Though we put together a Mass program every week, I’ve often wondered about its value. The Gregorian notation is beautiful to look at, and it gives Mass goers the information (including translations) that our pastor feels the congregations needs. Is anyone really looking at it? Also, when it comes to polyphony, it bothers to me to include the names of composers, their dates, and any other information about the pending “performance.” I’ve always thought that this distracts from what the Mass is all about. Seems I’m not alone.
I’ve been going through past issues of Sacred Music, and have come upon this piece from 1992, by Karoly Kope. On the “worship aid” that many Catholic parishes are in the habit of printing:
“Here we go again, aping Protestant ways!” Imitating something good is commendable and should not disturb me. But I felt that what was being imitated here was not a good practice at all. It was a practice adopted by those who have no Mass and who made the most of what was left of their service: a reading of scriptures and a sermon, encased in a musical setting. Remove all music from Protestant services, and there is not enough left for a true religious ceremony. That being the case, it is understandable why Protestants have always taken their church music more seriously than Catholics (the Mass remains intact even without a single note of music), and it explains, at least to me, why the Protestant congregation, rather than following a missal, follows a bulletin “program” with all that information about the music performed and the performers.”
Kope continues…
“To a Catholic like myself this in not only very foreign but also very disturbing. As a churchgoer I want to be absorbed in prayer and lost in the proceedings of the Mass. I don’t care to be told what the next “anthem” will be or who will play what on the organ. In fact, I prefer not to know. When something particularly beautiful strikes me and I want to know what it was, I simply ask and find out—after Mass.”
Have we reached a point in time where printing a program is necessary, however? Is the notion of “ritual” so foreign to worship that no one knows what is means any more?
I agree completely with Kope! Dislike the "program" as much as greeters!
I view a Mass program as a guide to understanding the profound depth of meaning that is the Mass, and as an aid to concentration People have various ways of taking in information and experience–some by listening, some by seeing, some needing both. Personally, it gives me a point of focus, aiding me to concentrate on the meaning of what I'm hearing, both when scripture is read and when listening or participating in the music. It gives me something to fall back on when the sound system is faulty and I simply cannot hear. I value the beauty of the sound of the music, but feel the profound meaning contained in the words is equally or more important and should not be lost. Since few in the congregations study Latin anymore, I feel that having a printed translation available is important. For those that think it a distraction, there's always the option of not picking it up–simply leave it on the seat or in the pocket on the back of the pew in front.
I find a service leaflet very helpful. Being able to see the original text and the translation heighten my prayer. For nearly twenty
centuries there has been a struggle between the Platonic and Aristotelian. In more recent centuries one can substitute Calvinist and
High-Church. I'm reminded of the motto of the RSCM from Saint Paul: I will sing with the spirit and with an understanding.
I print up a sheet (letter, single sided) with minimal information: The Sunday of the year, the name of the Mass ordinary its numbers in the hymnal, or the music for the Mass ordinary if not in the hymnal, the text/translation of all of the sung propers and their sources, and the music for the Alleluia incipit which the congregation may join in singing, and occasionally a translation of the anthem/motet in not in English. Nothing fancy, very basic, Times New Roman, no pictures. They are left on a table in the centre isle at the church door, for people to pick up – or not – and to deposit when they leave. There are usually about 175 people at the principle Sunday Mass (Small, rural parish), I print about 50 propers sheets.
Why not go further and take away sheet music from the choir?
Sometimes the translation of the Propers and readings (we use one printed from Ecclesia Die) is the only way some of the mothers of large families that are in our parish can follow along… there often isn't enough printed out for the mass,so we share them up in the choir… those of us with more challenges hearing with the active reverb in our church…
I love to follow the Latin to push my understanding deeper of what we sing.
I don't care to be told what the next "anthem" will be or who will play what on the organ. In fact, I prefer not to know.
She's probably also a member of the "Latin is important in order to keep things mysterious because you won't know what's being said" school of thinking.
Why the generalization about what school of thought this author adheres to? Do we know that just from this one little piece? This was the opinion of the author on an isolated topic..now we seem to know everything we need to know this person? I thought the piece was interesting because it points to a lack of appreciation for mystery in our modern culture in general. We can't understand everything…we'll never understand everything. Not everything is rational, and faith certainly isn't. If that isn't a Christian attitude, I don't know what is. I personally question the necessity of a program…but I realize they are helpful to some people. Moreover, I am certainly free not to pick one up if I go to a Mass at which there is one available. That doesn't make me opposed to thinking and reasoning, not does it make me narrow in my outlook.
"Remove all music from Protestant services, and there is not enough left for a true religious ceremony."
This is a very troubling statement, perhaps ignorant of the long reverence for the Word of God, something that was a poverty in the 1570/1962 Missal. Would you reconsider its inclusion?
Todd
I guess I don't get the issue here. Go ahead and be absorbed in prayer; there's no one "telling" you what the next piece will be. You can always just ignore the worship aid.
"Mystery" as a Christian theological term has nothing whatsoever to do with having information withheld from you. Why so defensive? You're right, it was an interesting piece. His view (not "her"; my mistake) just seems distorted, that's all.
Having now read the whole piece, it actually appears that Köpe is laboring under the misimpression that programs or worship guides are primarily an "advertisement" meant to give "credit," a form of "exhibitionism." Maybe he chiefly went to art-music Masses where this was true. In my experience, which includes years of attending a parish that produced worship guides every week, the guides are intended to allow people to enter more fully into the prayer. The hymns are printed there (no hymnals in the pews), as are most of the liturgical responses, along with the Biblical citations to the readings (but not the texts themselves, so you have to pay attention). If the choir sings a motet, the words and a translation are there, to allow the congregation to pray along with that musical prayer.
Not exactly "exhibitionism." Then again, somebody who insists on putting "fellowship" in scare quotes as though he didn't believe such a thing existed, and whose idea of the corporate worship of the Church requires an antisocial "anonymity" which is really all "me me me" ("they should fade into subservient anonymity and not distract me in my prayer by reminding me…), is probably projecting onto others some measure of the narcissism that comes through in this article.
When it's done beautifully (like the example Arlene provides in the article) I find it extremely helpful. Latin translations help me pray better, and, as a musician, I'm very interested in knowing the names and composers of both choral and organ pieces with which I might not be familiar because I might use them myself at my parish. Putting a "worship aid" that's this well done on a par with enthusiastic (but perhaps annoying) "greeters" is disingenuous; Isn't a missal a "worship aid"? Isn't the Parish Book of Chant? Or do we want to be such purists that we disparage their use, too?
P.S. If we're all so terribly worried about the "performance" aspects of ritual, maybe we shouldn't be posting videos like the 'Tu es Petrus' from the Vatican above (and all the other wonderful choral and organ pieces that have been posted) for everyone's enjoyment and edification. I mean, focusing on them, particularly out of their larger liturgical context, "distracts from what the Mass is all about," right?
I get what the author is going for which is removing as much static as possible from the signal of God's communion with us via the Mass. But considering all the other static (celebrants yukking it up with the congregation like a variety-show MC, armies of EMHC's swarming the sanctuary like locusts, trite and worldly music), worship aids are pretty low on the list of priorities.
If you don't want a program, you don't have to use one. But do not begrudge them that do in any way. Ritual is not prevented by the presence of programs.
If it were, we wouldn't have Missals. Or Graduals.
Saw a poor woman at Mass this morning thumbing frustratedly through the hymnal's index of first lines, trying to find the hymn before it finished.
I handed her my worship aid, containing the hymns of the day. She smiled broadly, relaxed, and thanked me profusely.
I would have thought she was a Protestant if it wasn't for the full habit and rosary.
Kope did mention Scripture readings and the sermon in the context of Protestant services; the key word is 'ceremony'. What is troubling and ignorant (though hardly surprising) is your sideswipe at the Roman Rite (what applies to 1570 and 1962 applies also to every Missal before 1970 – how did we survive before Annibale Bugnini put everything right?)
Mr Kope's needless swipe didn't really advance his argument. In fact, it probably sinks it. Protestants contributed much ceremony to rituals religious and even secular. He doesn't seem to be taking in the whole of Reformed religious culture.
The conciliar bishops put things right with regard to Scripture, yes. And the ceremonials involved with things other than the sacraments.
The 1962 Rite remains an impoverishment, especially the Low Mass.
I think the discussion against written programs is just an argument in search of raised decibels. Don't like 'em? Don't use 'em.
Todd
Thanks, Arlene, for posting this. I find Kope's article reassuring, in that I've also started wondering how helpful worship aids are. Are they pastoral in the broader sense? How many people look at them? Saving trees- hey- I like trees! I do like saving programs as mementos…
and I also confess to printing them with the main motive of making sure I can shush anyone who said they couldn't follow along. I'm being completely transparent here, so feel free to pile on (though I may not have adequate time to respond).
I wonder how much of printing programs is musician and liturgist CYA and how much the faithful in attendance care.
The faithful will be accessing this information on their phones as they come into mass in the next 5-10 years.
Those who attended the Solemn Latin OF Mass at the London Oratory yesterday (transferred Feast of Sts Peter and Paul) could, if they so wished, have consulted the music list in the parish magazine (or on-line) and learned that the organ prelude was the Adagio from Widor's Symphony No 5, and the postlude was the same composer's Marche Pontificale (Symphony No 1); the Mass setting was Palestrina's Missa Tu es Petrus; and the motets were Palestrina's Tu es Petrus and Ave Verum Corpus (a 6) by Lassus. If you want anything else, you can provide it for yourself. We're all grown-ups.
Relpying to C and the post in general
I was at Mass last Sunday as a pilgrim in Walsingham (Norfolk, UK) the woman next to me also started thumbing through the hymnal's index of first lines. I shared my hymn sheet with her, she too relaxed, smiled. She didn't have a habit or rosary, but was a pilgrim like me.
More seriously, as a former Anglican and fairly recent convert, I find Kope's criticism of Protestant worship is more than a little harsh, I believe that the move towards a service of scripture reading and prayers, or in the case of the Anglican Church, the Office becoming the main act of public worship, lead to an increase in the use of Church music and the need to have new settings for the "new services", for example William Byrd's "The Great Service", a composer who was equally at home writing music for both Protestant and Catholic traditions.
As someone else points out, in his comment that little is left after the removal of the music, he omits the Protestant tradition of preaching and the reverence for the reading of the Scriptures. It is possible for the music to take over, rows between organist/choirmasters and Vicars are legendary, but this is also possible in the Mass, those interminable settings or awful solos by the music group? What is needed is an appreciation of the place of music as an aid to worship along with everything else, the vestments, the incense, the decoration of the building and the prayers and readings, that little glimpse of heaven we have at Mass which we can take away with us for the rest of the week.
I do like to have a service booklet, I don't have to follow it studiously but can read it before Mass begins as a preparation and take it away and read at home afterwards to reflect on. It is nice to know the composer of an unfamiliar setting and also to have the words available if the singing is unclear. What I dislike is the announcement of hymn numbers or references to where things can be found on the sheet or whatever, this totally disrupts the flow of the Liturgy for me. In my experience is common to many traditions. Finally, I can't help noticing how reluctantly some cradle Catholics join in the singing of hymns or settings intended for congregational use, I suppose this is partly due to tradition, but perhaps also due to some of the pretty awful tunes, words and settings. Just had to throw in my halfpenny worth (few cents worth?). So carry on with the good work Chant Cafe.
Finally, we either re-use or recycle our paper worship aids.
Since few people now have EF Missals, it is good practice at the Usus Antiquior to provide Latin/English handouts for the propers. Those unfamiliar with the rite can pick up a booklet for the Ordinary at the back of the church.