I am deeply indebted to Dr. Denis McNamara for revealing to me the strongest argument in support of sacred music that I have ever heard:
“Beauty is the attractive power of the Truth.”
Dr. McNamara uses this axiom to help us understand why we need beautiful sacred architecture and sacred art–because it attracts us, it compels us toward the Truth. The same can be said for sacred music. Beautiful and sacred music attracts us to the Truth, namely to Jesus Christ. This, I think, is what our parishes are longing for. This is what our world is longing for. It is what we all are longing for. Ugliness is a manifestation of the Fall. Beauty will save the world.
A short excerpt from the beginning of Chapter 2 in McNamara’s Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy:
Articulated by great minds like Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Church has called Beauty the “splendor of the Truth,” or at times, the attractive power of the Truth. Theologically speaking, Beauty is more than an accidental byproduct of artistic production or a social construct that rests in the eye of the beholder. Beauty has a power. For confirmation, ask a man who saw his future wife for the first time across a room and found himself inextricably drawn toward her. Ask a tourist who packs heavy luggage and carries it through difficult airport security, then with considerable language difficulty and inordinate expense stays in a hotel just to have a chance to visit the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa. Ask a choir full of singers why the hours of rehearsal were worth it for twenty minutes of flawless polyphony. Ask a gardener who does all the work necessary to produce perfect roses. The power of Beauty enthused them for work; even just the uncertain hope for Beauty enthused them for this work. So it is with liturgical prayer and the art and architecture that serve it.
Indeed, for Plato, Beauty is the splendour of Truth and echoed by St Augustine and St Thomas Aquinas (veritatis splendor). That is why Truth is attractive. No doubt the Holy Father's mission of preaching the pursuit of Truth today to a world that has lost it way through relativism, is all interrelated with the Beauty in the liturgy, its music, and its form. Christ is the Truth, and through His Love, Beauty. The liturgy must welcome and attest to His presence through Truth and Beauty. In this way it gives us a glimpse of the heavenly realm.
I always ponder this problem. Beauty seems so obvious to me but to another it oftentimes means something else. I am speaking here mainly of liturgical music but all sacred arts in general. Is it I who fail to see the beauty in the guitar Mass when all those around me are into it, especially the Pastor promoting it? Modern design in church architecture is praised and lauded by many. I usually find it ugly. The new cathedral here in Los Angeles is an example of this. I say new though it has been here for some years. Many love it. I don't. When I asked someone why the Cathedral could not have been built in the Gothic or Romanesque style, all I got back was " Oh, don't be silly. No one builds like that anymore! It would be too costly and there are no craftsman who can do that!" (quite untrue, by the way.)
So Beauty was gone. In one sentence she was thrown away. Millions were then spent on another kind of beauty.
I guess what I am getting at is that if there is real, absolutel and true beauty to be promoted in the sacred arts (not just someone's opinion of it) than it is a matter of dire importance that the Bishops in every diocese make some sort of pamplet or small booklet and hand them out to every catholic who shows up for Mass that says something to the effect of, " This is the way we shall sing. This is the way we shall build. This is the style of Art we shall consider as liturgical. All else is fine for personal devotion, but not for liturgical use.'
But of course this will never be because we just don't want to offend anyone who believes otherwise.
John H.:
I agree with you that our Bishops should offer some offical teaching on what is preferred and appropriate for Sacred Liturgy and all things related to it. I think that catchesis is necessary here – especially for those Catholics who have not been exposed to good Sacred music, being immersed for years in the "strum and drum" or "boom-chick" style of music at Mass. There are years of mediocrity to overcome. But with the help of our Bishops, we could get off to a strong start in presenting better choices to the people of God.
What Dr McNamara says is so true. I also recommend John Saward's book, The Beauty of Holiness and the Holiness of Beauty: Art, Sanctity, and the Truth of Catholicism (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1997). Starting with a quotation from Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI), Fr Saward forwards an eloquently fashioned apologetic for beauty, and its connection with sanctity.
John:
Like for the ancients, be they Augustine or Aquinas, there are degrees of Beauty as there are degrees of Being. Some things, some music, is more beautiful than others. We have here a metaphysical relationship between Being (ens), Unity, Thing (res), Truth, and Beauty. These are the transcendentals. They are all the same but differ in their emphasis. The things in the world participate in Beauty according to a hierarchy of Being. This traditional description is very alien to our Nominalistic society today, a society that does not recognise the reality of essences in this world, and so no longer asks where the essences come from (eg from the Divine Ideas in God's mind).
Of course, one does not have to be an expert in metaphysics to perceive beautiful things. But even here, it is an "unwelcome" fact that some can perceive the Beauty in things more than others, and so we are into the question of elitism, something even more alien to our egalitarian (lack of) culture. I still think that perception of Beauty is to a very large extent culturally conditioned and so can be taught, but, then, you cannot make a good musician out of a tone deaf person either. One has to have the potential for something, and everyone has different talents. Although the Church is hierarchical, preaching a hierarchical theology, a false idea of active participation based on the egalitarian principle has made it very difficult to promote the higher forms of Beauty in our liturgies.
John H;
I doubt that the Guitar Mass and it's later manifestations (Teen Mass, Contemporary Mass, etc…) were ever intended to be founded on an aesthetic of beauty… quite to the contrary. They were founded on the aesthetic of minimalism and commonality, hence the "Folk" designation. The discarded aesthetic of beauty was seen as part of the "Old Way" and the point of the revolution was to overturn the Old Way and find a New Way. There was a convenient New Way to be found with the burgeoning Folk Music movement of the time, and in the absence of an approved or institutional alternative, it became the counter-aesthetic.
I think you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would describe Folk Mass music, or even much of the contemporary repertoire as "beautiful"…. that's why we hear adjectives like "lively" or "envigorating" or "moving" or "inspirational"… these are descriptions that imply an activity and agitation that conflicts with the contemplative nature of music that is "beautiful".
"They were founded on the aesthetic of minimalism and commonality"
Agreement on the latter, to an extent, but I'd disagree on the former. A more accurate diagnosis would be pragmatism. If a 60's parish has two sisters, one leaves and one remains, and if the pastor has two positions to fill, one schoolteacher and one organist, odds are he's going to keep the school fully staffed, especially if he has a sucker–I mean a volunteer to do 8:10AM Sunday Mass.
I think there are a lot of people who find folk music beautiful, given the following for diverse artists like Nanci Griffith, Pierre Bensusan, Shawn Colvin, Anne Hills, or any number of secular artists. No doubt also that many parishes have musicians capable of producing beauty in music–that's where the real test is.
Besides, the point is not to produce musical items of beauty to insert at Mass, but to craft the liturgy as a whole as a beautifully fruitful and spiritual event. It's the difference between singing the Mass and singing at the Mass.
The ultimate beauty in liturgical life is not the product of human skills, but more the cooperation with God's grace and the deeper unity of the faithful with Christ, and his example of sacrifice and love.