Catholic musicians gathered to blog about liturgy and life
Usually it’s that other blog that provides amazing liturgical eye-candy, but in case some of our readers might enjoy seeing the new Ordinariate Use in action, here is a link to some stunning photos of last night’s inaugural Liturgy in honor of Blessed Cardinal Newman at Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London.
Bishop Conley published an essay today, very similar to a talk he recently gave, promoting Beauty as the most immediately useful among our means of evangelization.
God still speaks to these individuals in the language of truth and goodness. But their understanding is blocked by popular misconceptions—especially the idea that truth and goodness are purely subjective, and thus relative to the individual or group. “To each his own” or “who’s to say.” What Pope Benedict called the “dictatorship of relativism.”
Fr. Robert Barron, the Rector of Saint Mary of the Lake Seminary in Chicago, a theologian and great communicator of the faith, has lately taught that in the New Evangelization we must “lead with beauty.” Fr. Barron says that postmodern man might scoff at truth and goodness, but he’s still enthralled with beauty. He says that beauty is the arrowhead of evangelization, the point with which the evangelist pierces the minds and hearts of those he evangelizes.
To say with the poet, “look up, look up at the stars” is to point to creation or even to an artistic achievement, invites the nonbeliever first to appreciate what is and then to consider the origin of that which is.
In a cultural environment bereft of wonder, beauty takes on an even greater importance than it would otherwise have. Something in the experience of beauty is almost undeniable, even for the person who rejects the idea of objective truth or goodness. Beauty can get through, where other forms of divine communication may not.
Bishop Conley quotes a relatively unknown Hopkins poem above, The Starlight Night, worth considering below in its entirety. I think that as artists we all know that beauty costs. Pope John Paul said as much in his Letter to Artists. In this poem, beauty is the reward. Both are true for us, and the urgency is there on behalf of the many.
(Update)
WORCESTER The Rev. Donat Lamothe said he doesn’t like much of the music that’s being produced today, but those who disagree with the Roman Catholic priest might want to think twice before picking an argument with him.
After all, he’s spent much of his 50 years at Assumption College teaching undergraduates the beauty and intricacies of the art form.
“I respect the right of people to embrace whatever music appeals to them,” said Rev. Lamothe, a member of the Augustinians of the Assumption, the order that foundedAssumption College. “But much of today’s music is not refined and it has no structure. It’s just loud.”
Given his classical training, it’s no surprise that Rev. Lamothe’s musical preferences trends toward pieces from the Renaissance or Middle Ages, or from the Baroque era whose dramatic and sometimes strained style dominated Europe from the early 17th to mid-18th centuries.
“I really enjoy Gregorian chant and other forms of sacred music,” said the clergyman.
Rev. Lamothe has been a presence on the Assumption campus for five decades.
At 78 years old, the New Hampshire native is in good health.
However, he has decided to cut back on his faculty chores and is now teaching part-time. Students can still draw from his vast knowledge by enrolling in the basic History of Music course.
College officials said they couldn’t recall anyone with longer faculty longevity.
“I love what I do but it’s time to cut back,” said Rev. Lamothe in an interview in his office in Founders Hall, which features a harpsichord that he had built many years ago.
Rev. Lamothe began his music studies as a child taking piano lessons.
He greatly admired his uncle, the Rev. Francis R. Lamothe, a diocesan priest in Manchester, N.H. At the age of 6 or 7, he considered following “Uncle Rudy” into the priesthood, so his parents sent him to Worcester to study at Assumption Preparatory School.
After two years at the school, he entered the the Augustinian novitiate, making his first profession of religious vows in 1956.
He was ordained a priest in April 1962 in Lyons, France, and began teaching philosophy at Assumption College in 1963.
Over the course of his studies, Rev. Lamothe amassed a number of degrees, including a licentiate in philosophy from the University of Ottawa in Canada, a master’s degree in theology from St. John’s University in Minnesota, a master’s degree in musicology from Boston University, and doctorate in musicology from the University of Strasbourg in France.
He has taught music, philosophy and Bible studies at Assumption.
In 1965, Rev. Lamothe, who has mastered the piano, the harpsichord, the recorder, the lute, and the viola, founded and served as music director of the former Salisbury Consort of Early Music, a semi-professional ensemble that utilized instruments from the Medieval and Renaissance periods.
In 1997, he became the director of the Assumption Schola Gregorian, a group of singers who perform the Gregorian chant tradition at various events.
Rev. Lamothe is also the college’s archivist and was given the Presidential Award for Excellence in Contribution to the Mission of Assumption College.
In 1997, after studying for some time with a Russian immigrant, Rev. Lamothe, an Assumption College alumnus, began painting the religious icons of the Eastern Orthodox churches.
“Music and iconography are prayer, and I love them both,” he said.
Marcel Peres’ ensemble is always showing us the relationship between the Byzantine and the Roman – something that both sides of that equation would often prefer to forget. While we modern interpreters of chant, following in the Solesmes’ tradition, flow and float through the Salve Regina, here’s a very different take. Is it “more correct,” more “historically accurate”? I’ll just stick with “different.” However, we should always remember that all our researches and reconstructions are only that – research and reconstruction. The music has a life of its own.
Join the CMAA in Surprise, Arizona this coming January for a special, two-day edition of the famed Chant Intensive. Making a bit of a detour from our usual offering for beginning to intermediate chanters, this year’s intensive includes two separate tracks for intermediate to advanced chanters who are interested in furthering their studies of the Gregorian modes or developing their skills conducting chant.
Registration will be open by the end of this week. Read more here.
In a talk that is destined to be a historic turning-point in discussions on the New Evangelization, Bishop Conley’s recent address (is a video forthcoming?) pointed a laser-beam at the most indisputable of the transcendentals: beauty.
Unlike the other transcendentals–being, truth, goodness, and unity–beauty is almost inarguable. Everyone believes in beauty.
That is to say, everyone except the 20th century art world believes in beauty, as Roger Scruton argues below in a piercing 2011 documentary. As a warning, there are examples of obscene modern art in this video, and they may–and frankly should be–offensive.
One of the reasons Bishop Conley’s address is so refreshing is the near-absence of beauty in most discussions on the New Evangelization. The working document for the Synod on the New Evangelization, for example, spoke of beauty in one very limited and quite underdeveloped paragraph, which neglected the vast heritage of Western liturgical art and pointed towards the East. It spoke of music not at all.
Some responses refer to the subjects of art and beauty as places for the transmission of the faith and, therefore, are to be addressed in this chapter dedicated to the relationship between faith and knowledge. Many possible reasons are given to support this request, especially those coming from the Eastern Catholic Churches who have a strong tradition in this area. They have been able to maintain a very close relation between faith and beauty. In these traditions, the relation between faith and beauty is not simply a matter of aesthetics, but is rather seen as a fundamental resource in bearing witness to the faith and developing a knowledge which is truly a “holistic” service to a person’s every human need.
The knowledge coming from beauty, as in the liturgy, is able to take on a visible reality in its originally-intended role as a manifestation of the universal communion to which humanity and every person is called by God. Therefore, human knowledge needs again to be wedded to divine knowledge, in other words, human knowledge is to adopt the same outlook which God the Father has towards creation and, through the Holy Spirit and the Son, to see God the Father in creation.
This fundamental role of beauty urgently needs to be restored in Christianity. In this regard, the new evangelization has an important role to play. The Church recognizes that human beings cannot exist without beauty. For Christians, beauty is found within the Paschal Mystery, in the transparency of the reality of Christ. (para. 157)
Since the goal of Christian life is gazing on the face of God, beauty is of the utmost urgency. The beautiful is an icon of God. It is above us, elevating us. It cannot be subsumed to our whims of the moment. And as Bishop Conley penetratingly explains, beauty can be accepted even by those who have been made immune to God under any other aspect, including truth.
