerate the heart of St. John Vianney at the Cathedral Sunday which was a great gift.)
Back to
the Workshop. I’ll just post some of his main points from my notes. It was an interesting and useful workshop for me in terms of working in RCIA. For the folks who came expecting music I’m not sure how much it served their interests. See the agenda on the workshop website.
I already asked did anyone else here went to the workshop and no one has responded so I’ll take that as a “no”. I didn’t ask Dan if he is offering it other places, that would have been a good question to ask.
He began with focusing on music ministers are shepherds. The translation set to music will be perhaps the first introduction people will have to the new translation. Bringing the “heart of a shepherd” as a music director means the need to not impose her/his opinion, the need to be sensitive to all the varied responses that are out there and will come when the new translation comes into the parish. This shepherd theme was like the book ends for the workshop. It was returned to at the end before we got to the music and text of the Mass with the new translations. At the end he suggested 5 broad categories of the faithful in terms of their responses to the new translation: the indifferent, the sad/grieving, the rebellious/angry, the skeptical/distrusting, and the happy/enthusiastic. The value of listening to their stories in terms of their own reaction to the changes is an important part of having the “heart of a shepherd”.
So that conversation was both the beginning and the ending of the presentation. At the beginning he merely brought our attention to the reactions that are out there and coming. At the end we “brainstormed” about the different ways to be helpful to people who have these very different responses.
“What are the fruits of the Spirit?” he asked. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Those become the weather vane for whether we’re staying in touch with the working of the Holy Spirit.
After the introduction he reviewed briefly the history of revisions of the Roman Missal beginning with the Council of Trent and Pope Pius V promulgating the 1570 Roman Missal.
He said that the vision of worship at the Second Vatican Council was not a new vision, but that an earlier vision had in some ways become less visible and the intent of the Second Council was to clear away what had over time obscured the vision of the Mass. The risen Christ is presider. The new translation flows from that vision, that tradition that Christ is exercising His priesthood in our midst.
“Lex orandi lex credendi” Following that path, the words we pray matter and the bishops have felt the importance of looking carefully at those words. The present translation is not doctrinally clear, it does not sufficiently convey the Holy, the transcendent, the sacred. It has a greater focus on the imminent presence of God. Expression of both the transcendence and the imminence of God are needed.
The language of the Holy Mass should have a different quality from our daily language.
The current translations doesn’t make clear the direct use of Sacred Scripture; the images and metaphors of God are “watered down”.
Present prayers are not so much translations from the Latin, they are more paraphrases.
The Roman Missal has come through generations and generations of Christians coming together to pray. Some of those prayers are prayers of the 1st Century Christians who were in Christ’s presence. Mere paraphrases of those are not good enough.
He then talked about
the method of translating the bishops used for the new translations the method used for the current translation. I have posted about this elsewhere and won’t repeat that here. As an interpreter myself this was definitely an “Aha!” moment for me where many things fell into place regarding the language of the current translation.
Finally, we looked at Schutte’s “Mass of Christ the Savior” music. He pointed out that in composing a “Mass” (ie musical settings for all the parts of the Mass) composers writing for the Ordinary Form up to now were permitted to add a word for example if the music had an extra beat when singing one verse. Example: “We thank you Lord”, composers were permitted to use “We thank you O Lord”. This is not permitted with the music for the new Mass. The lyrics must exactly match word for word the Missal, although they may repeat a word, so “Thou art holy!” could be sung “Thou art holy, holy!” (I hope I’ve given accurate examples because I didn’t write down in my notes the examples he gave.)
Regarding Schutte’s “Mass of Christ the Savior”, he pointed out some considerations he brought to encourage full participation (those are
my words). For the priest’s singing of “The mystery of faith”, there are 3 different tunes for that, one that pairs with each of the 3 different acclamations: A – We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your Resurrection until you come again.
or B – When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again.
or C – Save us, Savior of the world, for by your Cross and Resurrection, you have set us free.
This discrete music will cue the people which Memorial Acclamation to respond with. Currently the people may be listening for some other cue, i.e. the first words from the priest, to know which Acclamation to sing.
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(Do I ever regret even mentioning this workshop in that OP there!)
