Category: Jeffrey Tucker

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.