Chant Café

See this remarkable website here.

While God “speaks to our souls through intellectual truth and moral goodness” in addition to beauty, “these forms of communication have become problematic. Many people, especially in modern Western culture, are too intellectually and morally confused to receive such a message.” 

Because of this confusion, beauty may be the transcendental which “can get through, where other forms of divine communication may not,” the bishop taught.

“When we begin with beauty, this can then lead to a desire to want to know the truth of the thing that is drawing us, a desire to participate in it. And then the truth can inspire us to do the good, to strive after virtue.” 

Bishop Conley said that “clearly, beauty has a major role to play in the New Evangelization” and enumerated three ways in which this can be done: through liturgy; appreciation of historic Christian culture; and openness to beauty in all its forms. 

He called beauty in liturgy the “most essential” point, noting that “worship … is the basis of Christian culture” and pointing to examples of great converts who were struck by the solemn rites and extraordinary chants of the Catholic Church. 

The bishop’s second recommendation was to become familiar with the beauty of historic Christian culture, such as Gregorian chant, in order to help others who appreciate it to understand the Christian beauty that inspired it.  

Finally, he invited Catholics to “open our own minds to beauty, in all its manifestations” in both nature and culture, which will help us to understand beauty as “an earthly reflection of God’s glory.” more here from CNA

On the Feast of Blessed Cardinal Newman, October 9, the Westminster Cathedral Choir’s Vespers will be broadcast live by BBC Radio.

I’ve been pondering writing an essay or series on the linkages between theatre and liturgy, looking particularly at Peter Brook’s conceptions of “Deadly Theatre” and how that relates to what I consider an analogous “Deadly Liturgy.” As of yet, I have not had time to properly organize my thoughts on the matter, or go back re-read Brook’s early theoretical writing, which had a profound influence on my own theatrical work (back when I did that sort of thing) and my later liturgical philosophy.

(I’m all too aware, of course, that even mentioning a link between theatre and liturgy sets off all sorts of bizarre and shallow mental associations in most people. This has to do in equal parts with serious misconceptions about the nature of theatre and with the hi-jacking of liturgy that has perverted its theatricality towards either entertainment or agit-prop, neither of which has anything to do with what I’d like to say on the matter. I only mention this because I would prefer not to get jumped all over by conventionally-liberal commenters who think I agree with them or conventionally-traditionalist commenters who think I do not.)

Anywho…

I say all that as prelude to an interesting story from the Institute for Theology, Imagination, and the Arts at the University of St. Andrews.

A post on their Innovations Blog is the first in a three-part series looking at two Polish theatre companies from the 20th Century- The Laboratory Theatre of Grotowski (a philosophical forerunner of my own hero, Peter Brook) and The Rhapsodic Theatre, a word-oriented company founded by (among others) Karol Wojtyła. Yes, that Karol Wojtyła- the future Pope John Paul II.

I’m not sure where the series is going, or if the essayists conclusions will be sensible or not (fair warning), but it certainly makes interesting reading so far.

In 1941, 21-year-old Karol Wojtyła (later known as Pope John Paul II) joined director Mieczysław Kotlarczyk and a group of other young actors in the foundation of the Rhapsodic Theatre, an underground theatre company which engaged in ‘cultural resistance’ against the Nazis.

This company, also known by its theoretical stance as the ‘Theatre of the Word’, was committed to a theatrical style that emphasized the text, spoken aloud with dignity and clarity, and contained a minimum of stage movement or spectacle. This emphasis on the text rather than visuals was partly a product of the Rhapsodic’s underground existence – if their productions, held in private homes, had been discovered, all the participants could have been executed on the spot. However, the Rhapsodists continued their emphasis on the spoken word even when they became a professional theatre in Kraków after the war. For the Rhapsodists, the word was preeminent, because the Word was the beginning and end of human existence.

Read the full post here.

I view the office hymns not only as devotional but as theological sources. This is not my own romantic idea but a theological method that St. Thomas Aquinas used in his works.

This is one of several reasons why the hymns we sing at Mass must not only be theologically sound, but theologically compelling. The hymns at Mass should not only not-weaken and not-threaten faith; singing hymns should be occasions for expressing faith and growing in faith.

I’m not exactly sure why this needs to be said, but it does.

In this hymn In caelesti collegio for the feast of St. Francis, October 4, the theological emphasis is on St. Francis’ likeness to Christ as stamped on his very person, in the gift of the stigmata. Thus being conformed to Christ, he has a special grace of association with each group of saints. Francis belongs with the apostles, the martyrs, the confessors, and the virgins. Christ is the exemplar of all of these choirs of saints, and since Francis is conformed to Him, he belongs, with Him, with them.