At a chant workshop that I co-conducted last week, I found myself intrigued by the demographics. Most attendees were in the 30s, 40s, and early 50s. In these busy times, it takes a special spark of something to attract a person to a two-day workshop in which you spend your time learning to read Gregorian notation and providing an ideal form of music for the Mass. Not many among the attendees had extensive music education, and this is fine. Chant is sometimes taught most easily to people who are not translating from one form of music to another but rather learning this unique kind of music on its own terms.
What draws the participants to such workshops? All the participants have that special something that causes them to define themselves as singers – a class of people that have been essential to the performance of the Christian ritual since the earliest years of the Church. Their art grew up alongside and integral with the ritual itself. This generation joins countless others from the past to take up this serious and sacred vocation of daring to improve on the beauty of silence with the glorious.
But why these people and why now? I spoke to a substantial number of them, perhaps more than half of the 75, who turn out to be converts to Catholicism, some of them recently and some of them from 10 or 15 years before. Most have come through the Episcopal faith, but that might have been a short stop from a more fundamental starting place in the Baptist or Presbyterian faith. From my conversations with these people, I began to put together an archetype of the convert who gets involved in the Gregorian chant movement.
These people did not convert because they preferred the music in the Catholic church to what they had in their own house of worship. It would be closer to the truth that they converted despite the music that is typical in most Catholic parishes. What attracted them to Catholicism was a different kind of beauty, one embodied in history, theological, doctrine, and spirituality.
Their conversion was inspired by the conviction of truth. Here we find the usual personal revelations taking place. Just to mention a few: The Bible was formed by the Church but the Church came first; the Apostolic succession is real and crucial; the Eucharist is in the body of Christ; the Papacy is a legitimate historical institution that has guarded the faith; the long history of saints and martyrs were faithful to scripture and tradition; the liturgy has been organically grown from the earliest times; it has been Catholic theology that has spawned the greatest developments in human history; grace comes from the sacraments offered by the Church.
To have these truths and a thousand other dawn on your is a transforming experience. And then to follow that intellectual change with access to the confessional and to a new form of intense spirituality is a glorious thing, the greatest event of a lifetime. St. John of the Cross writes that these new Catholics are carefully cradled in the Church’s bosom like children by their mothers. They feel secure and are fed what they need.
However, there comes a time when they begin to grow and begin to develop a critical mind toward their experience in their parishes. Here is where they begin to evaluate the practice of Catholicism against the ideal into which they converted. What stands out here are certain problems in the liturgy – and the music is the most conspicuous among them.
Converts tend to be historically and theologically minded, and so they notice the absence of deep tradition and robust spirituality in the music, much of which has been written in the last several decades. They style reflects popular culture, not theological culture. Indeed, so much of it is rather silly and not serious. There seems to be this disjuncture between Catholic teaching on the Eucharist and the aesthetic being created by the music we hear at Mass.
Then they begin to wonder what the Church actually teaches about music. Here is where their historical and literary skills come into play. They know to read the documents from the Second Vatican Council. They know that they can read the writings of the Popes, and so they do. The central truths that stand out from even a casual look is that the music of the Mass is organic to the Mass, that Gregorian chant is the foundation, that all musical development in all times is supposed to extent outwards from the sensibility inspired by chant.
They might stop at these revelations and try to put the subject out of their minds. After all, these people aren’t really singers. The musicians currently in power surely know what they are doing. And surely if there were something fundamentally wrong here, the pastor of the parish would put a stop to it. And so the converts wait it out.
And yet, the problems are inescapable. They come back every Sunday. The new convert then discovers that he or she actually has a more profound appreciation of quiet and spoken daily Mass than the Sunday Mass, and the music is really the only consideration that seems to be the defining issue.
After some time, the nagging feeling that something is fundamentally wrong begins to take over. The nagging sense is rooted in a great truth: the Catholic faith is the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven, and yet the music of most parishes is not beautiful. It is not even very holy. It seems timebound, popular, derivative of secular and not spiritual things. They begin to make inquiries only to discover than no one on the music staff knows anything at all about Gregorian chant. They fear Latin. Indeed, they seem to be confused about the ritual and theological demands that the Church is making of her musicians.
At this point, the convert can choose to do nothing or take the initiative to end the discord between theory and practice. The people who come to these workshops are those who have decided to make a gift of their time and their talent to making difference right in their own parishes, in whatever way they can. The goal is not to recreate the musical cultures of their past faith communities within the Catholic context. It is simply to help bring the music of Catholic parishes into compliance with the beauty of the faith more generally.
At the workshop, we encourage people to get involved in their parish music programs, not as agitators for chant but just as servants. Get to know the musicians. Get to know the organists and other instrumentalists. Help with liturgy and come to rehearsal. Then they can best apply what they have learned about reading the Gregorian staff and reading chant. Under these conditions, they are less likely to be seen as interlopers but rather as helpers and servants. It might take time, but eventually scholas can be formed out of this framework.
Every parish situation is different, and the musical scene within each parish tends to be its own world with its own features that have to be discovered from the inside. To make a difference requires wisdom, good will, and patience. If they follow this path, we might find that ten years from now we can look back and see that it was the converts who were most responsible for bringing beauty and tradition into our liturgical services.
While I don't disagree with your analysis, I wonder about two things:
1. Is it possibly over-influenced by both your own experience as a convert, and by the "confirmation bias" inherent in a sample set consisting of people who show up at chant workshops (rather than converts generally)?
2. Might this convert-driven change be resented by cradle-Catholics who view the hyper-orthodox converts as over-zealous carpet-baggers?
Wow, Jeffrey Tucker, you've come a long way from "I hate converts, and I am one"…
Adam, what is it that you mean to say with your questions, especially question #2??
Are you a cradle-Catholic that resents such changes?? Or are you a convert that is afraid that the cradle-Catholics will think of you as a "hyper-orthodox, over-zealous carpet-bagger"??
I am a cradle-Catholic and I crave the zeal that converts have. More often than not, they are excited about their faith because they have actually studied it recently and have tasted it's richness. If the cradle-Catholics DO resent the changes, I challenge them to read a few church documents themselves. And if it's change they are fussing about, well, maybe it's time to put the teachings of the church first and our personal feelings second.
Adam, I am curious to know where you are coming from.
Respectfully,
Sarah H.
Adam, probably yes and yes.
As for my article on converts, it holds up pretty well!
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/Catholic/2006/08/I-Hate-Converts-And-I-Am-One.aspx
A suggestion regarding the term "convert." While I think we know what people mean when they say a person "converts" to Catholicism, it's not accurate.
Scripture and tradition both speak of conversion to Christ, not to subdivisions of Christianity. Conversion, as such, would be an example of a personal hermeneutic of rupture. Continuity would be the spiritual path that leads a person from one Christian observance to another.
Hermeneutic of rupture! I love it!
Did you convert to Catholicism?
No, I continued. How about you?
But, hey, you've got us since Scripture and tradition have spoken. That's like the Baptist preacher ending his altar call with, "And the instruments will play."
To which the organist and pianist who had long tired of his attitude both said, in perfect unison: "They will?"
Todd: balderdash. The Scriptures say convert from sin and return to God. Even members of the qhl/ecclesia can convert in that sense. The tradition says convert from sin, from the world, from heresy, from schism, all of those things. The traditional process of becoming a Catholic involves abjuration of heresy, general confession, and sometimes conditional baptism. "Continuuity on my spiritual path" doesn't cut it.
It's true that when a Catholic changes religious observance, i.e. rite, that is not called conversio but (I beleive) transitio. But that isn't what people mean when they say convert, anyway.
AM
"The traditional process of becoming a Catholic involves abjuration of heresy, general confession, and sometimes conditional baptism."
Not necessarily. The Church teaches "no greater burden than necessary" (see Acts 15:28) for receiving baptized Christians already catechized in the faith. The rite does not mention heresy–that is an ecclesiastical crime that presumes the offender is Catholic and requires a Church trial.
"Continuity" is exactly the root word used in the Church's optional rite for the beginning of Lent: The Call to Continuing Conversion.
As an almost-convert (not across the Tiber yet, but my feet are in the water) from Wicca (!), I can say that traditional music is a tool of conversion. I noticed that I love Renaissance polyphony, and didn't much enjoy drum circles. Since I generally consider my Muse to be the wisest part of me, I had to consider that maybe it knew something I didn't. But if I thought that "Catholic music" was Catholic music, I'd probably be Southern Baptist today. There's something fundamentally honest about a gospel hymn that is not present in a lot of English-mass music.
In answer to the "where are you coming from with your questions" question:
I am a cradle Catholic. I do not resent the changes (mostly), and if I did, I wouldn't blame it on converts.
My liturgical preferences are something like: orthodox observance of the Novus Ordo, with the USCCB's understanding (cf. "Sing to the Lord") of musical flexibility. I love traditional sacred music (chant and polyphony) but also some contemporary (folk and pop based) music (and I hate a lot of it too…).
I'm very grateful for the resurgence of sacred music and traditions currently underway, but somewhat leery of the additional agendas (re: power, control, theology, sexism, political conservatism) that are often attached to it. (But I don't think those are intrinsic links, and I don't think they are reasons to fear the current trends).
That being said:
My question #2 wasn't really about my own feelings, but rather-
"How might others- the people whose hearts and minds most need conversion to the ideals of sacred music and liturgy (hippie music directors, youth ministers, "progressive" clergy")- how might they understand this movement?"
MY question #1 was based on:
"Jeffrey- I don't know anything about your conversion story other than that you have one… was your commentary auto-biographical in any way? Also, JT, be careful you don't only find what you're looking for."
Notice, though, that I started out with:
"I don't disagree."
Dr. Philip Blosser's "Protestant Reverts: Catholic Dishonesty in Advertising?" seems worth to read in reflecting on Jeffrey's article.
Welcome, Wiccan!
We need one of everything around here to keep us sane.
I have no problem with using the term "convert" as a short-cut since nearly every civilian uses it and understands it in that sense, even though DREs and Liturgists know better and try not to, (even those who force other Christians to undergo their own ministration in RCIA.)
An as a non-convert I have a different POV from the Bow-tied One yet share his analysis.
I find "cradle-Catholics" are only resentful of devout/zealous/informed neophytes and other newbies when they themselves are lax/lukewarm/uninformed.
I think some of us CCs see an implicit reproach to our sloth and inertia, and pretend to resent them on more praise-worthy grounds.
And I have several times found that a knee-jerk resistance to the loose usage of the word "convert" masks a very un-Catholic conviction that evangelization and conversion are wrong, along the lines of the "As long as you're a nice person" school of thought.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Hi Noel,
It's an interesting place to be from. I keep a respectful distance from Our Lady; when you're used to thinking of Deity as female, you need to draw the lines clearly. We'll draw closer by and by, I'm sure.
I'm speaking as a person who 1) loves Renaissance polyphony and can't understand why any parish community wouldn't want to use that wealth as often as possible for its music and 2) was once a convert to Catholicism from Judaism (but eventually returned to Judaism after a long session among the Episcopalians, for reasons that had nothing to do with the music):
–My response to the bad music in vogue at the time I was a communicant of the Church (early '80s)was to attend midweek masses and on Sunday to attend the very early Mass, which was so early and so sparsely attended (several times I was the only congregant, even though this was a cathedral parish)that no one ever thought of doing music.
–Perhaps the reason converts are more prominent is because "cradle Catholics" have grown up used to the situation, and are more prone to accept it as one more way in which things simply are the way they are. Also, given the period of time that has passed since the "bad music" phase began, there must be an enormous percentage of cradle Catholics who have no memory of any different set of practices, and who find great spiritual value. After all, God being God, God can use "bad music" as effectively as "good music" for God's ends.
(I see am, if not enlarging the number of Catholics here, at least enlarging the number of Jeffreys)
I resent being called a "cradle Catholic". It seems a very ugly and unnatural term.
I will, however, accept being called an "incunabulum". 🙂
I am a convert from Protestantism of 6 years. Jeffrey is right that the "truth in advertising" problem for the Catholic Church for us is well defined in typical parish music. I was so excited to experience the transcendence, and then … I heard the music! I go to the trad mass, or even the Novus Ordo in Latin, as often as I can get away (from my home parish) to be washed in the Catholicism I read about in Augustin and Teresa of Avila, and to hear the music that accompanies those Masses. I often think of our first Pope, St. Peter, when, after many disciples turned away regarding eating the flesh of our Lord, he told the Lord in John chapter 6, "where else can we go…?" I can't leave the only true Church, even with the current distractions, so I live with it, and seek out the transcendent where I can find it.