Revd Fr Christopher Smith, Author at Chant Café

September 16, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Authentic Liturgy and Chant: Some Considerations

The noted liturgical and musical commentator Paul Ford has written a thought-provoking article for the GIA Quarterly that you can find here. Professor Ford is an admirable interlocutor in the current debates about liturgy and music, and, as such, he has much that we can admire in this article. Because he makes reference to “the thoughtful proposals” by members of the Church Music Association of America on the concept of mutual enrichment between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, I would like to engage some of what he has written in his article, to keep this fruitful dialogue going. I am very grateful to Professor Ford for having taken note of these proposals, as well as for his accurate re-presentation of them in his article.

At the outset of his article, Ford writes, “Nothing in the Holy Father’s official teaching ought to be construed as anything other than (1) affirmations of the essential truth and goodness of the postconciliar liturgical reforms and (2) reminders about some dimensions of this reform that need more attention (particularly, sacrality and beauty).” In the accompanying footnote, he refers to three examples of this teaching: the encyclical Deus Caritas est, the apostolic exhortation Sacramentum caritatis and the motu proprio Summorum pontificum. He then goes on to describe, via commentary on a quote of Fr Anthony Ruff, the intention of Pope Benedict XVI for the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite to be mutually enriching. He then states that the Ordinary Missal of the Roman Rite is the Missal of Paul VI.

Yet he then goes on to say, “The personal preferences of the Holy Father are just that: personal preferences.” Are we to conclude that, because Pope Benedict XVI chose to propose two forms of the same Roman Rite and encourage their mutual enrichment by way of a motu proprio, that this is merely the Pope’s personal preference? Also, if the document is evidenced as not construable as anything other than “(1) affirmations of the essential truth and goodness of the postconciliar liturgical reforms and (2) reminders about some dimensions of this reform that need more attention (particularly, sacrality and beauty)”, why is that in the realm of both official papal teaching and personal preference at one and the same time? Need the two contradict one another?

No one would suggest that all forms of paper that come out of the Vatican are worthy of the same assent. But is a motu proprio issued by the Pope’s personal initiative by that very fact only an indication of a personal preference, and on that basis can be ignored or minimized? The fact that the Missal of Paul VI is the ordinary Missal of the Roman Rite, a fact that Summorum underlines, does not detract from the fact that the Pope as Supreme Legislator of the Church has made a decision that the Roman Rite has two forms, and both are to be respected. It is hard to see how that is a personal preference.

Dr Ford does notice, however, that “revisiting the wide options” in the General Instruction for music would allow for the use “of the traditional music of the Roman Rite.” He also notes that “[m]any of us are still singing only modifications of the four-hymn sandwich of the late 1950s, singing at Mass rather than singing the Mass.” Here, in fact, is a powerful indication of continuity: the music of the Extraordinary Form can easily be used in the Ordinary Form, an indication of mutual enrichment. And may Dr Ford preach that truth from the rooftops! Sing the Mass, don’t sing at Mass!

But it seems that, for Dr Ford, mutual enrichment from the EF to the OF ends there. In fact, as he insists that the ordinary form of the Roman Rite is the Missal of Paul VI, he seems to take for granted that the point of departure for any discussion on liturgy and music must be the Missal of Paul VI because it is the Ordinary Form. His later observations on how certain aspects of the EF are incompatible with the OF are drawn from that fundamental premise.

But Pope Benedict XVI has introduced two notions into the liturgical discussion which make me think that the Ordinary Form of the Mass is not actually the point of departure for these discussions at all. The concept of the hermeneutic of continuity, which has been a theme of this pontificate, stresses the fundamental unity across both rites. Also the concept of liturgical pluralism and the equality of rites, introduced in SP, also stresses their fundamental unity. Therefore, any discussion about the liturgy and music of the Roman Rite must have as its point of departure the Roman Rite as a whole, Ordinary and Extraordinary, seen in a continnum insofar as possible. Even more than that, the point of departure is not the General Instruction of the Roman Missal of Paul VI, but the answers to the more basic questions about liturgy, music and the life of the Church, as well as the shared and sharable patrimony of the Roman Rite.

For Dr Ford, the evaluation of the EF’s place in the Church has to be seen against the backdrop of “the common spiritual good of the People of God.” For him this notion has come to us in part because of what he identifies as three “seismic shifts in sacramental theology that began in 1903.” He names them as “the active participation of the all the priestly people of God, the primacy of the word of God, and liturgy as the work of the Holy Spirit.” For devotes the next part of his article to an analysis of how the EF shores up against those three themes.

First of all, I would like to point out that, theologically at least, those three themes so dear to the classical liturgical movement (and the new) have their remoter origins in German Romanticism long before 1903. The sacramental understanding of the Church that Scheeben would popularize in the nineteenth century would take root in theology and become very fruitful around the time of Vatican II in Magisterial documents. I am not sure why Ford insists in 1903 (St Pius X’s motu proprio on sacred music, perhaps?) as a watershed date. I would like to read more about what Dr Ford thinks about this connection, because it does seem like the first time such a theology erupts into the Magisterium, unless I am mistaken.

For Ford, the fact that the EF uses terms “assembly/congregation/faithful people” only 30 times and the OF over 500 demonstrates that the EF cannot be a vehicle of the active participation of the priestly people of God. For him, the EF seems to represent an impoverished ecclesiology. But were the divines of the classical Liturgical Movement and many theologians before Vatican II not also convinced of this ecclesiological truth and ready to make it practical in the lives of the faithful, far earlier than the 1969 GIRM? If the active participation of the priestly people of God is a theological truth, then is it not true no matter what rubrics accompany the text of the Mass? Does the proliferation of certain words necessarily indicate more clearly this truth? How then can one explain those who do not actively participate in the OF and are not aware of the dignity of their baptismal priesthood? Also, has Ford analyzed the use of those terms in the Eastern Rites? Does their presence, frequence or absence somehow indicate a false or impoverished ecclesiology?

Dr Ford also faults the EF, whose last legal incarnation was 1962, for not including paragraphs 3 and 4 from the 1981 Lectionary for Mass: Introduction. Yet, why are these paragraphs, which speak eloquently of the foundation of liturgical celebration on the Word of God, not applicable to the EF? Is the Word of God, which is “a living and effective word through the power of the Holy Spirit” somehow blocked in the EF? Can the Holy Spirit not work through the readings at an EF Mass?

It must be noted that here we seem to reduce the Word of God to the Holy Scriptures. But, as Dei Verbum 10 reminds us, “Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church.” The Word cannot be reduced merely to the readings at Mass. The primacy of the Word refers, not only to the liturgical proclamation of the readings of Scripture, but to the Church’s reception as Ecclesia discens of Revelation through Scripture and Tradition. Why does a rich theological conception of the Word of God illuminate the EF as deficient?

Ford gives us a clue why he thinks so. After he opines that the introits of the Graduale Romanum might be kept in the OF because they do not violate his conception of the Word in worship, and that the occasional Kyrie and Agnus Dei could also be sung in their original languages, he proposes that we “consider surrendering all the graduals, alleluias, tracts, offertories . . . and the communions of Ordinary Time that evidence no connection to . . . any of the readings proclaimed.”

It must be noted that the music of the OF as expressed in the Graduale Romanum forms a unity with the old Roman lectionary cycle, as well as the proper orations of the Masses. The recent editions of the Graduale try to keep as much of this system intact as possible, but in such a form as to be coherent with the OF liturgical year. Many of those antiphons indeed seem to have little to do with the readings of the OF. In fact, at first glance, some may seem to have little to do with the Readings of the EF as well. Since Ford takes the OF as his point of departure, this discrepancy leads him to conclude that the entire Graduale must be overhauled to be more consistent with the OF.

There are several observations to be made. First, the current editors of the Graduale have taken the EF as their point of departure, and not the OF. Second, the option to do either the continuous readings or the sanctoral cycle of readings in the OF also leads to some interesting juxtapositions of antiphons, readings and proper orations, so such discrepancy is not alien to the OF. Third, how can the reduction of the entire Graduale into a book of Introits fulfill the express wish of Vatican II for the preservation of Latin and Gregorian chant? Fourth, now that Pope Benedict XVI has introduced a notion by which the Roman Rite considered in its fundamental unity must be the departure point for discussion on liturgy and music, should that, and not the EF or OF, be the standard by which future editions of the Graduale be revised?

Ford argues that the Creed “must be in the vernacular”, but why? Surely, if the Creed is a statement of the unity of our faith, why is it so inconceivable that the Roman Rite in both forms uses it in Latin? Would that not better underscore the unity of the faith, and would it not allow people from various languages to all participate in a powerful moment of unity in the Mass when repeating the words of the belief which unites them beyond words? He furthermore argues that the addition of three acclamations after the Institution Narrative means that the Sanctus, as another acclamation, ought to be sung in the vernacular. First of all, liturgical historians are not at all unified as to whether the Sanctus was always envisioned as an acclamation in the same way the acclamations inside of the Eucharistic Prayers of the OF are now considered. This is another instance of using the OF as a point of departure and not the substantial unity of the Roman Rite. Second, if we jettison the greater part of the Latin Ordinary and almost the whole of the Graduale, as Ford suggests, how can we then fulfill the desire of the binding legislation of the Roman Rite on music, Musicam Sacram 47, “Pastors of souls should take care that besides the vernacular “the faithful also know how to say or sing, in Latin also, those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”

For Ford, the reason is very clear: it’s not in the vernacular: “The very meaning of the Incarnation is the vernacular.” Does this mean that the Incarnation is deprived of meaning for people if they actively participate in the Mass by singing in Latin in communion with the Church that is the extension of the Incarnate Word in the world? For Ford, “since today’s lectionary is a vernacular lectionary, today’s music between the readings must be almost always in the vernacular.” Yet, the Missal and the Lectionary are, in their typical editions, in Latin. The vernacular is a permission granted for the good of the faithful by Sacrosanctum concilium, not the absolute form of the liturgy. Ford’s point of departure is not even from the text of the GIRM of the OF, but from the actual practice in many places, without verifying if that practice is in accord with the Church’s Magisterial teaching or law. Yet he still envisions that some of that music may not be in the vernacular, without specifying where or how, but most importantly, why.

Ford also re-produces the well-known statistics about the relative amounts of the Scripture contained in the OF and the EF. Several comments can be made. First, the lectionary of the EF developed historically as it did for all sorts of reasons, and was neither accidental nor invented in a liturgical laboratory by experts. The cycle of Mass readings must be seen in unity with the Divine Office and other liturgical rites as well. The Roman lectionary developed in tandem with the Office at a time when the Office was part of the normative experience of the Christian more than it is today. The riches of the EF lectionary consist, not in quantity, but in the way they, along with the other Scriptures contained in other liturgical rites, developed along with the history of the Roman Church. Salvaging that precious treasure and offering to the faithful as part of the patrimony of every Catholic is one of the most beautiful consequences of SP, and one not appreciated nearly enough. Second, the mere exposure to larger amounts of Scripture, like the mere exposure to larger amounts of prayer, does not necessarily translate into comprehension. Has it been verified that Catholics are really more conversant with Scripture than they were 40 years ago? In what does that biblical literacy consist and how can we evaluate it? The expansion of biblical literacy in the Church is a noble mission, part of her essence to evangelize. But is it the burden of the Mass alone to carry that? Or are there other factors, notably catechesis and preaching? Is it really true that exposure to the full riches of the EF, Mass and Office, is still an obstacle to the Word of God taking root in individuals and the Church? Are there also no pedagogical merits at all to a lectionary cycle which breaks down and digests frequently repeated passages of Scripture? Also, are these statistical totals taken merely from the Epistle and Gospel readings, or from the totality of Scripture which surrounds the Mass and Office?

The EF Mass is also deficient in pneumatology, compared to the OF, Ford claims. Eastern Orthodox controversialists have condemned both the EF and the OF as being insufficient in pneumatological content compared with Eastern liturgies. And many notable theologians, such as Yves Congar, have opined on the historical reasons and practical consequences of the relative lack of engagement of the Holy Spirit by the Church in ther life and prayer. Yet no one has asked, Why has the Roman Rite developed this way? Many contemporary commentators are content to assume that, because the West has historically been so pneumatologically discreet, the Western liturgy is deficient. But is the action of the Spirit limited to epicletical formulae in the Mass? Can the Holy Spirit not act independently of the absence, inference or dispersion of epicletical formulae just as the consecration of the Eucharistic elements is held to be obtained in the consecratory formula of the Prayer of Addai and Mari, where the consecratory formula could be considered absent, inferred or dispersed?

Dr Ford seems to indicate that for Professor Mahrt, Dr Schaefer and I in our various articles on mutual enrichment of the two forms of the Roman Rite, it “is almost all one way.” I cannot answer for Mahrt or Schaefer. As for me, I contend that, in reality, mutual enrichment cannot be from point A to point B, whether it be from EF to OF or OF to EF, although in my article to which Ford refers, I delineate practical ways in which the liturgy could go from point A to B. I argue that mutual enrichment should not take as its point of departure A or B, the EF or the OF.

Viewing the two forms of the Roman Rite under the principle of the hermeneutic of continuity, the point of departure for discussions about mutual enrichment must go back to a basic: How is what the Church does in her public prayer incarnate in the rites and music as developed through time in the Roman Rite? The answer to that question does not begin by looking at the relative riches or poverty of one rite or another, at how one historical incarnation of the rite is like or unlike a subsequent or previous theological development, or even the utility of the faithful’s comprehension of the rites themselves.

Ford is right to maintain, “The pastoral effectiveness of a celebration will be greatly increased if the texts . . . corresponds as closely as possible to the needs, spiritual preparation, and culture of those taking part.” When considering how the two forms may enrich each other, it is insufficient to say that they can’t, and that the hope that they can is just a personal preference of the Holy Father. We can say, however, that the Holy Father has seen that the Church must find a way for the liturgy to be able once again to meet the basic needs of her people. The task of pastors, liturgists and musicians is to elevate the culture of the Church’s children by a spiritual preparation which can allow them to encounter the Mystery which is encountered in any form of liturgical rite. We need not change the liturgy as the Church hands its various forms down to us, but open the riches of all liturgical forms to that priestly people who hunger and thirst after Truth.

August 15, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Why Are Seminaries Afraid of the Extraordinary Form?

Personal Reflections

I had just entered the seminary when Cardinal Ratzinger’s book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, came out. I had an English copy expressed to me and brought it with me into the chapel as my spiritual reading during our daily community Holy Hour. One of the older men knelt next to me as I was engrossed in Ratzinger’s chapter on Rite and whispered, “Do you want to get kicked out of the seminary? Change the book cover now.” All of my attempts to not publicise the fact that I actually knew the Old Latin Mass had apparently been blown out of the water by this defiant act of wanton schism. Suddenly seminarians began to knock on my door and counsel me how to survive the seminary, and so I exchanged Ignatius Press’ book cover for one entitled “The Pastoral Letters of Paul VI.”

Apparently it was too late. I was a marked man. Not surprisingly, the superiors were made aware of my “problem,” but for the most part, they left me alone. I refused to be duplicitous about my love for the Latin Mass, and I also went along with the liturgical customs of the house without trying to reform or denounce them. I did from to time steal away from the house to go to a Latin Mass, carefully folding my cassock up into my overcoat and hiding my collar with a scarf, feeling all the while a little bit like Superman waiting for a small cubiculum where I could transform into my true self. Only once was I ever “discovered” as I was serving a Low Mass for a Curial prelate in the private chapel of a Roman noble family that was having an annual open house, as it were. Nothing was ever said.

My deacon year, however, I had a very strange experience which made me realize the odd dynamics that are often at work in seminaries when it comes to the Latin Mass. We had a Lenten tradition called “fraternal correction” in which any member of the house could call another member of the house on the floor for anything which he considered wrong. I had escaped four previous Lents without feeling the need to engage any of my brothers in this somewhat contrived version of what we did every day living together, nor having to feel the brunt of someone else’s issues at my expense. Not this time.

One of my confreres came up to me in the magazine room and expressed his concern over the fact that I was a Lefebvrist. My superiors were already content with the fact that I had told them I was more than happy being a priest in the contemporary Church, as she is today and not as she was at some mythical time in the future, so I was rather annoyed at this sincere desire to save me from my own schismatic self. I attempted to try to explain that not everyone who is attached to the pre-Vatican II liturgical tradition is a schismatic, but was apparently unsuccessful. One of my superiors attempted to come to my aid. He said, “You think Christopher is a Lefebvrist because he likes Latin and Gregorian chant. Well, then I am a Lefebvrist too. And so is the Church, because she made it very clear at Vatican II that we were supposed to have Latin and chant in the Mass.”

The problem was that I realized that neither my superior nor my confrere knew who Marcel Lefebvre was, or anything about the genesis and the complicated nature of the traditionalist phenomenon. Neither had any experience of what we called back in the day the Indult Mass, and they would not have known anyone who actually was a priest of the SSPX, if it had not been for one of our alumni who had just jumped ship to them a few years before.

The whole experience left me rather sad. It made me realize that there are many good men in the Church, who are products of and involved in seminary formation who do not understand why anyone, least of all a seminarian, would be interested in the Extraordinary Form. There is no knowledge at all, or only partial circumstantial and anecdotal knowledge, often negative, that they have of others who expressed an interest in that liturgy.

Shortly after the abortive attempt at fraternal correction, I had an exam with a famous Italian liturgist. He was famous for giving everyone perfect scores, and all he asked was that you come in and talk about one chapter from the books he assigned us to read in class. Five minutes, and you were done and had a nice advance on your GPA. There was a chapter in one of his books which compared the Ordinary of the Mass in the older and the newer forms. So I began to talk about that chapter. “How do you know anything about this?” he asked angrily. I replied that it was in the book, and tried to show him where it was in the book that he had told us to read in class, but he would not be moved. And so began a 45 minute oral exam in which he grilled me on everything in the books, which I had studied and knew. I was dismissed from the exam and given a barely passing grade. Imagine my surprise when he showed up at the seminary to give a talk to my class on the liturgical reform. He started off with, “Well, of course, none of you know anything about what the Mass was like before Vatican II.” My class knew about the exam from hell I had just had with him and started snickering. Looking for an answer as to why the giggling, I calmly said, “Well, I actually served the Old Latin Mass this morning before I came to your exam today.”

I would never counsel a seminarian to do the same. Nor do I offer anything I have ever done as a model! But what I gained from that experience was that I could not dispassionately engage a famous liturgist about the Old Mass with something as objective as what the differences are between the two forms.

So in my seminary experience I encountered two phenomena: a lack of knowledge and a positive hatred of one form of the Church’s liturgy. Since then, we have had Ratzinger elected Pope, as well as Summorum pontificum and Universae ecclesiae. The nature of the game has changed, even if there are some who are unwilling to admit it.

Reasons Why Seminaries Should be Afraid of the EF
But a question must be asked: Are there any legitimate reasons why a house of priestly formation should be leery of the EF? As far as most seminaries go, Ecclesia Dei adflicta has not landed, much less Summorum and Universae. The day to day liturgical life of the seminaries has changed very little since Pope Benedict XVI took office, even as seminarians in some parts of the world have done an admirable job of trying to educate themselves about the rite. Some seminaries offer a few Masses a year and some optional training in the old rite, but I am not aware of any diocesan seminary in which it is a normal part of the life.
Much to their credit, seminary rectors and faculty realize that they are preparing their men for ministry in a Church in which they will find a variety of liturgical expressions. Whether that pluralism is always legitimate or not is a good question, but young priests have to be capable of serving in parishes where the Good News of Pope Benedict XVI has not yet reached. Some might be afraid that emphasis on the EF might render them incapable of reaching the people in the pews.

Also, the more that curious seminarians delve into the EF, they will have a lot of questions, not only about the mechanics of the EF but about the whole liturgical reform itself. These are uncomfortable questions, and seminary faculty must have not only a wide learning to answer those questions, but much patience to accompany seminarians through their questioning.
Seminary superiors also are loath to divide the community in any way. There is a fear that encouraging the EF might split seminarians in their fraternity and cause them to break off into cliques of liturgical preference, and that this division would be magnified in parish life. Parishes, rectories, and schools would feel the weight of EF-happy clergy intent on changing how they “have always done” things until the biretta-wearing, Latin-talking upstart comes to town.

Seminary staff are also aware that the enthusiasm of youth is often not tempered by the virtue of prudence and seasoned by the practical knowledge that comes with experience in parish ministry. One of the phenomena that has come about is the seminarian who has taught himself all he knows about the EF. The autodidact often knows less than he thinks he does, and, with the best intentions in the world, annoys people unnecessarily. I was reminded of this recently as I was sitting in choir at a EF Solemn Mass. Although the clergy were seated in their proper order, a seminarian spent his whole time fretting about giving the signs to the senior clergy he thought were ignorant of when to sit, stand, bow, and use the biretta. As it happens, he was frequently wrong and I spent the whole Mass distracted by his trying to be a Holy Helper.

Many seminarians have a genuine love of the Old Mass, but the tradition has not been handed down to them in a living organic way. And when one tries to resurrect the tradition by way of books, videos, and self-help, there are too many holes in the fabric to make a rich vesture in which to clothe the Church’s liturgy. As most seminarians’ experience of the liturgy has been more or less exclusively the Ordinary Form, there is also the inescapable temptation to graft a Novus Ordo mentality onto a liturgy whose mens is quite different.

There are not a few people responsible for the formation of priests who see all of the above phenomena and think to themselves, “We don’t want to touch this with a ten foot pole.” And of course, what does a good seminary rector do when he knows that Tradition-unfriendly Bishops will pull their guys out of their seminaries if they begin to teach the EF?

Reasons Why Seminaries Should Welcome the EF

None of the above phenomena, which are real, should impede seminaries from a joyous welcome to the EF within their daily life. By this point, it should be patently obvious to everyone that a significant proportion of the men interested in the seminary are also, if not positively enthusiastic, at least not unfavourable, to the EF. Of course, this is true only in certain countries and in certain regions of those countries. But even where there is little or no interest, there are still reasons why seminaries can welcome the EF.

The most important reason is that the Magisterium has made it very clear that there are two forms of the same Roman Rite and that both are equal in dignity. If all priests of the Latin Rite have the right to celebrate both forms, it follows that seminaries should then form all priests in both forms. Then, they will be ready to fulfill the requests of those faithful who desire the EF and they will broaden their own pastoral horizon.

The enthusiastic welcome of the EF into seminary life will also unmask the tension that has been growing over EF-friendly seminarians in houses of formation. If they are not formed properly in the seminary to be able to offer the EF, many will embark on an auto-didactic parallel formation which will keep their minds, hearts and often their bodies out of the seminary formation environment. When seminarians begin such an autodidactic parallel formation, the tendency is to develop a form of duplicity to be able to engage in such formation. And given the state of the clergy in today’s Church, no seminary can afford to give seminarians a blank check to get their formation elsewhere.

A Plan for Integrating the EF into Seminary Life
But how can the EF be integrated into seminary life? First of all, all of those involved in priestly formation must come to accept what Pope Benedict XVI has done for the Roman liturgy: he has declared that there are two forms of one Roman rite, and every priest has a right to celebrate both. If that is true, the question must be asked: Why is every seminarian in the Latin Rite not trained in both forms? Some seminaries have offered some limited training to those who are interested in it, but that still makes it seem like the EF is a hobby for some priests, or some kind of eccentric movement barely tolerated within the Church, and not of equal value with the OF.

Yet before any seminary can integrate the EF into seminary life, seminaries must offer a comprehensive training in the Latin language and sacred music. These two subjects, which were once part and parcel of every seminary training, have been relegated to a few optional classes in many places, when they should undergird the curriculum.

Many seminaries, in an attempt to prepare their men for the reality of life in the parishes to which they may one day be destined, often offer Spanish Masses or folk Masses or other kinds of “Liturgical Styles” for seminarians to participate in. Whether or not this is a good type of formation is not the scope of this article, but it also brings up a question: If OF and EF are two forms of the Roman Rite existing side-by-side, for the universal Church, how can they not both be celebrated side-by-side in the seminary. For the community Mass of a seminary, one wonders why Low Mass, Dialogue Mass, Sung Mass and Solemn Mass cannot be part of the weekly rotation of types of Masses celebrated in seminary communities.

There are indications that, in many seminaries, the men themselves are pushing their seminary rectors and faculty to recognize the validity and the possibilities of the celebration of both OF and EF in their communities. There is open discussion of this topic, with much less fear than there was in my time, which was not all that long ago. The openness and transparency with which the liturgical questions can be asked, confronted, and resolved bodes well for the future. Far from producing one-sided priests who leave the seminary bitter liturgical Nazis bent on reforming their parishes to their liturgical opinions, the frequent celebration of the EF in seminaries can foster an atmosphere of serene liturgical formation in which men can better appreciate both forms and learn how to more effectively open up the riches of the liturgy for the People of God.

What Can Happen when the EF is integrated into seminary life
I was recently at a Cathedral down South on a weekday and I wanted to celebrate a private Mass. As I was vesting in my Roman chasuble and my altar server, a seminarian, was preparing the altar for my EF Mass on the feast of Saint Dominic, a newly ordained priest was vesting in a Gothic chasuble and a layman was preparing another side altar for his OF Mass on the feast of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney. My newly ordained priest friend has not yet learned the EF, but is interested. We both went to side altars at the same time to offer two forms of the Roman Rite, with clergy, seminarians and laity in attendance. It just kind of happened that way, was something not planned. Later that week, my newly ordained priest friend sat in choir at an EF High Mass that the seminarian and I helped to sing, and I concelebrated the OF in the same Cathedral where he was ordained. The Director of Religious Education for the Cathedral, a young woman theologian and student of liturgy, happened to be present at all of these occasions, and she commented on how, in our own way, we were making real Pope Benedict’s vision of the Roman Rite in two forms. No one was confused, no one was angry, no one was ideologically motivated to criticize the other.

The younger clergy have a tremendous opportunity to be conversant in the two forms of the Roman Rite, and in doing so, build bridges where previous liturgy battles had separated the faithful from each other. Seminary superiors are right to want to avoid at all costs further liturgical polarization in the Church. But continuing to marginalize a form of the Roman Rite which has been restored to its full citizenship within the Church will only continue to polarize people. Giving the EF its due in priestly formation will be the way forward beyond opposing camps into a Church where both forms can co-exist side-by-side in harmony.

July 11, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Just my $0.10 worth about the Translation of Cantus in the New Missal

Just had some thoughts, for what they are worth. While it is true that yes, cantus can be translated as song as well as chant, there are some observations to be made:

1. If I am correct, the rubrics and the GIRM will be printed in the MIssal for the first time in the new translation, with all of the post-Redemptionis Sacramentum adjustments. There were editorial comments in the last Sacramentary that approached rubrics, or at least so it seemed. (Before the Syllabus of Errors gets started on this point, please remember that I haven’t said an English OF in so long, I can’t remember, and I don’t have the book here to look at it.)

2. The changes in the Missal might mean that priests who have never read the red bits or the GIRM before (and they are legion) might just do so for the first time, or for the first time since 1970. That alone might get some thinking.

3. While it may seem that the last option is still an argument to allow hymns at Mass, I am not sure it really is, whether it is in the original Latin rubrics, or the new corrected English version. Why? In any translation, it i necessary to go back to the intention of the author when using that word. Now, I would be interested if anyone could go leafing through Bugnini’s Reform of the Liturgy, his apologia for the liturgical reform, and see if he had any intention of vernacular hymns replacing the propers. From what I remember from what I have read, the answer is no. Also, if Musicam Sacram is still the proper legislation for music in the Roman Rite, is cantus as used in that document referring to the Propers?

The REAL question is this: What is the mind of the Church about music at those times? I don’t think there is any indication in any official document that the mind of the Church was to use vernacular hymns when the Propers are called for. To argue that, because hymns are used by the People of God at Mass, that is the mind of the Church and it is as such expressed in the GIRM I find a little backwards. It seems to me that the use of vernacular hymns was tolerated in the German-speaking world. Toleration in the official documents does not mean that the Church desires it for her worship, at least not universally.

4. While it is clear that hymns at Mass and Low Mass have occurred and continue to occur throughout Church history, it also seems clear to me that the Church’s intention is to SING THE MASS (Ordinary, Responses and the Propers that are in the text of the Missal) and not to SING AT MASS (paraphrases of the Ordinary as in German and Spanish, and Hymns at Mass.)

Those who are derided as having an ideology to push the propers have a better argument that trying to legislate the Propers into existence everywhere. The argument is simple: SING THE MASS, DON’T SING AT MASS!

June 23, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Corpus Christi in Vienna

A procession is a holy movement of those truly united. It is a gentle stream of peaceful majesty, not a procession of fists clenched in bitterness, but of hands folded in gentleness. It is a procession which threatens no one, excludes no one, and whose blessing even falls on those who stand astonished at its edge and who look on, comprehending nothing. It is a movement which the holy One, the eternal One supports with his presence; he gives peace to the movement and he gives unity to those taking part in it. The Lord of history and of this holy exodus from exile towards the eternal homeland himself accompanies the exodus.
Karl Rahner, SJ (NB that I never quote Rahner, but this is a good quote!)

News reports tell us that Austrians are leaving the Catholic Church in droves. That may be the case, but they sure do still believe in not working on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation. On this Corpus Christi THURSDAY (ahem) I was annoyed not to find a bus or taxi from my little apartment in the wine tasting village of Grinzing to get to the UBahn for the 8.30am Pontifical Mass at the Stefansdom. I did finally get there, and could not find anywhere to have my obligatory Kleiner Brauner to pump some caffeine in my system for what promised to be one of those Endurance Liturgies that no suburban American Catholic could ever cope with. Thank God for American economic imperialism, as I thanked God the only time in my life for McDonalds and hot coffee!

I entered the Sacristy of the Cathedral ahead of time and it was already abuzz with activity for the Mass and Procession. I checked with the Ceremoniarius, the Cathedral’s Master of Ceremonies, if I could concelebrate the Mass and process, and I was graciously attended to by one of the sacristans, who vested me, and about 25 other priests, in some of the most beautiful 17th century French giardinaje style vestments I have ever seen.

The Nuncio to Vienna entered and warmly greeted everyone in the sacristy with a handshake, just as every other person who entered the sacristy did. Not long thereafter, Christoph Cardinal Schoenborn, the Archbishop of Vienna, in his choir dress and biretta, entered and made the rounds of everyone in the sacristy. I was delighted to have a brief conversation with him, and to receive his encouragement for my doctoral studies, which he repeated again after the Mass. His quiet but warm demeanor somehow all of its own corralled the mass of people in the sacristy, and the bell rang for Mass to begin.

The Pontifical Mass was sung very well by the Cardinal, the prayers all being in German. But the Ordinary of the Mass was Mozart’s Spaurmesse, and the famous Cathedral Choir and Orchestra did justice to Vienna’s favourite musician. For those who are unfamiliar with how a Viennese orchestral Mass works with a sung Ordinary Form Mass, I will describe the local custom.
The Kyrie is sung as the Penitential Rite itself, with everyone sitting down after the first bar. After the Kyrie, all rise and the Celebrant sings the Misereatur and then intones the Gloria. After the first bar of the Gloria, everyone sits and listens to the Gloria, and then all rise for the Collect. For the Creed, all stand after the Homily as the Celebrant intones it, and then sit after the first bar. Everyone bows in their seats at the et incarnatus est. After the Preface, the Sanctus begins, and all continue to stand. After the Sanctus, the congregation stands, kneels or sits (!) as they wish. The Eucharistic Prayer begins as normal, and the Memorial Acclamation is sung. Then, the Choir begins the Benedictus. After the conclusion of the Benedictus, the Celebrant continues the Eucharistic Prayer as normal. After the Sign of Peace, at a Pontifical Mass, the Choir sings the Agnus Dei in its usual place; but at other Masses, the Celebrant skips the Agnus Dei, which is sung at the beginning of the distribution of Holy Communion.

That is how the Ordinary is handled at the Cathedral. For some of the other music, they do something which many would balk at. The Entrance Procession and Incensation is accompanied by organ. Then, when the Celebrant reaches the Chair, a vernacular hymn is sung. A hymn is sung at the usual place of the Offertory. And after the Sacrament is returned to the tabernacle in a side altar and the Celebrant reaches his chair, a vernacular Communion hymn is sung. And the usual Recessional Hymn is sung as per usual. I have heard on occasion parts of the Latin Gregorian Propers sung, but never all of them, and never very often. While some liturgists may balk that music must accompany a liturgical action and never stand alone by itself (at least for the Introit and Communion), this practice does mean that everyone calmly sings together the hymns without having to worry about watching or doing something else. And guess what, they sing ALL THE VERSES!

There are a couple of interesting architectural things to notice. The Lucite chair for the Cardinal and the small, almost square, marble freestanding altar on their respective footpaces are placed within the Choir Aisle. The High Altar, upon which the Sacrament is not reserved, has become a very nice stand for (real) candles (that are lit all day long everyday) and flowers. The placement of the cathedra and freestanding altar makes for some very awkward motions during a liturgy which otherwise is very well executed. I would be interested to see where the Throne was placed before, and how the Stefansdom Reform of the Reform liturgy would look and sound like if the Cathedra were elsewhere and the High Altar used for the celebration of Mass.

The Procession began after the Closing Prayer after a rather long explanation of the order of procession and the wait for the various groups to take their places in the nave. The usual men and women religious, confraternities and papal knights and dames were in attendance. But there was another addition that was typically Austrian which I found quite delightful.
In the United States, when we think of fraternities, we usually think of Animal House, hazing and binge drinking. College fraternities in Austria may do all that too, but they were all out in force for Corpus Christi. Each fraternity has a specific uniform with a military style formal Mess jacket (gold buillion embroidery, epaulets, and brass buttons), trousers tucked into high boots, and what can best be described as a pillbox hat worn on the side of the head with a chin strap. They all carry swords and other fine pieces of weaponry. And they all have their place in the Procession. Also in the Procession were representatives from the secular University of Vienna, with their gowns and oversized velvet hats.

The Cardinal took up the small monstrance, which was decorated with a crown of baby’s breath, and the Procession began as the impressive bells of the Cathedral rang full peal and the organ began the hymn we all know as “Praise to the LORD, the Almighty.”

The Procession made its way through the streets of Vienna, as it has every year for centuries. I thought of how many Corpus Christi Processions this city has seen. Celebrating the feast in the glories of the late Middle Ages, as Protestants threatened to tear the city apart, as Turks besieged the gates, as Maria Theresa reigned in Enlightened splendor, as the Nazis made the town their own, and now, as secularism threatens to break a final murderous wave over a once Christian Europe. How many more Processions will there be in the future?

But suffice it to say, this Procession was very much like every other Procession in the past. It certainly was not like last year’s Procession in the Austrian town of Klagenfurt when a Pita Bread (Host?) on a pike was processed through the streets in a Burlesque version of a Corpus Christi Procession. There might have been more German in 2011 then there would have been in 1911, with the Emperor Blessed Karl von Habsburg was in attendance, or in 1511, before the Reformation threatened to destroy the German speaking world’s Eucharistic devotion. But it was a Procession like any other. Three altars, each magnificently decorated, with a sung Gospel at each; band music, the Rosary, Litanies and hymns between each station. There were only two additions which Vienna’s forebears might not have seen before, but which certainly could be seen in a hermeneutic of continuity with the true spirit of Vatican II: sung Intercessions, and a homily given by the Cardinal at each Station.

But there were also two other additions which somehow I think that Sissy, Freud, Hitler, and a lot of other people who passed through the Imperial Capital might not have ever thought to see. The first was that many of the servers, adults and children, were female (although interestingly enough, the Readings at Mass were proclaimed by seminarians). The other was the inclusion within the Procession of something I am at a loss to describe. A dapperly dressed young man held a large flag with the word, “Frauen”, Women, written on it. Next to him was a similarly well-habille young woman with a sign, with a cartoon of an androgynous figure in a cassock kicking off one of his/her/its bedslippers and pointing to a bed with the word “Frei”, Free, written on it. At first, I thought it was a silent protest saying the Church needs to keep its nose out of women’s bedrooms. But they joined the Procession with everyone else. It was one of those “huh?” moments, and if any of our readers can enlighten me as to what that was all about, I would like to know.

A more positive and less disturbing image was one of evangelization. A group of sisters dressed in long denim jumpers with a white veil, sandals, and wooden crosses hung from their necks on a string, (they had to be French, only the French come up with that kind of combo), were carrying baskets of rose petals. Every so often, they would go up to a little girl on the side of the street and ask them if they would like to throw flowers as Jesus passed by. I am not sure if any of those little girls had any idea what was going on, but I am also sure by the smiles of the girls and their families that this quiet little initiative of the good sisters was appreciated by lots of people on the margins of Christian practice, and Jesus as well!

This was a procession which was well-organized, took its time, and was prayerful. Today I prayed. And my faith was strengthened because the Body of Christ, the Church, had gathered to worship the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. And to do so among the splendor of an ancient tradition, the music of Mozart, and the quiet humble example of the Cardinal was a wonderful way to spend Corpus Christi.

June 2, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Why Praise and Worship Music is Praise, But Not Worship

The first time I ever went to a Life Teen Mass I was sixteen years old. It was New Years’ Eve and I thought, instead of going downtown with my pagan friends, I should be a good Catholic boy and ring in the New Year with Jesus. The parish that had the Life Teen Mass was not mine, but I went anyway. Everyone had been telling me that there were lots of people my age, who were serious about their faith, and that it would be a Spirit-filled time. Some of my friends were going to be there, too, so what could be better?

But as soon as the Mass started, I felt like I had stepped into a no-man’s land suspended between Catholicism and some vague form of Protestantism that I as a convert had never seen before. It wasn’t that the music was strange to me. I grew up with contemporary Christian music around the house and listened to it on the radio (when I wasn’t listening to classical music or Latin dance music). So I knew the songs. The church was full of high schoolers and Baby Boomers and they all seemed to know and love each other.

But as the Mass unfolded, I kept noticing things that I knew very well were not in the rubrics, those pesky little red directions in the Missal that tell us how to celebrate the Mass properly. The Life Teen coordinators had decided that they would modify the Mass to make it fit whatever they deemed necessary to get the kids involved. And so there was dancing, hand-holding, and music that had nothing to do with the actual texts of the Mass.

But then, it was time for the Eucharistic Prayer. The celebrant invited all the kids to come around the altar. As the church was quite full, this was rather cumbersome and also pointless. But everyone stood up and made their way as through a mosh pit (I am showing my age, now!) to get closer to the altar. I stayed behind in the last pew. And of course, the celebrant thought that I was too shy to come up and so he encouraged me, from the altar, to join the kids. I had had enough, and so I yelled from the back pew, “No, sorry, Father, I’m a Catholic, I don’t do that kind of thing,” and pulled out a rosary and knelt to pray it as I watched the Eucharistic Prayer degenerate into something eerily similar to the ecstatic cults we had studied about in Ancient Greek History.

Not only did I never go back to a Life Teen Mass, I started the next Sunday to go to the Orthodox Church. There I felt like I was worshipping God and not having earnest adults try and fail to make religion relevant to me by assuming I was too young or stupid to understand real worship. It was fifteen years before I ever had to participate in anything similar ever again. By this time, I was a priest and I had been asked to preside over a Holy Hour for young people. The youth minister in this particular parish was very sensitive to the fact that Praise and Worship was not my thing, and she warned me ahead of time.

As I knelt there in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I realized something. The same people were doing the music who were doing it fifteen years before. It was the same music, the same songs that I made fun of when I was the age of the kids who were in the pews behind me. How relevant is that? But this time the kids who were there just seemed bored. I asked them afterwards what they thought of it, and one young man said, “Well, that was ok, I guess. When are we having another Latin Mass, Father?”

Of all of my friends from high school who were Life Teeners, not one of them is a practicing Catholic anymore. Will the kids today who are raised on a diet of Praise and Worship continue to practice the Faith when they are no longer of that age middle-aged people in the Church want to cater to? I don’t know. But my experience has brought me to reflect on why Praise and Worship Music is not appropriate for the liturgy:

1. P&W music assumes that praise is worship.

All of us are called to lift our hearts, minds and voices to God in prayer. A particular type of prayer is praise, when we recognize God’s goodness, holiness and mercy by our own actions of praise. Praise has always been accompanied by music. Praise has always been something that takes place on an individual or small group level. It is often spontaneous and takes the form of culturally relevant symbols and forms. Praise is something common to all Christians and to many other religions.

Worship is indeed a type of praise, and music is an integral part of it. But the sacred liturgy is the public prayer of the Church, a corporate worship by which baptized Catholics enter into a Mystery which is not of their making. Being a corporate action, it is governed by law and tradition so as to preserve its unity throughout the world and its fidelity to the Message revealed by God. Worship is a Christian act of the baptized gathered by bonds of communion with the visible institutional Church.

P&W music actually identifies worship with praise, by grafting the freer and more individualistic nature of praise onto the communal prayer of the Church’s worship.

2. P&W music assumes that worship is principally something we do.

Martin Luther defined the Mass as a sacrifice of praise. It is something we render to God. The Council of Trent solemnly defined against Luther that the Mass is a true sacrifice. The Mass is the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Christ to His Father on Calvary in the Holy Spirit. The Mass is something that Jesus does, the Redemption, the fruits of which are shared with us in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. Worship is not Praise, but Sacrifice and Sacrament. Worship is something that Jesus Christ brings about in us through His self-offering to the Father.

P&W music reduces the Mass to a sacrifice of praise that we offer to God. Even when P&W proponents assent to the teaching of the Church on the Mass, it is as an abstract truth of faith. In the concrete, our sacrifice of praise is grafted onto that Sacrifice of Redemption. It overlooks the fact that it is the Sacrifice of Redemption that is the highest Praise to the Trinity, and that our participation in it is not by what we do, but by who we are as baptized Christians in the life of grace.

3. P&W music assumes as its first principle relevance.

P&W recognizes that music is important in the Church’s worship. But it also posits that music must “reach people where they are.” It must be relevant to those who hear it. Relevance, however, is an ambiguous notion. What is relevant to me may not be relevant to someone else, and so P&W introduces into the liturgy an element of subjectivism based on human concerns.

Often P&W is directed at an ostensibly missionary effort. The idea is that, if people find the music at Mass attractive or relevant, they might be brought into a deeper relationship with God. Yet, faith is a gift that comes from God, not from us. P&W attempts to clear the way for divine action, as if relevance could accomplish that.

4. P&W music assumes as its second principle the active participation of a certain age group

P&W essentially views active participation as everyone doing, singing and feeling a certain way about God when at Mass. The music is a means to produce an end. It also sees the absence of young people at church, and argues that, if the music at Mass were more like what young people like in their normal lives, they might be opened up to a more abundant life. Thus, P&W is designed often by middle-aged people with little or no theological, liturgical or musical background to coax teenagers and college-age kids with a similar background into a theological, liturgical and musical milieu. That milieu reduces the liturgy to a man-made act of praise engineered to produce an apostolic result.

5. P&W music self-consciously divides the Church into age and taste groups

P&W music is principally designed based on an abstract idea of what young people like. It often reflects more the trends of the past that were germane to P&W participants’ adolescence than it does the actual relevant trends of current adolescents.

It also tends to disparage the Church’s musical tradition by claiming that it is too difficult, elegant, or irrelevant to teens. For them, P&W is a grassroots, democratic, egalitarian, music relevant to youth. In contrast, the Church’s musical tradition is often painted as theatrical, aristocratic music for old people in concert halls.

By selectively choosing the abstract notion of youth and what is relevant to it as a criterion for liturgical music, P&W effectively divides the Church according to what is arbitrarily considered to be youthful and not youthful. It also argues that different “styles” are fine for the liturgy. This introduces into the liturgy the ambiguous notion of style and taste as a principle by which the liturgy and its music should be conducted.

6. P&W music subverts Biblical and liturgical texts during the Mass

The Roman Missal contains antiphons for the Entrance and Communion which are normally biblical texts. The Roman Gradual, which is still the Church’s only official source of music for Mass, contains antiphons for the Offertory as well as for the Interlectionary Chants. These together are known as the Proper of the Mass. The Missal and Gradual also contain official texts for the Ordinary of the Mass, for the Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus and Agnus Dei.

P&W bypasses the first and preferred option that the Church’s liturgical law mandates for music at Mass, namely the Proper and Ordinary of the Mass as contained in the Church’s liturgical and musical books. It substitutes hymns, which have never been part of the Roman Mass, or paraphrases or re-workings of the Ordinary. If a biblical text is used, it often has little or nothing to do with the texts appointed by the Church in the Missal or Gradual.

In doing so, P&W sets up a situation in which people do not sing the Mass (i.e., the texts contained in the Missal and Gradual), but they sing at Mass songs chosen by the impoverished criterion that those songs “kind of go along with the readings or the theme of the day.” P&W divorces the music of the Mass from the Mass and substitutes in its place texts that are not or only barely Biblical or liturgical.

7. P&W music assumes that there can be a core of orthodox Catholic teaching independent of the Church’s liturgical law and tradition

Many P&W proponents assume that, as long as they continue to believe in what the Church teaches in the Catechism about faith and morals, that the liturgy can be adapted to how they think such a teaching should be incarnate in song. There are some who would never think of denying an article of the Creed or promoting immoral actions condemned by the Magisterium. But the same proponents see the liturgy as another sphere. Any appeal to liturgical law or tradition is rejected according to the principles of relevance and active participation of youth.

Orthodoxy is then separated from Orthopraxis, right belief is separated from right worship. The Church’s power to speak on faith and morals is upheld even as the Church’s power to safeguard the liturgy through rubrics, laws and traditions is dismissed as man-made legalism. In doing so, P&W promotes an attitude of passive, or even sometimes active, resistance to the hierarchy’s duty to safeguard the sacral character of the rites of the Church. The impression is created that there is such a thing as right belief, but that the idea of right worship is contrary to the Spirit of the Gospel.

This creates problems of communion between priests and their people when a priest attempts to reform the liturgy in any given place to bring it into line with the Church’s liturgical law and tradition.

8. P&W music consciously manipulates the emotions so as to produce a catharsis seen as necessary for spiritual conversion

Conversion is seen principally as a dramatic emotional event accompanied by strong feelings. Recognizing that music can stimulate feelings, P&W seeks to produce liturgical events which will bring out the feelings that could in turn bring about the emotional catharsis seen as necessary to conversion. The way the liturgy is planned and the music developed is done so with an eye to aiding this conversion process.

Yet, this is not what conversion really is. Conversion is the formation of the conscience under the grace of the Holy Spirit to inform the intellect and strengthen the will to live the supernatural life of the virtues in union with Christ. Although emotions are involved in the life-long pilgrimage of conversion, their deliberate manipulation, even for an ostensible good end, is abusive. It sees the human subject not as ready for the response to a divine call, but as something to be primed for an experience. In reality, the life of grace brought about by conversion is not an experience at the level of the emotions, but a movement of the soul over and above those emotions.

9. P&W music confuses transcendence with feeling.

The deliberate manipulation of the emotions by P&W often produces an excess of sentiment. The very strength of that feeling can induce some to think that such an event is the work of the transcendent God in them. Musical forms which truly are transcendent, in that they disengage from the emotional and bring the person above their emotions, such as Gregorian chant, are rejected because they do not necessarily cause an emotional event, which is seen as proof of divine action.

The constant spiritual tradition of the Church has taught to distrust feelings and to prize the transcendent holiness of God. It also teaches that human manipulation of other people’s intellects and wills is a violation against the freedom of the human person. When done in the name of God, it is also a violation of God’s sovereignty over the intellect and will of man, as it replaces the free action of God in the soul with a gimmick to make that action in theory possible.

10. P&W music denies the force of liturgical and musical law in the Church in favour of arbitrary and individualist interpretations of worship

P&W, in making relevance and a reduced notion of participation the fundamental principles for engineering liturgical/emotional events geared towards emotional catharsis taken for conversion, ignores liturgical and musical law in the Church when it contradicts its goal. Often the greatest proponents of P&W have never read the pertinent documents of the Church’s Magisterium about liturgy and music, or they read them within a hermeneutic of rupture.

Liturgical and musical law seeks to safeguard the unity, purity and clarity of the Church’s corporate worship. P&W offers other criteria for how the Church should worship. First, it subsumes true liturgical worship under the rubric of praise. Second, those who are in charge of the praise often engineer the rites and music according to principles alien to those that govern the Church’s liturgical and musical law. Third, the opinion of individuals, small groups and committees, often uninformed by a wider theological, liturgical and musical education, is preferred to the Church’s theological, liturgical and musical heritage which is found in the Church’s documents and the Missal and Gradual.

11. P&W music prizes immediacy of comprehension and artistic ease over the many-layered meaning of the liturgy and artistic excellence.

P&W prefers simple music that anyone can understand or participate in easily. It also prefers what can be sung or played with a minimum of practice, instruction, or talent. Its levels out the many-layered meaning of the liturgy to that which is most readily accessible, and denies access to the infinite riches in the Church’s liturgical life.

A constant diet of P&W throughout the liturgical year separates people from the Church’s actual liturgical prayer as found in the Missal and Gradual. It also denies them access to the art form produced by the Church herself, Gregorian chant, and to the transcendence to which it points. It also gives the impression that the Church is not serious about serious music. The idea of excellence in liturgical motion, sound, and sight and that the Church is a patron of the highest forms of such expression, is dismissed in favour of what is easiest. In doing so, P&W does not inspire youth and older people to plumb the riches of the Roman liturgy and music.

That is a lot to take in, I know. I am also sure that many of my P&W loving friends will take issue with some of what I have written here. But it is important that those involved in the Church’s ministry remember the following:

1. The Church’s musical and liturgical tradition is an integral part of worship, and not a fancy addition.

2. While Praise is a high form of individual and small group prayer, it is not Worship as the Church understands the corporate public prayer of the Liturgy.

3. Worship is not principally something that we do: it is the self-offering of Jesus Christ to the Father in the Holy Spirit, the fruits of which are received in Holy Communion. Worship is Sacrifice and Sacrament, not Praise.

4. Relevance is irrelevant to a liturgy which seeks to bring man outside of space and time to the Eternal.

5. Participation in the liturgy is principally interior, by the union of the soul with the Christ who celebrates the liturgy. Any externalizations of that interior participation are meaningless unless that interior participation is there.

6. The Church’s treasury of sacred music is not the province of one social-economic, age, cultural, or even religious group. It is the common patrimony of humanity and history.

7. The Church must sing the Mass, i.e., the biblical and liturgical texts contained in the Missal and Gradual, and not sing at Mass man-made songs, if it is to be the corporate Worship of the Church and not just Praise designed by a select group of people.

8. Orthodox Catholic teaching on faith and morals must always be accompanied by respect for the Church’s liturgical and musical teaching and laws.

9. The deliberate intention to manipulate human emotions to produce a religious effect is abusive, insincere, and disrespectful of God’s power to bring about conversion in the hearts of man.

10. While music does affect the emotions, sacred music must always be careful to prefer the transcendent holiness of God over the immanent emotional needs of man.

11. The Church’s treasury of sacred music inspires and requires the highest attention to artistic excellence. It is also an unfathomable gift to the Church, and must be presented to the faithful so that they may enjoy that rich gift.

Do I think that P&W has a place in the life of the Church? Of course I do. It is praise, it is prayer, it does get people lifting their minds and hearts to God. There is obviously a place for that in the Church. But that is not Worship, and the communal prayer of the liturgy, by which God unites Himself with us, must be allowed to be itself. We should not be so cynical as to think that our Catholic people are too young (or old), too stupid (or overly-educated), and too spiritually weak (or indifferent) to pray the Church’s liturgy as it is indicated in the Missal and Gradual. The music of the Church’s tradition is the Church’s own gift to mankind. Let’s pray the Mass, let’s sing the Mass as worship. Then our praise will be worthy of the Spirit’s breath, because Christ through His Mystical Body will sing the Father’s praise in us.

May 30, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

A Tale of Two Abbeys: Klosterneuberg and Heiligenkreuz

Anyone who has read anything about the Liturgical Movement in the twentieth century has come across the name of Pius Parsch. He was the pastor of a small parish in the Austrian countryside, and a chaplain to any number of youth groups in and around. His name is important to know, because many of the things which we now take for granted in our celebrations of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite began as experiments in or were popularized from this one place. Mass facing the people, offertory processions, vernacular mixed with Latin in the text of the Mass: all of these things were already “traditions” fixed in the minds of Parsch’s parishioners well before Vatican II.

But Pius Parsch was not a diocesan parish priest. He was an Augustinian canon, a member of a religious community in Klosterneuberg not from Vienna. As a canon, community daily Mass and the Divine Office were already part of his spirituality, and he sought to bring the riches of that liturgical experience he loved in the monastery to his parishioners. How he did that is a fascinating story in and of itself, and we cannot underestimate the influence Parsch had on the liturgical reform of Vatican II, and the influence he still has today, especially in Austria. But that is the subject for another article.

Klosterneuberg is not just any monastery. As one of the canons explained it to me, Klosterneuberg is to Austria what Westminster Abbey is to England. It is the spiritual heart of Austria, and its importance in the fascinating story of Austria has always been great.

The history of the Austrian Church has been very peculiar, especially on account of the widespread meddling in Church affairs by the “Sacristy Emperor”, Joseph II. What this means is that the way religious life is lived in Austria is different than the way it is lived in any other place in the world. What it means to be a Benedictine, a Trappist, or a Norbertine in Austria is markedly different than what it means in other parts of the world. The active life has been emphasized very much over the contemplative life, not by accident of history, but by imperial edict.

The Austrian Congregation of Canons Regular of St Augustine does not have a counterpart anywhere else in the world. The most venerable house is Klosterneuberg.

But what is Klosterneuberg like today? While vocations are drying up all over the German-speaking world, this abbey continues to receive novices, and many stay. The monastery has gained notoriety in part because of a daring project in which several American priests and seminarians entered the community with the hope of one day establishing a foundation in the US. Very soon three confreres will make that dream a reality thanks to the patronage of the Bishop of Rockville Center, New York. And so the deep roots of Austrian canonical life will find their way to America, which will benefit from the rich history and spirituality of a form of life which many Americans will fall in love with!

Klosterneuberg remains a house of serious religious observance, but within its own tradition. While from the outside it may seem very wealthy and free, its canons are expected to participate in the life of the house and in the numerous apostolates of the community. The entire Liturgy of the Hours is chanted daily, conventual Mass is for all, and the life of the monastery continues much as it always has. But it also is a house for adults, for men whose spirituality does not need to be propped up by the structures of religious life.

For me, Klosterneuberg represents the past of Austria: its glorious imperial history, its intricate and fascinating development throughout the Second Milennium, its famous characters whose stories need to be told outside of the monastery walls. It also represents the future of Austria, and quite possibly, of many other places as well. Ours is an age in which the clerical life desperately needs reform. Priests hunger after a life which gives them the spiritual support they need to do their ministry and save their own souls, but with the freedom and flexibility to respond to the needs of the Church of today. While many people in the Church are experimenting with various movements or novel hybrid forms of religious life, Klosterneuberg offers a very rooted serious tradition which has weathered the post-conciliar years substantially intact. Where other religious communities abandoned their charism and faltered, the Austrian canonical life was able to remain authentically Catholic and authentically religious without sacrificing its essence or its power. The fact that it is a community which is growing when so many others are not indicates something beautiful is going on for God there.

So where is the present of Austria then? Readers of Chant Café will hopefully recognize the name of the Cistercian Abbey of Heiligenkreuz. This abbey, also a venerable ancient monastic foundation of the Common Observance of the Cistercian Order, is the most flourishing and vibrant religious community in the German-speaking world. The abbey is known for its recent Chant CD. And, watch for a new CD, which has just been issued. entitled Vesperae. It is the reconstruction of Baroque Vespers with Cistercian chant and music from Abbey composer Alberich Mazak (1609-1661).

The Abbey is justly known for its chant. The community of eighty monks, of whom forty or so are resident in the house, sing all of the offices and Mass together. A peculiarity of the Abbey which makes its known in Englihs-speaking circles as a “Reform of the Reform” place is its liturgy. During the Second Vatican Council, an extraordinary man was the head of the community. Abbot Karl Braunstorfer was a peritus at the Second Vatican Council. When the Council urged the reform of the religious life and the Latin liturgical tradition, Abt Karl guided his community through the transition in a spirit of the hermeneutic of continuity. He and the abbey were often criticized bitterly for the way in which they went about this, most notably Franz Cardinal Koenig, the Cardinal of Vienna, who wondered aloud during a pastoral visit whether the Second Vatican Council had ever reached the Abbey. In retrospect, many can now see that the prayerful and resourceful abbot perhaps incarnated the true spirit of the Council more than he has been given credit for.

The Abbey is also home to the Higher School for Philosophy and Theology, and has become a much sought after place of study for orthodox Catholic theology in the German speaking world.

The Latin Ordinary Form is celebrated every day, and the Latin Cistercian Liturgia Horarum, with its two week Psalter Cycle, was produced from within the house. Large antiphonaries for the new liturgy have been produced. All of these new liturgical books have been produced with an eye to beauty, durability, and tradition. One can feel confident that St Bernard, were he to end up at Heiligenkreuz, would find himself very much at home.

The monks are known for their liturgy and their chant, and the abbey church is frequently full of visitors. I have never seen another large monastery church full for the daytime hours of the Office! I had the great grace to be invited to choir practice on Sunday morning. One assumes that monks famous for their CDs would not need choir practice, and it was comforting to see the Prior, who is also the Music Director for the Abbey, encouraging the monks to follow the proper rhythm for the chant and to not drag it or fall flat.

I cannot tell you the emotion I had to sit in the choir stalls and concelebrate Mass. But one thing will always stay with me, even greater than the perfect chant and the superb hospitality. As I came back from the altar after distributing Holy Communion, I saw many of the monks in their choir stalls in prayer. Scapulars and cucullae drawn over their heads, many were prostrate on the floor. Yet there was nothing showy or piously over-devotional about their prayer. The silent witness of those monks in adoration of the God whom they had just received spoke volumes about the proskynesis proper to the worship of the Almighty and Triune God. Music dissipated into a silence where heaven was opened, not by an aesthetic experience, but a moment of grace.

I was surprised to be greeted by a young monk at breakfast, “Oh, I have read your articles on Chant Café” even before I could stammer out a bad German Guten Morgen. So the blogosphere where Catholics come to share their love of liturgy and life has penetrated the walls of the most beautiful cloister of Central Europe. What the monks might not know, is that it is their witness which gives those us from without the cloister wall the courage to share with everyone our love of a common faith.

For more information, check out:

Klosterneuberg at http://newsite.augustiniancanons.org/

Heiligenkreuz at http://stift-heiligenkreuz.org/English.english.0.html

May 30, 2011 by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

English Mass 2.0: Test Case for the Reform of the Reform?

I am a skeptic by nature. As far as the corrected translation of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Mass is concerned, I still will believe it when I see it, or rather when I celebrate it the first time and hear the people say And with your spirit back to me. We have waited to so long for the new translation, and there has been much angst over its inception, execution and implementation. And I have watched the process unfold closely, but with the jaundiced eye of a cynic in the liturgical wars. But why?

Do I believe that the new translation will be a marked improvement over the current translation? Of course I do. Will I enjoy using the new translation more than the current translation? You betcha! Am I glad I am not in parish ministry when the new translation hits the ground? I thank my lucky stars…

Having grown up as a Baptist, and then wading around in the Thames before finding my way to the Tiber, I grew up with the Jacobean English of the King James Version. Young men in the South have grown up thinking of God and praying to Him in a language far removed from that of the streets ever since the colonies were founded. The hysteria that some feign because of a translation which is not even close to the sonorous English with which I learned to pray in my youth is just something I find rather overwrought. One of the hardest things about exchanging the English Missal of the Society of Ss. Peter and Paul for the English Missal of ICEL was that everything I heard and said just sounded artificial.

As the corrected translation, worked through and over time and time again, wended its way towards the light of day, I continued to be a cynic about the whole thing. My chief objection was this: I have routinely celebrated Mass in different languages throughout my priesthood. I celebrated Mass in Spanish every Sunday for five years, and have celebrated in Latin, Italian, French, Portuguese and German. So I have gotten to know intimately all of those other Missals. And the thought occurred to me: especially in Spanish and Italian, the translations are for the most part extremely faithful translations of the Latin, with no need for Liturgiam authenticam. The faithful have heard the prayers of the Ordinary Form, and not paraphrases, for forty years, and Italy and the Spanish-speaking countries are still not even on the radar screen as far as what most readers of Chant Café would recognize as even tolerable, much less, good, liturgy. There has to be more than just a decent translation to ignite the spirit of the liturgy in the Church.

And so I have remained very guarded about the possibilities of the new translation. My big fear is that it will be business as usual in most American parishes, and that even the great opportunity to commission new liturgical music will be hijacked by warmed over reworkings of the music we have grown so tired of on the American scene.

I am beginning to rethink my earlier cynicism, however. The corrected translation of the English Mass is more important than we might realize. It is no secret that the English language is perhaps the most important for the dissemination of the Catholic faith right now. Even though there are probably more Spanish-speaking Catholics and certainly more speakers of Chinese than English, our language remains a world force. That is why “getting it right” is so important: wherever the English language goes, the faith celebrated in the English language will follow. The new translation has a potential to recondition the way the Ordinary Form is thought of and celebrated all over the world.

But there is more. From one point of view, the corrected translation is nothing more than a response to Liturgiam authenticam to produce a text of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Missal closer to the Latin typical edition. But could there be more here?

We must remember that Pope Benedict XVI is now gloriously reigning from the Chair of Peter. The ecclesial context in which episcopal conferences go about responding to Liturgiam authenticam is different than it was at the end of the reign of Blessed John Paul II. While the rich teaching of Joseph Ratzinger on the liturgy is not invested with any Magisterial authority (although it is devoutly to be wished that this pontiff will give the Church a great gift of an encyclical on the liturgy!), it clearly is having its effect in many quarters.

After the tremendous “event” of Advent 1969 and the extension of the Missal of Paul VI to the Church, all subsequent liturgical texts had as their reference point that Missal and everything that came with it. Liturgiam authenticam is another exercise of that unfolding of the Pauline Missal in our time.

But by the time the English response to that document has come around, the Church finds herself in a very different liturgical situation than she was when the document was drafted. The Vicar of Christ Himself has called for a Reform of the Reform. He has also recognized the substantial unity of the Roman Rite in two forms, and finally rejected the idea that the classical Roman liturgical heritage is something to be discarded from the Church.

Advent 2011, with the use of the corrected English translation, represents the first time since Vatican II that a significant change in liturgical text will affect the faith lives of a significant portion of the Church Catholic. In this new context, the new translation is not business with the Missal of Paul VI as usual. It can be seen as a test case for the Reform of the Reform. Even though the text is still the Ordinary Form, it is very clearly a re-form of the previous English text. It is proof that the liturgy can be re-formed according to principles which bring it closer to the mind of the Church than what people in the Church have experienced for the past forty years. It also will provide a tremendous opportunity not only for catechesis about the true nature of the liturgy, but for wide questioning all throughout the Church about how the liturgical reform has been carried out.

Is English Mass 2.0 a test case for the Reform of the Reform? I have no way of knowing whether that was part of the plan all along (I doubt it!). But in any case, the way in which the corrected translation will be received in the Church will give us many clues about the practical possibilities for even greater reform in the liturgy. This is why no one can be indifferent to the corrected translation of the Ordinary Form. Its effects will not only condition how people pray the New Rite, but it will also open up all kinds of questions and possibilities for how the Church prays in every rite.