Chant Café

I just ran across an amazing description of a Russian Orthodox All Night Vigil that was undertaken, in its entirety, in 1911. Apparently, the All Night Vigil is usually truncated to some extent, but this particular celebration was organized specifically as an attempt to undertake the complete liturgy.

Much of the musical detail described is opaque to me, but what I was really struck by was the passion that the organizers had for the celebration, and the effect the liturgy had on its participants. A few examples:

On the following day, the majority of those who participated in the service described themselves as almost intoxicated all throughout the all-night vigil. No one mentioned having been tired.

One student, a lover of sleep, left the church several times, undressed and lay down on his bed, but, unable to fall asleep because he knew that a few steps away such an original, unheard of service was taking place, he returned to the church.

And my favorite:

The two leaders of the service, who can recite by memory the entire second chapter of the Typicon, after the vigil service lost their minds

There’s even a short discourse on the nature of Psalm-singing that touches on themes mentioned in my recent essay on the mediant pause.

Read the full description of a “real” All Night Vigil.

The Holy Father received the members of ICEL in audience at noon today. Here is the official translation of his remarks.

My Brother Bishops,
Dear Friends, 

I welcome the members and staff of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy as you gather in Rome to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Commission’s establishment. I thank Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and a former President of ICEL, for presenting you. Through you, I send greetings and the expression of my gratitude to the Conferences of Bishops which you represent, and to the consultors and personnel who cooperate in the ongoing work of the Commission. 

Founded as part of the implementation of the great liturgical renewal called for by the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Divine Liturgy, ICEL was also one of the signs of the spirit of episcopal collegiality which found expression in the Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (cf. Lumen Gentium, 22-25). The present anniversary is an occasion for giving thanks for the work which the Commission has accomplished over the past fifty years in providing English translations of the texts of the liturgy, but also in advancing the study, understanding and appropriation of the Church’s rich sacramental and euchological tradition. The work of the Commission has also contributed significantly to that conscious, active and devout participation called for by the Council, a participation which, as Pope Benedict XVI has rightly reminded us, needs to be understood ever more deeply “on the basis of a greater awareness of the mystery being celebrated and its relation to daily life” (Sacramentum Caritatis, 52). The fruits of your labours have not only helped to form the prayer of countless Catholics, but have also contributed to the understanding of the faith, the exercise of the common priesthood and the renewal of the Church’s missionary outreach, all themes central to the teaching of the Council. Indeed, as Blessed John Paul II pointed out, “for many people, the message of the Second Vatican Council was perceived principally through the liturgical reform” (Vicesimus quintus annus, 12). 

Dear friends, last evening you celebrated a solemn Mass of thanksgiving at the tomb of Saint Peter, beneath the great inscription which reads: Hinc una fides mundo refulget; hinc unitas sacerdotii exoritur. By enabling the vast numbers of the Catholic faithful throughout the world to pray in a common language, your Commission has helped to foster the Church’s unity in faith and sacramental communion. That unity and communion, which has its origin in the Blessed Trinity, is one which constantly reconciles and enhances the richness of diversity. May your continuing efforts help to realize ever more fully the hope expressed by Pope Paul VI in promulgating the Roman Missal: that “in the great diversity of languages, a single prayer will rise as an acceptable offering to our Father in heaven, through our high priest Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit”. 

To you, and to all associated with the work of the Commission, I cordially impart my Apostolic Blessing as a pledge of abiding joy and peace in the Lord.

In his essay “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” T.S. Eliot separates the wheat from the chaff, the great work of art from the lesser.

…No poet, no artist of any art, has his complete meaning alone. His significance, his appreciation is the appreciation of his relation to the dead poets and artists. You cannot value him alone; you must set him, for contrast and comparison, among the dead. I mean this as a principle of æsthetic, not merely historical, criticism. The necessity that he shall conform, that he shall cohere, is not one-sided; what happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it. The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them…

… If you compare several representative passages of the greatest poetry you see how great is the variety of types of combination, and also how completely any semi-ethical criterion of “sublimity” misses the mark. For it is not the “greatness,” the intensity, of the emotions, the components, but the intensity of the artistic process, the pressure, so to speak, under which the fusion takes place, that counts…

Much more here.

Subscribers to Sacred Music can look forward to the publication of more papers from this week’s conference in Saint Paul.  Here’s a brief snippet of the excellent addresses delivered at the conference.

Those interested in a keynote by Dom Alcuin Reid can also view it here.

 

Which low-paying job would you prefer?

We would really love to have your talents and experience here, but we’re such a small parish and can’t afford to pay you anything close to what you’re worth. We’ve talked about it, and we can stretch to paying you $175 a week- and of course weddings and funerals and Holy Days would all be extra on top of that- if you’re available of course. We know it isn’t much- but we promise to support your vision for this ministry, and to try not to create too many hassles for you. We’re hoping, since you have a day job already, that you’ll be able to take this on and make it work for you and your family.

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The comittee talked about it, and you play the organ pretty well, so we want to hire you for the job. Since you only really have to work on Sunday, we’re sure that $200 a week is a very generous offer- especially since you already have a full time job and, anyway, you can earn extra money at weddings and funerals.

And for those of you out there (who probably don’t read Chant Cafe anyway) who still think that liturgical praxis isn’t a big deal as long as we’re all (you know) nice to each other and everything (or – to describe that position more charitably – think that ritualism isn’t important and that only “relationship” matters):

Have you ever thought about the connection between how we approach liturgy and how we treat each other in our relationships?

Compare the “least we can get away with” to the “most we can manage” intentionality in liturgy. A tin cup chalice and a tiny scrap of bread can become a beautiful sacrifice of praise in a prison or concentration camp. In an average American parish, the same would be downright insulting.

And we learn from our experience in liturgy, I believe, how to exist in the world. We also learn, even more clearly, how to relate to God.

I don’t know whether this minimalist liturgical legalism is primarily a product of rationalist modernism, or primarily a contributor to it, but it seems to have been going on for quite some time and finds its logical conclusion in a particularly cold version of Protestant fundamentalist puritanism that asks only, “what must a person do to be saved?” and never “what is my response to that salvation.” But it isn’t a “Protestant” phenomenon- it’s a human one, and the difference between “what’s the bare minimum needed for a sacrament to be effective?” and “what’s the bare minimum needed to escape eternal damnation?” and “what’s the bare minimum needed to retain an employee and get them to do what I want?” is a matter of context, not of essence. They are all completely inappropriate questions, and they reveal a completely perverted understanding of our relationship to God and to each other.

Or, as a friend of mine put it:

A fantastic series on National Public Radio called “Ecstatic Voices” is exploring religious music in a variety of traditions and (sometimes unusual) contexts. Today’s story was about folk hymnody in rural Appalachia, and previous installments included singing nuns and atheists performing Palestrina.

Check out the series here.