Saint Hildegard von Bingen

Back in December, ChantCafe reported that Pope Benedict had plans to canonize Hildegard von Bingen and to make her a Doctor of the Church.

Today we learned the following from Vatican Information Service:

Vatican City, 10 May 2012 (VIS) – The Holy Father today received in audience Cardinal Angelo Amato S.D.B., prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During the audience he extended the liturgical cult of St. Hildegard of Bingen (1089-1179) to the universal Church, inscribing her in the catalogue of saints.

Saint Hildegard was one of the earliest named composers of Catholic sacred music. We ought to pray for her intercession in our work of liturgical renewal in our day. Saint Hildegard von Bingen, pray for us!

h/t PrayTellBlog

Study Gregorian Semiology this Summer

The summer season is a great time for Catholic musicians to deepen their knowledge of sacred music and the liturgy, and to improve their skills and grasp of the Church’s musical treasures.

This summer is sure to be full of many great sacred music events. I would like to draw your attention to two wonderful opportunities to study Gregorian chant with the Benedictines of the US:

Chant Seminars at St. Meinrad Archabbey

First are the annual summer week-long seminars offered by the legendary Fr. Columba Kelly, OSB at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Southern Indiana. The workshops are entitled “Bringing to Life the Word of God in Song”, and are offered in two parts. (See more information on Part 1 for beginners, and Part 2 for intermediate to advanced students).

Fr. Kelly’s approach to Gregorian chant pedagogy is at once deeply sacramental and imbued with the liturgical theology of Pope Benedict XVI, while at the same time is built upon the best Gregorian chant research of the past 60 years.While he never hesitates to immerse his students in the vast riches of even the most complex chants of the Gregorian repertoire, he also has an eye to the realities of parish life and is an undisputed champion of English chant, which he has been composing for the past 40 years.

Dom Columba completed his doctoral studies in Gregorian Musicology under Dom Eugene Cardine in 1963 at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome, and has tirelessly served the Church even through the most difficult moments in the recent history of liturgical music in the United States. He is a buried treasure that everyone who is serious about Gregorian chant should have the opportunity to study with at least once.

The dates for his seminars are July 2nd-6th for the first (beginner) session, and July 9th-13th for the second (advanced) session. The cost is $395 for one session, and $650 for both, which includes week long accommodations including a full meal plan.

You can register for either workshop here.

Chant Seminars at St. Vincent Abbey

Second are the Chant workshops offered by Fr. Steven Concordia of St. Vincent Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Like Fr. Kelly, Fr. Concordia was trained in Gregorian Semiology at the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music in Rome.

These workshops are also being given in two parts: Part One (for beginners) is being held from May 21st-25th, and Part Two (advanced) will run from May 28th to June 1st.

The cost for one session is $300, and the cost for both sessions is $450, plus room and board. St. Vincent College is also offering the possibility for college credit for one or both courses.

For more information see the brochure, and to register you can visit the St. Vincent College Sacred Music site.

Bishop Olmsted teaches on the Propers of the Mass

His Excellency Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, bishop of Phoenix, has been teaching on the topic of sacred music for the past four months in his column in the Catholic Sun. The four-part series, entitled Singing the Mass, has considered sacred music from the standpoints of liturgical theology, historical development, and inculturation. And now, in his final installment, he offers to his diocese and to all U.S. Catholics clear and practical points on how to sing the Mass.

The following are the four parts of his series, Singing the Mass:

In the final installment of his series, Bishop Olmsted describes the parts of the Mass that are meant to be sung according to their degree of importance, as they are described in the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram.

Here are a few excerpts, although you should read the entire thing, and encourage all you know to do the same: (emphasis added)

The Order of the Mass is the fundamental and primary song of the liturgy. It forms the part of the Mass that is of the greatest importance, and therefore it should be sung ideally before any of the other parts of the Mass are sung. When the Order of the Mass is sung, the liturgy becomes most true to itself, and all else in the liturgy becomes more properly ordered. The Order of the Mass is set to be sung in our new English edition of the Roman Missal. I strongly urge all priests and deacons to learn these chants and to encourage and inspire the faithful to join in their singing with love and devotion.

The recent English edition of the Roman Missal itself has given us a “standard” musical setting of the Ordinary in the form of simple English and Latin chants, including musical settings of the Creed. While the Ordinary of the Mass may be sung in the vernacular, the Second Vatican Council mandated that “steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them” (SC 54).


The Proper of the Mass, comprising the chants of the third degree, form an integral, yet often overlooked part of the sung liturgy. The Proper of the Mass consists of three processional chants and two chants between the Lectionary readings. These parts of the Mass, contained in the Roman Missal and Graduale Romanum, are unlike the Order of the Mass and the Ordinary of the Mass in that they are not fixed and unchanging from day to day, but change according to the liturgical calendar, and therefore are “proper” to particular liturgical celebrations.

Here we find the Entrance Antiphon, Responsorial Psalm (or Gradual), the Alleluia and its Verse, the Offertory Antiphon, and the Communion Antiphon. While the Proper of the Mass is subordinated in degree of importance to the Order of the Mass and the Ordinary of the Mass, the texts of the Mass Proper form perhaps one of the most immense and deeply rich treasure troves in the sacred music tradition. (…)

The texts of the Proper of the Mass, especially the Entrance, Offertory and Communion chants, are comprised of scriptural antiphons and verses from a psalm or canticle. This is the form of the texts given in the Roman Missal, the Graduale Romanum, and the Graduale Simplex, the Church’s primary sources for the Proper of the Mass. (…)

The texts of the Proper of the Mass, while of lesser importance than the texts of the Order of the Mass and the Ordinary of the Mass, form a substantial and constitutive element of the liturgy, and I encourage a recovery of their use today. We are blessed to have in our day a kind of reawakening to their value. In addition, many new resources are becoming available that make their singing achievable in parish life. I strongly encourage parishes to take up the task of singing the antiphons and psalmody contained within the liturgical books, and to rediscover the immense spiritual riches contained within the Proper of the Mass.

I do not believe that we have received so clear a teaching on sacred music from a member of the U.S. Episcopacy, and on what we should be singing at Mass, in perhaps 40 years, maybe longer.

Thanks be to God for Bishop Olmsted’s clarity on the musical structure of the Roman Rite, and on the hierarchical nature of the music that is proper to the sacred liturgy. In times when there seem to be many missed opportunities to address more fully the music that is sung in the liturgy, we have here a clear and authoritative statement from a member of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops who seems to be stepping forward into a leadership role in the US episcopacy on matters of liturgy and sacred music.

Let us pray that the Lord will use Bishop Olmsted’s teaching to bring clarity to the liturgical and musical lives of parishes in the US, and further the ongoing liturgical renewal that clearly moving forward in the life of the Church.

Lumen Christi Missal – Now Taking Pre-Orders!

I mentioned this toward the end of another post the other day, but want to repeat more explicitly here that Illuminare Publications has now begun taking individual pre-orders by credit card, PayPal or check for the Lumen Christi Missal at a discounted pre-order price.

You can pre-order your copy here

Be sure to also take a look at the new Illuminare Publications website which is soon to become a thorough catechetical resource for parishes, and digital library of sacred music scores for free download, all of which will be built upon the Lumen Christi Missal, and will integrate and harmonize with it seamlessly.

The new site now contains generous and expanded sample contents, including a very compelling draft of all of the liturgies of Holy Week.

The Lumen Christi Missal is expected to ship in the Spring to Summer of 2012. You can help assist in its timely delivery by pre-ordering a copy for yourself today. I am grateful to those who have already pre-ordered one or more individual copies, and especially thank the seven “Charter Parishes” who have already pre-orderd the LCM in bulk for their parishes. Thank you for your support, and please keep this new and groundbreaking endeavor in your prayers.

Bishop Olmsted: Singing the Mass, Part III

His Excellency, Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted, bishop of Phoenix, has released his third installment in his four-part series on sacred music, entitled “Singing the Mass: Sacred music’s role in evangelization”.

Here is part one, and here is part two.

Bishop Olmsted is the newly appointed vice-chairman of the Vox Clara committee, and has begun to take a leadership role in the renewal of the liturgy in the United States. His series on sacred music appears to be among the first from the American episcopacy to teach so directly on the authentic renewal of sacred music.

Here are a few passages from his recent teaching, with added emphasis:

The distinction between religious music and liturgical music (cf. part one of this series) embodies this double movement: religious music is, we might say, the earthly expression of a given culture’s faith in Christ; liturgical music is the sacramental expression of Christ and the true nature of the Church. The former tends to be particular, individual, temporal and profane; the latter tends to be universal, communal, eternal and sacred. Religious music comes from human hearts yearning for God; liturgical music comes from Christ’s heart, the heart of the Church, longing for us.

Some might ask: should not the mention of the word assimilation give us pause, or even make us somewhat nervous? If we submit ourselves to this assimilation — with all our musical preferences, tastes, and cultural differences — to the concrete musical sources of the Church’s liturgy (i.e., the Roman Missal itself, Graduale Romanum, Graduale Simplex, vernacular translations and adaptations thereof, etc.), will we not entirely lose ourselves, our individuality and creativity? Is there not a danger of the Church becoming irrelevant and therefore powerless in her liturgical expressions, a mere museum of “old” music?

To answer these concerns, we could extend the Church’s teaching on the new translation to the use of liturgical music: “So the liturgy of the Church must not be foreign to any country, people or individual, and at the same time it should transcend the particularity of race and nation. It must be capable of expressing itself in every human culture, all the while maintaining its identity through fidelity to the tradition which comes to it from the Lord” (Liturgiam Authenticam, 4).

In other words, the Church, though existing in many cultures, has her own authentic culture because she has authentic liturgy… both which come to her from Christ. The unity and integrity of the Roman Rite is embodied in the Rite’s sacred texts and musical forms, as a vine is expressed in its branches. Growth requires pruning and nourishing, but never ignoring or starting from scratch.

Please read the entire article, and series.

Simple English Propers to Lumen Christi Missal


The Chant Cafe readers who have been following us since the beginning will remember that there was something similar to the current weekly posting of the Simple English Propers that began in September of 2010. This weekly posting, though, was much more organic, and developmental in nature. This weekly post often included much experimental material, and rough engravings and layouts, not to mention typos!

For those who do not know the story, the Chant Cafe was the cradle of this project and it was discussed intensely and fine tuned a great deal through the public “beta” process that led up to the book’s publication in the summer of 2011.

As the composer and editor of this book I can tell you that this experience was very profound. It was almost as though a new generation had emerged around this project with fresh eyes to look at the question of sacred music in our parishes, had access to the greatest scholars and practitioners of the previous generation, and a communication tool (the internet) which enabled exchanges so rich that they might as well have been taking place in the studios of 16th century Florence.

We all know the result. Jeffrey, the Cafe ring leader, has not held back his enthusiasm about this book. I still have a hard time understanding the effects of it, but hear stories that are almost unthinkable, difficult to believe or imagine.

Just today, Jeffrey briefly shared with me a conversation he recently had with Prof. Mahrt, the president of the CMAA. Dr. Mahrt has been directing one liturgy at his parish in Palo Alto, CA, for over 40 years, while most of the other liturgies at the same parish have mostly reflected the status quo. I’m told that one of the parish’s musicians (not in Mahrt’s choir) approached him and said something to the effect of: “Have you seen this new Simple English Propers book? I think we’re going to start using it!”

Why did it take 40 years for this to happen? I certainly don’t understand it, and we may never know.

The reality, though, is that great ideas can pop up almost out of nowhere, and while no one can really take credit for them, they can change life as we know it. Before the idea or thing, no one could have imagined it. But after they see it, there is an intellectual connection between two points and life is forever changed, and life without it cannot be imagined.

Whether the Simple English Propers was really one of these moments, I’m not entirely sure. But I can say that I can’t imagine directing music in Catholic liturgy without it. Perhaps many others feel the same.

What some of you may not know is that the work that was done in the SEP to address the needs of Catholic parish choirs has been carried on into a book that is similarly addressing the needs of Catholic parish congregations. For the past four months I have been editing, full-time, a new publication called the Lumen Christi Missal

The Lumen Christi Missal is imbued with the same ethos that permeates the SEP. Its focus is different, though, because it is not intended for use by parish choirs and musicians, but is intended to be in the hands of the faithful. It gives them everything that they need and offers a replacement for the common parish “missalette” that is aimed at the new liturgical renewal, and  is beautiful, permanent and dignified, bespeaking the beauty, permanence and dignity of the sacred liturgy.

The aim of the Lumen Christi Missal is to at once meet parishes where they are at, yet at the same time open possibilities that were otherwise unimaginable.

I am excited to announce that Illuminare Publications (the publisher of the LCM) has launched a new website and is now taking Pre-Orders for the Lumen Christi Missal. Pre-orders are being taken for individual copies as well as in bulk, and during the pre-order period we will be offering a discounted price.

There are generous sample (draft) contents on the site, and we will soon offer sample copies for those who are interested in purchasing for their parish. If you pre-order now you will also assist us in getting through the first print run. So in the spirit of the SEP, I would like to ask you for your support in making a book available to Catholic parishes throughout the United States that I believe could even surpass the SEP in its paradigm shifting influence.

It is an exciting time to be a Catholic. In the face of public and secular attack, the Church continues to persist in faith and the proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The renewal of the sacred liturgy is at the heart of this battle and I consider this work to be at the front lines. The celebration of the authentic liturgy is critical to the task of strongly reasserting our Catholic identity, and in showing forth the truth that only the Church holds in these dark times.

Thank you all for your support and prayers. Let us continue forward toward the “new era of liturgical renewal” that awaits us, and that indeed has already begun.

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted on the Church’s Role in “Preserving and Fostering” Sacred Music

Bishop Olmsted presents part two in his series “Singing the Mass”:

In the first part of this series on sacred music, I described the meaning of sacred music, the music of the Church’s sacred liturgy, as distinct from “religious music.” In this second installment, I shall explore, from a historical perspective, the Church’s role in guiding and promoting authentic sacred music for more fruitful participation in the Sacred Mysteries by the clergy and lay faithful alike.

The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 112). This led the Council fathers to decree that “the treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care” (ibid, 114).

Sacred music in Judaism before Christ

The dual task of preserving and fostering sacred music remains a crucial one for the Church today. But to understand what the Council is asking of us, we must not only know what sacred music is in general (as we explored in the previous installment in this series) but also how the Church has carried out this endeavor in history.

The Church inherited the Psalms of the Old Testament as her basic prayer and hymn book for worship. With these sacred texts she also adopted the mode of singing that had been established during the development of the psalms: a way of articulated singing with a strong reference to a text, with or without instrumental accompaniment, which German historian Martin Hengel has called “sprechgesung,” “sung-speech.”

This choice in Israel’s history signaled a concrete decision for a specific way of singing, which was a rejection of the frenzied and intoxicating music of the neighboring and threatening pagan cults. This way of singing the Psalms, traditionally viewed as established by King David (cf. 2 Sam. 6:5), disrupted only by the Babylonian exile, remained in use at the coming of Christ. Sung with respect to and during sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem, the early Jewish Christians assumed this tradition into the sacrifice of the eucharistic liturgy.

Sacred music in the early Church

After Pentecost, the first centuries of the Church’s life were marked by the encounter of what was a Jewish-Semitic reality with the Greek-Roman world. A dramatic struggle ensued between, on one hand, openness to new cultural forms and, on the other, what was irrevocably part of Christian faith.

For the first time, the Church had to preserve her sacred music, and then foster it. Although early Greek-style songs quickly became part of the Church’s life (e.g., the prologue of John and the Philippians hymn, 2:5-11), this new music was so tightly linked to dangerous gnostic beliefs that the Church decided to prohibit its use. This temporary pruning of the Church’s sacred music to the traditional form of the Psalms led to previously unimaginable creativity: Gregorian chant — for the first millennium — and then, gradually, polyphony and hymns arose.

In preserving the forms which embodied her true identity, the Church made it possible for wonderful growth to be fostered, such that centuries after that original restriction, the Second Vatican Council boldly proclaimed that her treasury of sacred music is of more value than any other of her artistic contributions.

. . .

Read the rest here.