Category: Article by Jeffrey Tucker

Ignaz von Dollinger

Periodically when this site posts current and forthcoming versions of collects and other prayers, a commentator will post a third alternative from the Gray Book of 2008, the version of the Missal approved by English-speaking Bishops but heavily modified in the final version. As time goes on, this pre-release version will fade into memory, and, in fifty years, its existence will only be noted by specialists and liturgical historians. For now, however, there remain partisans of rejected drafts, and even partisans of the current Missal.

The most prominent statement of disagreement so far has come from an unlikely source: Fr. Anthony Ruff of St. John’s Abbey. If you are tempted to dismiss his letter as a progressive archetype, the surprise here is that Fr. Ruff is a specialist, and one of the world’s most learned, on Gregorian chant. He was involved in the writing of the USCCB’s document “Sing to the Lord” that provides the strongest endorsement of Gregorian chant from the U.S. Bishops in the postconciliar period.

He is the author of a magnificent book on the history of Church music, and as a consultant to the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, his contribution was to provide musical continuity by introducing English chant in a presentation far superior to the current Missal. This is no small contribution given how music has been such a lightening rod for controversy since even before the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae in 1969/70.

The new translation holds out the promise of a tremendous upgrade in the music we hear at Mass, because there is already a large movement of new scholas in parishes and also because the new Missal edition is designed to be a singing edition with Gregorian stylings. Fr. Ruff has made a contribution in both areas, as a teacher of chant since the 1980s, and also as an advocate of the sung Mass deeply involved in Missal preparations.

And yet, now, he has written an open letter announcing that he cannot in good conscience be involved in training for the new Missal. “I’m sure bishops want a speaker who can put the new missal in a positive light, and that would require me to say things I do not believe.” He writes that his “involvement in that process, as well as my observation of the Holy See’s handling of scandal, has gradually opened my eyes to the deep problems in the structures of authority of our church.”

Fr. Anthony Ruff

And what is this scandal to which he refers? He speaks of how “a small group” hijacked the translation “at the final stage, how unsatisfactory the final text is, how this text was imposed on national conferences of bishops in violation of their legitimate episcopal authority, how much deception and mischief have marked this process..”

From here, he offers what might be considered a conventional “progressive” criticism of authority structures within the Catholic but it would be a mistake to conclude that, for he also speaks of his love of the Church and his desire “to stay in this church for life and do my best to serve her.” I have no doubt of his sincerity.

In short, this is not dissent as traditionally understood. What seems to be driving this announcement is more frustration with the process and a kind of demoralization associated with deep familiarity with the behind-the-scenes bureaucratic operations. Very few of us are in a position to dispute the facts here, which are undoubtedly associated with peculiar shift from the 2008 to the 2010 editions of the Missal translation. In a phrase, when one watches the sausage being made, one is likely to choose another breakfast option.

What the laity and most priests are thinking about right now has nothing to do with these issues. The big picture is, to my mind undeniable: we are being blest with transition from an inferior translation to one that is massively superior. The difference is dramatic, and somewhat surprising for those of us outside the process. I never expected this kind of progress in my lifetime. It’s like the new form of the Roman Rite has grown up.

What not generally known is how Fr. Ruff himself made a contribution even in fixing many of the problems that were first revealed in a draft that were later corrected in the final edition. Through his website Pray Tell, he aired many of the disputed passages, posted leaked documents, and generally agitated for improvements to restore many of the orations to a better condition. I do not know the details of what passages were fixed, but it is a fact that Fr. Ruff himself made a contribution here — and he paid a price by being labeled a critic and a leaker and thereby removed from the process as a result.

I’m fascinated by this chapter in liturgical history and Fr. Ruff’s reaction to it because so much of this reminds me of a much more dramatic chapter in Church history, Vatican I itself, which lasted from 1868 to 1870. Most Americans know nothing about the issues that drove this Council other than the conclusion that endorsed papal infallibility. It was the same even at the time of the Council itself, since the issues were mostly about political changes in Europe.

John Henry Cardinal Newman

The American Bishops who were dragged to Rome for the meeting left dioceses that were war torn and desperately in need of money, attention, and leadership. Instead, they were required to board ships and sail overseas and, sleeping in tiny apartments by night and sitting listening to speeches in Latin that they could barely understand by day, all of which concerned issues that were mostly irrelevant for their pastoral work. This dragged on for two years. Their diaries speak of home sickness and physical sickness, long delays of boredom and deep anxiety about events back home.

From a European point of view, everything was at stake. It was initially unclear at the outset why Pius IX had called the council in the first place, but the truth would emerge in time. The problem concerned the rise of democratic movements, the push for more open societies, and the devastating loss of papal states that threaten the very “temporal power” that the Church had exercised for many centuries. Times were changing, and Pius IX was seeking reinforcement for that particular papal power, the announcement of which would have been devastating for the newly legalized Church in England and might have led to more political repression all over the continent.

These facts are nearly forgotten today. Since the Second Vatican Council, the absence of the temporal power is taken for granted: the Church’s power in this world is a moral and cultural power, one that arises from the persuasive power of the faith and not from the use of the sword. Indeed, Pius IX lost this debate at Vatican I too. The final declaration of infallibility was narrowly drawn to concern only faith and morals and not politics, contrary to what the Pope himself had demanded.

The reason for the failure of the “ultramonatists” can be traced to two brilliant men in particular: John Dalberg-Action and Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger. Acton was a cosmopolitan intellectual. Dollinger was Germany’s greatest theologian and perhaps the greatest theologian of the 19th century. Together, they were a powerful team, for Acton was his greatest student and a man of remarkable moral courage and erudition. They were both convinced “liberals” – which, in those days, meant that they were opponents of the temporal power (another example would be John Henry Newman, who similarly opposed the temporal power).

Neither had a direct role in Vatican I, but both exercised enormous influence. Acton got himself an apartment in Rome and ran a kind of headquarters of the opposition. He cranked out volumes of essays that agitated against the idea of the political infallibility of the Pope. More importantly, he became the primary conduit of leaks from the Council itself. Those in the Council were under strict obligation, punishable by excommunication, to keep all proceedings quiet. But one way or another, the information did not stay in the Vatican itself, thanks largely to Acton’s own efforts, which were heroic by any standard.

Lord Acton

Dollinger, meanwhile, worked to organize the priests, Bishops, and theologians of Germany in opposition, and his role here was crucially important. He had a greater standing to speak on these issues than any living thinker in the Catholic world. He could move mountains with his words, and he worked to provide the arguments, the history, and theological cases against the temporal power. He stay constantly in touch with Acton and they plotted and worked day and night for two years.

Consider the final result of their efforts. Against their wishes, Vatican I did make a declaration of infallibility but one far more narrow than had been imagined at the outset. This was largely the responsibility of Acton and Dollinger (a fact that was well known to the Pope). But by then, and after years of bureaucratic struggle and difficulty, the lines had become too starkly drawn. It was hard to recognize a victory under these conditions, since the Council had seem to embrace the very thing they had oppose. In the heat of the moment, it might not have seen to be a victory at all, since it was true that the declaration did seem to enhance the power of the papacy. Emotions remained high and there were many scares from battle.

What I find particularly interesting here is how Acton and Dollinger each dealt with the aftermath. Both knew that they were at risk for complete excommunication if they spoke out against what a Church Council had declared. Though Lord Acton was bitter about the result (his victory was invisible; his failure very visible), he chose the quieter route and gradually reconciled himself to what had happened, seeing that he had played a role in preventing something worse. He ended up finally embracing the Council’s results and doing so in good conscience, recognizing that, in the end, the temporal power itself had failed to become part of Church teaching.

Dollinger, however, was not able to settle himself into this state of mind. He had been a giant of the opposition, a moral leader of thousands, and he knew that many looked to him to take the principled stand. He could not finally embrace the new teaching. Maybe it was his principles at work or perhaps it was his high status in intellectual circles, but regardless he chose a different route from Acton: he walked right into the blade. He experienced the deep pain of excommunication, eventually becoming a leading figure in a break-off sect called the Old Catholics.

Now, what is striking here is that Acton and Dollinger did not really disagree with each other. They just handled the reality of compromise in a different way, Between the two, Dollinger is the far more tragic figure. I’ve always imagined that he cried of heartache every night for ten years until his death in 1890, though he never recanted. Acton, meanwhile, moved on to other projects and other issues, avoiding theological polemics completely and becoming a full-time professor. He died in 1892, twelve years after the Council closed. Again, both had made a mighty contribution in their opposition, and one might even say that they were used by the Holy Spirit to guard the Church from error.

Even more striking is that the views of both Acton and Dollinger were essentially no different from what we believe in our times and what Pope Benedict XVI teaches as a settle matter of his papacy. Indeed, the rejection of the temporal power and the embrace of religious liberty is a theme that is repeated more often than any other in his pastoral addresses. Acton and Dollinger were both ahead of their times; Acton had the vision to see this and be wise and stable in his postconciliar strategic decisions; Dollinger did not see this and instead imagined that he would submit to martyrdom even if it means the end of all relations with the Church he loved.

Was Acton’s decision driven by humility or unprincipled compromise? What Dollinger’s decision driven by courage or pride?

On a much less dramatic level, all of us will likely be faced with similar dilemmas in dealing with Church. We can learn from the lives of those who came before. To me, Acton is the model. We must stay focused on the big picture. We must be willing, even, to submit, not matter how humbling it might be. It can be the hardest thing we are ever asked to do, and perhaps this is easy for me to say because as a laymen and an outsider, nothing of this magnitude has ever been asked of me, but I hope if that day comes, I can reflect on the lives of these 19th century figures and how their choices look more than a century later.

The process of the production of the new translation has been sticky, messy, bureaucratic, and even demoralizing to some. It has also produced a Missal that will spark a new chapter in Church history, one that is likely to be characterized by beauty, evangelism, and increasing levels of artistic creativity. It is time for us all to look at the big picture, embrace the translation, put our interests aside, let bygone be bygones, and look to making a contribution to make the future better than the immediate past. That is the best of all possible worlds for which we can hope in this vale of tears.

(Thank you to Arlene Oost-Zinner for comments on the thesis and argument here, and one anonymous commentator as well.)

A friend just wrote look for a copy of Gloria XV, and so I did a quick google and found a post I put up on the New Liturgical Movement back in 2008. I had been writing about how our parish was moving from an English plainchant Gloria to a Latin Gloria, the oldest one known that is now called Gloria XV. This same tune is the one that will appear in the forthcoming new Missal but with English text.

It is strange for me to read the post, which was written days before we implemented the Latin Gloria in our own parish, and I can detect the apprehension in my voice, the sense of worry that this will be rejected in favor of the familiar one that we had been doing. I can’t recall the specifics of how the new Latin Gloria turned out on the first week, but I do recall a sense of total elation about one month later, when it had become clear to all of us that the transition had worked and that the people had really taken to the Latin.

It’s only two and half years later, and the Gloria in Latin with this setting (we don’t use any accompaniment to any singing) is now deeply embedded in the liturgy, a part of the experience of Mass that people look forward to. In fact, I can recall one Sunday when we briefly reverted to English and the sense of annoyance that rose up from the congregation! They had invested themselves in the Latin and wanted to sing it!Why would this music group want to take it away?

Development in liturgical experience is always a process that has to be looked at with a longer range outlook that a single week can provide. Liturgy and ritual take time to become part of our inner expectations and finally part of our longings. It is never really about discreet units of time but rather the cumulative experience of many links in time that come together to become more than the sum of the parts.

This will be good to remember come Advent when the new Missal will be implemented. Many people will want to know immediately: how did it go? Did the people like it? Did the celebrant like it? Did it work as well as what it is replacing?

There will be no stopping these questions but they really are the wrong questions. We should be asking questions such as: how will this new translation come to be part of our lives in the future? In what way will our increasing familiarity with its language aid in our lives of prayer? What other aspects of the liturgy need to be developed in order to provide continuity among all the sounds we hear and all the things we see at Mass? What will it be like to revisit this experience one year from now and what will be the result in how we think of this sacred time and space?

There is a praiseworthy sense in which Catholics are temperamentally resistant to change. And change for the sake of change alone is pointless and unnecessarily disruptive. But change that gets us closer to an ideal, change that leads to a more perfect expression of prayer, is something that we must embrace for the long-term good of our faith and our souls.

As I look back to my 2008 post, I have to slightly laugh at my worries, all of which were for naught. In the same way, I fully expect that we will look back from the year 2013 and wonder what all the anxiety was about in 2011. The new translation will already be part of our lives and part of our ritual expectation every week and every day we go to Mass.

The King’s Speech is a extraordinary movie ostensibly about a stuttering King George VI who overcomes a disability to deliver an important radio address to a nation faced with war. That might sound like the most boring plot ever, but when you consider the broader theme, you can see why this film has penetrated so deeply into the minds and hearts of viewers.

Actually, the film is not really “about” a particular historical case. It is about everyone who has ever found himself or herself thrust into a position that calls on particular talents that he or she does not possess. If you have been there, you know what it is like to stare off into the abyss, that sense that the zone you are about to enter could lead to personal humiliation – which is, in some way, the most terrifying fear that we experience on this earth. To face it requires unusual determination. It calls on work and steadfastness of spirit. It means having to learn new skills and face the difficulties that come with all personal upgrades in life.

If someone has not faced this problem, that person just hasn’t lived long or broadly enough. The time will come. That such a time came for the King of English rivets our minds and imaginations – and brings some measure of comfort too. And his manner in overcoming the problem – seeking help and calling upon every internal resource one can find – is truly an inspiration. No one is born into this world without limitations, and sometimes the greatest thing we can accomplish in this world is achieved not because of our inherent abilities but because we overcame a disability.

There is another similar story like this as found in the body of Gregorian chant. It is the offertory Precatus est Moyses in conspectu Domini Dei sui, which tells of a prayer to God by Moses, who, we will recall, objected to the idea that he could have any real leadership role because he has a stammer. The stammer appears in the chant itself, repeating in music and words the whole line: Precatus est Moyses in conspectu Domini Dei sui et dixit – one of the rare times in all of chant where this happens. Many scholars believe it is to underscore and reveal the stammer that followed him his entire life.

Musicians who sing in parishes at Catholic Mass understand this feeling all too well. Most of us – professionals exempted but not necessarily – have a profound feeling of inadequacy. There is a moment before a chant begins in which the room is completely filled with silence, that most beautiful thing. Our voices must break that silence with a pitch, a pitch we have mostly imagined or perhaps heard on a pipe blown very quietly. Then we must already imagine the intervals we must sing, and we know that if we miss a half step, the entire piece can be blown to bits.

No matter how many times I do this, no matter how well I know the chant, there is that feeling that occurs just as I open my mouth to sing, a feeling of insecurity, a fear that this will be the time when it won’t work and I will fall apart. And at that moment, we fear, it will be obvious to one and all that all we are and all we do is a fraud. And yet we must face up to it and do it, time after time, again and again, and the better job we do at this, the easier it appears to outsiders who can’t even imagine just how tricky, difficult, and angst-inspiring this really is.

Why don’t more people step forward and sing in our choirs? For the same reason the King would rather not have given the speech. For the same reason that Moses would have preferred to remain in the background. For the same reason that most of today’s singers in Gregorian chant choirs sat on the back pew in the parish for years and stayed completely silent. In fact, I would say that this reluctance, this fear, is good and healthy: it shows that the singer is not in it for fame or glory but rather because of an inner sense of a duty to serve and do the right thing.

We all know that there are too many singing groups in parishes today who are there precisely because they enjoy the opportunity to perform. They are using the liturgy for their own purposes. There is a way to change this motivation and turn their egos toward service: give them a real challenge but asking them to sing not pop music but genuine liturgical music that is bound on all sides by the demands of the liturgical text. They will be asked to sing without instruments and sing music of a different sort. This demand will test their devotion to the cause – and one hopes that they will rise to the occasion and feel that sense of caution and awe that chant musicians feel every week.

It is something we are all being challenged to do every week. In some way, actually, the Catholic Church is asking for something truly impossible – impossible in the sense that all miracles are impossible but still realizable. The Church is asking for beautiful, holy, and sacred music to appear at least once every week in every parish in the world. How is this possible? Only by virtue of a widespread acceptance of a mandate, and a widespread overcoming of disability, through hard work and dedication.. We need more people to accept the challenge that Moses accepted, and that the King in the film accepted. Despite our limitations, despite our stammers and fears, we must face the challenge and sing.

Much to my own delight and, to some extent, shock, the reform of the reform has become the most exciting and operative movement in the liturgical world today. After having been in the planning stages for longer than a decade, and even several, the reality has swept upon us with an astounding speed. The most conspicuous sign is the new translation that is to be implemented this coming Advent, but there is even more to it than this. The reform is touching every aspect of the liturgical face of the Roman Rite.

Let me take a step back and explain why this has come as quite the shock and why it represents the fulfillment of something seemingly impossible.

Since the first days of the first liturgical reform, the reaction has been mixed and contentious. Some were happy, some so disgusted that they walked away, some were indifferent, and there was a last group that stuck around but has been very disgruntled. Among those in the last group, there were two warring tribes: those who believed that it was possible to do better within the context of the reformed liturgy and those who saw no choice but to completely revert to the previous release from 1962.

These two sectors of people who saw the profound problems associated with the first reform were seriously at odds. Within Catholic punditry throughout the 1980s and 1990s, it was a complete war zone. You had to choose sides, landing firmly in one camp or another. The split occurred down family lines, and Catholic magazines and institutions had to decide one way or another. Very few in those days had the vision of Benedict XVI, who imagined a peaceful coexistence between the camps, which is the vision embodied in Summorum Pontificum. Such a possibility was just not an option in those days.

For my own part, living in what is now called the ordinary form world, I was pretty sure that the traditionalists were correct, and my judgement was based on personal experience with the way bureaucracies work. For years I had heard arguments about how the reform of the reform should take place. Some imagined the re-institution of the Last Gospel while others say that portion of the liturgy to be completely unneeded. Others surmised that the real problem was just that celebrants were improvising too much; if they would just stick to the books, all would be well. That same time of argument persisted in nearly every aspect of the reform, from the choice of language to the choice of vestments.

Given this situation, I figured that a consensus would never arrive. I imagined a room of liturgists arguing about these finer points and never coming to any kind of agreement. The result would be deadlock and a decision to just keep the current structure and also translation in place as is, simply because the status quo is always the result of bureaucratic deadlock. To my way of thinking, the reform opened the can of worms and they multiplied to the point that no one would ever get them back in again. Hence, the only way forward was the way backward: straight to 1962 as the goal.

I can recall the moment when my thinking began to shift. It was about eight years ago when I first sat down with William Mahrt who asked me a very pointed question. “Is it your view,” he asked, “that Gregorian chant and polyphony can never be restored within the reformed liturgy?” I said, yes that is my view and cited a host of sociological and structural reasons. He paused. Then he said bluntly: I disagree. That got my attention! He proceeded to explain how had had managed to do this in his own parish and how he sings the full propers of the Graduale Romanum with his choir in a regular parish, and how the congregation sings from the Kyriale, and how he also uses full Mass settings in Latin from the Renaissance. And he showed me his repertoire list to prove it.

That one conversation made realize something important. As I had become more “hard core” on issues of liturgical politics, I had become gradually less able to envision opportunities for reform within the reformed liturgy. Maybe I had been making excuses for myself to do nothing? For all the differences in the new rite, it is still the Roman Rite and hence it embeds a sensibility that is crying out to be united with its native music. The relationship had been broken asunder mostly due to cultural convention and convenience; we had a job to do in going forward. I gradually began to see the light here and began the hard work of making some contribution to the effort.

Also, I began to realize something about any long-standing choice with regard to reform: dreaming of some idyllic past can be easily coupled with a casual despair to create a kind of gloss on lethargy. The real hard work comes with embracing a realistic hope and committing time and energy to make it happen.

Apparently much smarter minds than mine had been thinking along the same lines and for a much longer time, and I thank God for this. For in our own time, we are about to experience the biggest upgrade to the reform yet. The new translation is absolutely thorough and pervasive from the first words to Mass to the end. It is dazzling to compare what we’ve lived with for so long with what we are about to experience.

For one thing, if you look through the critiques of the reformed rite of 1969/70 – some profoundly sensible and some unnecessarily vitriolic – you find that a major portion of them deal with the language that is about to be abandoned in favor of a translation that actually reflects the content of the Latin. Whole libraries of criticisms of the Novus Ordo Missae are about to be made defunct with this one action. That’s not to say that there are not remaining problems in the Latin or the forthcoming English Missal. It is only to say that the most dreadful issues of all are on the verge of being eliminated.

About the current translation of the Missal, I’ve long been a critic, some would say bitter critic. But let me say this. There is a way in which the current translation it is brilliant. It likes the active voice. The sentences are short. It eliminates repetition. It speaks very plainly and is always to the point. It is also humane and connected to our lives. This is good writing, excellent writing. It is perfect for novels, newspapers, scripts, and advertising. Would that more people would write this way. However, as a method of liturgy, it doesn’t work. The idea was to make the liturgy more directly communicative; but the approach did not stand the test of time and, in the end, managed only to make the liturgy tedious. It was a brilliant but colossal error.

The adoption of a new framework for language has already given life to a new approach to imaging new and beautiful things within the ritual structure. I’ve received countless notes from directors of music who are planning dramatic changes with the new Missal, starting with the adoption of the Missal chants themselves. The Simple Propers Projects fits in nicely here. Many priests have written with great excitement about how the new Missal will give them a fresh start with their musicians, liturgy teams, and every manner of lay volunteers. In my own parish, many people have given money specially earmarked to make this transition possible.

In short, one way to look at the current moment is that the reformed liturgy is being given another chance to succeed, and this time it is happening at a time when the ritual of 1962 is more pervasive in the lives of Catholics than it has been in 45 years. Traditionalists have always been correct on this point: the Mass of the Ages must be the guiding framework, the bedrock from whence all reform must flow. In liturgy, there is no such thing as starting from scratch. Many people apparently forgot that somewhere along the way.

Thus are we experiencing the reform of the reform even as we are seeing a flourishing of the old rite. The ordinary and extraordinary rites are living side by side in a way that hardly anyone really imagined could happen back in the 1980s. More than that, the ordinary form is on its way to being worthy of being held up as a legitimate expression of the Roman Rite, and recognizable as such to any generation. As to people like myself who doubted that this could ever happen: we should all take note of our onetime lack of faith and observe that glorious things are possible with work and prayer.

I write as a musician, but one who has never had an original melody be generated from within. A song is always on my heart but it is always someone else’s song. I can’t think of a song myself. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work. The patterns of notes and the shape of the sound of something original and new are not part of my internal wiring. I don’t know why. It is just the way it is. All songs that I know already exist.

So I can only marvel at other musicians who think of new phrases, melodies, and while compositions seemingly out of thin air. They hear them in their head, new things that didn’t previously exist, and then they feel this burning passion to put them on paper and give them to the world.

How marvelous is that?

Just as some people have a “sense of direction,” some are good at math and others at reading, some people are drawn to detailed work like accounting and others like to run and jump in a sport, so it is with music. Even great musicians are not necessarily good composers, not matter how much training they . The capacity for conjuring up a melody is something very special. It surely must be some kind of gift from God. I don’t know how else to explain it.

How did Haydn dream up so many fantastic melodies that seem like real objects with three dimensions? Or consider Schubert’s songs, each of which seem to preexist when you hear them, as if the singer is revealing something that has always been there but you only now see. Where did Brahms get the structure of his melodies that he are already developing beyond themselves even after the first notes?

The process surely involves the intellect but not mainly. To dream up a beautiful melody or something as complex as a piece of polyphony and make it real mainly involves what is called the imagination. But it is an imagination of a particular sort, directed toward a particular end.

My father had this gift too. He wrote all kinds of songs, but he had a special passion for hymns. Some ten years after he died I was in a Baptist Church in Texas and the entire congregation sang one of his hymns at the conclusion of a service. Not one person who sang who knew or knew who he was, and hardly anyone even noticed the name of the composer. And yet there was evidence of the mark that my father left on the world, right there in the context of a community’s worship experience. To me, this is a very impressive legacy.

I think too of the thousands of composers of what is now called Gregorian chant. It is nearly always the case that once I get to know a particular chant really well, I find myself marveling at the melody that’s been created and how it is so beautifully crafted to not only serve up the text but also provide additional enhancements.

Look no further than two weeks ago when we sang Omnes qui, in which the high and low jumps seem to me to so beautifully characterize baptismal waters. Or consider the Omnis Terra introit from last Sunday, which offers such a pretty and expansive melody just as we are singing about singing. And two weeks from now, we experience something similar with Bonum est, in which we are offered during offertory the chance to “sing in honor of your name” with a steady stream of high notes that become more elaborate with each phrase.

If we think of music that has “stood the test of time,” these chants are the archetype. They sound as fresh and thrilling more than one thousand years, and perhaps much longer, after they first made an appearance. There is genius behind this. And the genius is not only due to its longevity but also the inspiration that the chant has provided for others. Countless composers in our history have drawn from the art of chant to influence their own creations, and the Church has always encouraged this.

I’m a consumer rather than a producer when it comes to new music, so I’m especially impressed at the floods of composition that seem to be appearing in the sacred music tradition. One wonders if we are in fact entering into a new Renaissance of Catholic composition today.

Jeffrey Ostrowski, a musician in Texas, woke up only last week with a new gloria in his head, one based on the new text that will become part of our liturgical experience beginning in Advent. He thought of this beautiful melody, wrote it up very quickly, and, thanks to technology, was able to post it later that day.

The structure is plainsong, just like Gregorian chant, but the melody is crafted to make the English especially beautiful. But because it avoids a strict metric, it has a floating and prayerful quality to it. It is in a major key but dances around the third of the tonic, and here it also ends with a strong suggestion that there is much more coming during the liturgy.

The responses to his posting were exuberant. “Very well done!” “It’s a smooth, naturally flowing, interesting melody, well suited to the voice, and accompanied by a rich sort of contemporary harmony on the organ – yet it achieves a sense of continuity with the historical treasure of Church music.” “Absolutely beautiful. i just want to listen to it over and over and over.”

The next day, a cathedral musician was giving a workshop to priests and musicians and he made 150 copies of this Gloria and passed it out to everyone. They all sang it together and loved it. The experience of this composition, from the imagination to the singing in workshops, occcurred in less than 24 hours, revealing how the most modern technology has given flight to the most ancient of arts.

And this is only the beginning. Adam Bartlett has an entire book of propers on the way. Richard Rice has composed a Mass setting. Jacob Bancks of Chicago composed a Mass and is giving it away free online. Kevin Allen’s polyphonic music in Latin is being published and distributed at long last. Chabanel Psalms is offered 5 or 6 Psalm options per week for free download.

The new Missal text seems to codify a new seriousness about liturgical life. This means that serious musicians in the Catholic world are being drawn back into applying their gift to making our liturgical life more beautiful. This has been a dream of mine for a very long time, for it is obvious to music historians that most great musicians essentially stopped looking to the Mass as a vessel for their talents sometime in the 1960s. Those who stuck around were burned and burned again by constantly changing texts and fashions. We lost so much in these years.

But these are new times, and technology makes instantaneous sharing with the entire Catholic world a real possibility. The developments in this area are going to be proceeding at a breakneck pace in the years ahead. If we look at the new Missal chants as a foundation and build from them, we can get a fresh start with serious sacred music and look forward to the day when the Catholic Church leads the world in the creation of serious art.

God gives people gifts for a reason and the gift of the talent for composition is one particularly close to my heart, even though I do not possess it, or perhaps especially because I do not possess it. It is a glorious thing to experience the creation of something both new and beautiful, and even more so when that something is offered up as praise to God.

As with the Y2K hysteria of ten years ago, it is easy to find apocalyptic warnings about the dreadful fate that is going to befall the English-speaking Catholic world on November 27, 2011, which is the first Sunday of Advent, the day on which the new Missal with its new English translation will be implemented.

We hear of the “trauma” we will experience, how disastrous splits are going to surround us not only between parishes but within them, how people are going to be even more shocked and stunned by the new translation than they were in 1969 when the entire Missal moved from Latin to English.

But just as with Y2K, I expect no disaster at all. In fact, I believe the opposite. There will be no shock and awe. It will be different but it won’t be startling. It will change us as a people but only gradually over time. In the end, the changes will be dramatic but essentially organic. I’m happy to revisit this column one year from the implementation date to see if these five predictions about the new Missal hold up.

1. Restored Sensus Fidelium. The most disturbing aspect of the translation that has been in place for forty years is the way in which it stripped out subtlety and grandeur from the Latin original. It has the feeling of something gone over by a by-the-book magazine editor working at a popular weekly. The voicing is direct, the shadings are made stark, repetitions are taken out, metaphoric imagery is removed, and the complexity and richness of the text is made simple and necessarily thin.

If the translators didn’t see the point or didn’t understand why the phrase or sentence appeared in Latin – or it seemed to smack too much of the “old Church” – it was generally tossed out or replaced by something common, more familiar, or just new and fashionable. So long as the theme was generally the same, the new version stuck. It became nearly impossible to put the Latin and English side by side and expect anyone to figure out the parallels, and this was true even in the order of Mass itself!

This wouldn’t be a terrible problem if it happened only rarely but this approach became the method by which nearly everything in the Missal was evaluated and re-rendered. It affected the people’s parts profoundly but even more thoroughly in the celebrant’s parts. The net result has been a form of prayer and a perceived content of the faith that has lived a separate existence from the Catechism of the Catholic Church or our history of popular devotions and prayers.

The Mass seemed like a thing apart from the rest of our lives as Catholics. It had a different flavor and tone, a peculiar casualness about its approach and message.

The new translation changes this. It treats the Latin as the text of continuing normative relevance. The result is a text that has more solemnity, seriousness, and dignity, and feels more Catholic in the sense in which people expect.

Compare the first Sunday of Advent preface:

CURRENT: When he humbled himself to come among us as a man, he fulfilled the plan you formed long ago and opened for us the way to salvation. Now we watch for the day, hoping that the salvation promised us will be ours when Christ our Lord will come again in his glory.

FORTHCOMING: For he assumed at his first coming the lowliness of human flesh, and so fulfilled the design you formed long ago, and opened for us the way to eternal salvation, that, when he comes again in glory and majesty and all is at last made manifest, we who watch for that day may inherit the great promise in which now we dare to hope.

The second is incomparably more evocative of the idea of Advent, complete with information missing from the first: the lowliness of flesh; the eternity of salvation; the glory and majesty of the coming; the inheritance of the promise; the dare of our hope. It has so much more color and drama!

The point is further illustrated in this preface for the first Sunday of Lent on The Temptation of the Lord:

CURRENT: His fast of forty days makes this a holy season of self-denial. By rejecting the devil’s temptations he has taught us to rid ourselves of the hidden corruption of evil, and so to share his paschal meal in purity of heart, until we come to its fulfillment in the promised land of heaven. .

FORTHCOMING: By abstaining forty long days from earthly food, he consecrated through his fast the pattern of our Lenten observance, and by overturning all the snares of the ancient serpent, taught us to cast out the leaven of malice, so that, celebrating worthily the Paschal Mystery, we might pass over at last to the eternal paschal feast.

So from the forthcoming text, we see the relationship of Christ’s fast to our own, the parallel of the devil in the desert and the devil in the garden, the rejecting of sin and the need for our own repentance, and the final relationship between Christ’s resurrection and our own eternal life of which the season of Easter serves as a metaphor. The first first flattens out all this and renders it at all plainly and unimaginatively as possible. Thus can we see how the new translation might even help restore unfashionable ideas like fasting during Lent!

2. A Push for Sacred Music. Of course the music of the Mass is the elephant in the living room, but at last some people are starting to talk about it. ICEL is emphasizing the propers of the Mass over random hymns that now dominate the liturgy. This is a very important, practical step toward fulfilling the hope for Gregorian chant to have pride of place in the Roman Rite.

The Missal itself contains a tremendous number of chants that are beautifully written and easy to sing, even without any instruments. My impression is that there is far more music, and that this music is more integral to the liturgical text itself. It contains the music and the Latin for Vidi aquam, Crux Fidelis for Good Friday, Ubi Caritas for Holy Thursday, and Gloria laus for Palm Sunday.

The beauty and dignity of the Mass text alone is going to create a better environment for chant and the music of the Roman Rite. More than any other change, this is the one that will lead to a general settling down at Mass so that the liturgy will be more prayerful and reflective, a time when time itself ceases and we are better able to contemplate and see into eternity. It is a fact that music makes a much larger contribution to the orientation of our mind and heart than is generally supposed.

And let us never forget that the Missal alone is not enough to provide music for the Roman Rite, though the excellent offerings in here might tempt us to think so. The sprinkling rite chant outside Paschal time, the Latin ordinary chants, and all the propers of the Mass in Gregorian chant – which must have first place at Mass – are all found in the Graduale Romanum or its English-language offshoots. These are also liturgical books of the Roman Rite, and this new Missal will provide new impetus to revisit them or discover them for the first time. 

3. The End of the Liturgy Wars. Everyone knows about the wrangling and argument and contention of the last decades, an environment in which all sides squared off in bitter dispute about the environment of worship. The new Missal settles many of these disputes, not by declaring one side victorious but by reminding everyone of the real point behind our gathering for Mass in the first place. It is not about us. Once we decrease, he can increase, and in that increase we will find a new peace in our communities through the grace of the sacrament.

Indeed, the decades of wrangling have an underlying cause, which has been the attempt to push the Mass into being something that it really cannot be, which is nothing more than an uplifting gathering of like-minded friends with a unified theme. A translation that highlights the majesty and presence of of God brings the liturgy closer to its true personality and purpose, and in this we will find a new way of understanding the faith and the reason for our gathering in the first place.

4. New Decorum. The casualness of the Missal text and its studied attempt at plain speaking had many spillover effects, one of which has been to encourage a sort of sloppiness in the way we all comport ourselves at and during the liturgy. The seriousness that has been missing can more easily reassert itself in the context of a liturgical text that itself is more elevated and oriented toward heavenly things.

A new sense of dignity and decorum will come more easily to us when we cut the plain-talking ways and speak and listen to words that are not like any words we use in conversation. I fully expect that the new Missal will give impetus to other related reforms such as an altar orientation toward the East, kneeling for communion, and better and more dignified vestments and furnishings.

5. A Hinge of History. I’ve had several people point out to me the similarities in language between the new Missal and the transitional Missal of 1965. Much of the music that came out immediately following the Council – English plainchant – is now making a comeback. More and more people are looking back to the Second Vatican Council to discover what is that the Council meant to do and compare that to what actually happened from the late sixties onward.

I’ve joked that sometimes it seems like the whole of Catholic liturgical history has done as giant leap from 1965 to 2011 and it remains somewhat foggy and unclear what happened in the intervening years. At last, and after much suffering and pain, we seem to be on the right track again. We might find that our parishes will fill up again, our seminaries will have new vocations, and popular devotions will return as part of Catholic life. All of this will get a huge push forward with the new Missal. This is the year, the year that in 100 years people will look back and say: this was the turning point.

None of this will be obvious on November 27, but it will become more and more clear as time goes on. And for that we must be supremely grateful to all those who prayers and hard work have brought us to this point where the light of the faith as expressed through the liturgy is appearing before us in our time.