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As a parish Director of Music, one of the downsides at times was the feeling that I was too “actively participating” in the Mass, I found it difficult to enter into the Mass in that quiet, meditative way that is possible when one is not concentrating on various responsibilities, or serving others.

Particularly for musicians, the creativity of the profession can overtake every attempt to meditate. If I found a Psalm in the Office for Holy Week particularly meaningful, for example, I would quickly jump to an idea about how to incorporate a motet on the Psalm into next year’s Lenten programming. Such examples of the distractions of “good ideas” could be multiplied, particularly with all the details of the complex liturgies of Holy Week.

I would like to offer a few suggestions for profitably praying through Holy Week while working.

• Take time out for personal prayer, preferably in a different church, when it is quiet. 
• Keep a notebook handy, and when distractions almost inevitably come, write them down. Let the notebook “remember” to rehearse that difficult passage with the tenors, or what have you, while you gently recall yourself to your prayer.
• Pray for the people in the choir and for your congregation, and for your clergy.
• Use postures of prayer to involve your body in a wholistic way before God.
• Consider letting one of your choir members lead prayers before rehearsals and liturgies, letting you off the hook and giving yourself a chance to respond for once, rather than leading.
• Go to confession this weekend.
• Ask the saints to help you to pray. The Pope Emeritus said in one of his books that when he starts to pray, he asks Sts. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventure to help him, because “they are friends of mine.” The saints who are particular friends are ready and waiting to help, and we can rely on their good will.
• Do a non-musical good deed for someone early in the week.

Two wonderful Dominican Fathers and musicians, Rev. Innocent Smith, OP and Rev. Vincent Ferrer Bagan, OP, are conducting a Chant Workshop this June in New York State.

—Instruction in singing, teaching, and directing Gregorian chant
 —Daily Sung Mass and Divine Office in the Main House Chapel
—Communal meals and accomodation in the beautiful Wethersfield House
—Full tuition scholarship for each student; $150.00 fee for Room and Board

Details and photos of the beautiful Wethersfield Estate, the Institute where the Workshop will be held, may be found here.

Both of the teaching friars were accomplished musicians before entering religious life, and have contributed greatly to the liturgical life of the Church and their Order through composition, musicianship, and editorial work. I am so pleased to see that they are now offering to share their expertise in this way!

For more information, please send an email to info@hlfoundation.org

Preliminary design by Els Decker

Most of us agree that the training of future singers is of paramount importance for the continued revival of fine sacred music. The Ward Method is a proven system for developing young voices to sing with understanding and a beautiful tone.

For those looking for a sturdy, manly hymn in honor of St. Joseph, Jeffrey Wisniewski and I would like to offer the following for any good purpose this year.

Mr. Wisniewski’s fine original tune and setting may be found here, or the text may be sung to ST. ANNE (O God, Our Help in Ages Past).

Some of the verses are specific to the original congregation, seminarians at Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, and to the life of the priesthood.

Please feel free to sing as desired in your home schools and parishes.

When all is said and done, what are the major unresolved issues from the four major constitutions of Vatican II, and what are we as a Church facing now that stems from those issues?  In our last episode in this series on Vatican II, we explore all of this and more.

http://www.princeofpeacetaylors.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/07-Fifty-One-Years-after-the-Council.mp3    

We hope you have enjoyed all of these episodes and it has spurred on great dialogue and a desire to learn more!

On Sunday, March 5, to mark the 50th anniversary of the Church’s Instruction on Music in the Liturgy Musicam sacram, over 200 musicians, pastors, and scholars published a declaration under the title “Cantate Domino canticum novum”.

The statement recalls the Second Vatican Council’s teaching which describes sacred music as “a treasure of inestimable value”, and it speaks of elements in common practice “that contribute to the present deplorable situation of sacred music and of the liturgy.”

We, the undersigned—musicians, pastors, teachers, scholars, and lovers of sacred music—humbly offer to the Catholic community around the world this statement, expressing our great love for the Church’s treasury of sacred music and our deep concerns about its current plight.

The statement calls on the Church to (1) reaffirm the musical heritage of the Roman rite: Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony; (2) give children an exposure to the beauty of true musical art; (3) promote the professional training of lay church musicians; (4) insist on high standards for music in cathedrals and basilicas; (5) encourage every parish to offer at least one fully sung Mass every Sunday; (6) provide musical training for the clergy, to enable them to sing their part of the liturgy; and (7) educate liturgists in the musical tradition of the Church.

These recommendations, along with a discussion of widespread failings in musical practice, are fleshed out in the full document, which is available here. Versions in five other languages and a list of the signatories can be reached through the coverage at our sister site New Liturgical Movement.

…if we can call things of the past fifty years recent, which, on the scale of the Church’s existence, they are.

A conference,  entitled “Music and the Church: cult and culture fifty years after Musicam sacram” was
organized by the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture.

“The encounter with modernity and the introduction of [vernacular] tongues into the Liturgy stirred up many problems: of musical languages, forms and genres….We need to promote proper musical education, especially for those who are preparing to become priests – in dialogue with the musical trends of our time, with the demands of the different cultural areas, and with an ecumenical attitude.”

(From his mouth to God’s ear, and the ears of bishops and rectors of seminaries.) 

A common topic of discussion in the most progressive* liturgical music circles is how greater emphasis on an “ecumenical” use of hymnody could have spared, at least those of us in the English-speaking world, from much ugliness and banality inflicted in the name of “getting the people to sing,” no?

(Side note: this is the first time I’ve ever read the phrase “liturgical animators” except as a quotation from older, past-their-sell-by-date sources.)

* I mean, of course, the authentically progressive.