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Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Just the facts, Signora.

I’m living for awhile in the Eternal City for studies, and spent some time wandering the city center today. I’ve come up with one single conclusion:

Rome is a city of facts.

Love or hate the churches and empire and buildings and streets and culture, you can’t escape the settled facts of the place. Rome so abounds with ancient things that every vista mirrors back its own longevity and one’s own impermanence. There’s a corner nearby: look down one direction, and there is the Forum. Look down another direction, and there’s the Colosseum. The things one meets at eye-level, the first-floor commonplaces of every city, are ephemeral and passing: the graffiti and the shops, and even the scooters. But look up, or over, or down aways, and you will see many, many things that have been and will be for centuries.

Of course, it’s not military or economic empire that makes Rome Rome for us as Catholics. It is our center because of the blood of Sts. Peter and Paul, those prime apostles and eyewitnesses to the Resurrected Crucified One, as these office hymns show.

St. Peter, downward crucified—
To honor God in how he died—
Securely tied, he sees unfold
The death his Shepherd once foretold.

On such foundations Rome may claim
The highest service of God’s name.
His noble blood has dignified
The city where this prophet died.

Let all the world, then, run to Rome.
Let families of nations come!
The head of nations teaches there
Beside the nations’ teacher’s chair. (from Apostolorum Passio)

The heavens’ porter, and earth’s sage,
The world’s bright lights who judge the age.
One wins by cross, and one by sword,
And life on high is their reward.

These are your princes, happy Rome!
Their precious blood clothes you, their home.
We praise not you, but praise their worth,
Beyond all beauty of the earth. (From Aurea Luce)

Musically, our facts are similarly ineluctable. Gregorian chant simply is. It has been here before you and me, and it will perdure, not only because of its history–which for us as Catholics is not a negligible matter–but particularly because of its suitability as a musical language of cantillation. Flexible, multiform, and gentle, it accompanies the scriptural words of prayer in a way that is sensitive to the words, as the kind of immovable facts they are: eternal, living, and effective.

Posted on by Adam Wood

Liturgical solemnity opposed to ministry to the poor?

This is from the conclusion of an essay I wrote a couple years ago for PrayTell Blog. Given some of the current confusion about how the priorities of Francis are somehow opposed to the reforms of Benedict, it seems apt to restate here.

Sometimes I worry that we all get a bit too wrapped up in these [liturgical] issues – issues which seem, from what I can read, to have been fairly unimportant to the Teacher from Nazareth. He cared about feeding the poor, clothing the naked, caring for orphans – not about translations or modes or altar placement or any of the rest of the things that liturgists and musicians are into. How can we, in good conscience, spend our time obsessing over these external elements?

I think a certain amount of obsession, by those who are called to it, is actually quite worthwhile. It is in the public liturgy of the Church that we come to understand the love of Christ which we are called to emulate. It is in the sacrifice of the Mass, dwelling in the sacrifice of Jesus, that we hear our calling to sacrifice ourselves. Recognizing Christ in the Eucharist, recognizing Christ in the assembled family of believers, gives us the eyes to recognize Christ in His “disturbing disguises” out in the world. We know how to clothe the naked because our God has clothed us in the garment of Baptism; we know how to feed the hungry because our God has fed us with his very body; we know how to comfort the dying because Our Lord has died in our midst; we know how to visit the imprisoned because God has visited us in the prison of our sin; we know how to care for orphans because our God has given us a spirit of adoption.

Posted on by Revd Fr Christopher Smith

Does the New Liturgical Movement Fit in the Reform?

I have avoided falling into the trap of writing an article about What did Pope Francis Really Say?  That doesn’t mean that I haven’t read article after article trying to propose the authentic interpretation of the Holy Father’s words or his intentions.  In these pages I have always argued against a papal maximalism based on a new ultramontanism, even as I often wrote glowingly of Pope Benedict’s liturgical theology.  I focused on that theology, not because the man who wrote them was the Bishop of Rome, but because there is something perennially valid, relevant and beautiful in his writings.  The New Liturgical Movement will continue, regardless of who occupies the Throne of the Fisherman.  Having a Pope who understood the Movement, and was a mighty contributor to it, was a great boon, and we are all the better for it.  Now is the time to boldly proclaim and work for that vision, not because a Pope likes it, but because it is beautiful!

It is an interesting time for us to be working towards that vision within the Church.  There are calls for Reform on every side, and I must say that this increasing clamor for it leaves me cold.  I have on the same bookshelf books by Kung, Lefebvre and Weigel, people who arguably would not want to have been associated with each other, but who for me represent human attempts to diagnose problems and come up with solutions.  Lots of people are putting their hope in Pope Francis and Co. to reform the Church according to the way they think the Church should be run.  They assure us that if these structural reforms are carried out, the Church would look a lot more like Jesus, and that would be a good thing.

Of course, nobody who is actually involved in these discussions cares one jot or tittle what a parish priest from Carolina has to say about the subject, but I keep coming back to the same thought: Shouldn’t we start from Jesus, and then these things would take care of themselves?  If as individuals and as a Church we came alive in Christ in holiness, then it seems to me that the support structure of the Church’s work would be renewed by that very fact.  To do it the other way around seems to be putting the cart before the horse.  But then again, that is all above my paygrade.

There is a lot of optimism that Church reform would be successful if just X, Y, or Z happened.  There are loud voices that assure us that if the Church had a more democratic operating system, then all would be well.  But as I look at what is happening in the American Republic today, I have few reasons to hope that will go well.  People seem to think that the Church either has to be a totalitarian dictatorship swathed in the trappings of monarchy or a well-oiled business-like representative democracy.  Political categories seem to be driving the discussion.  But theology teaches us that the Church is unlike any other kind of organization.  She is a communion, and so the way she looks, functions and governs is entirely different than any other kind of model.  Shoehorning reform proposals into political categories risks forgetting that it is not democracy or monarchy that shape the Church, but communion.  And that does not look like any political model.

There is a lot of talk against clericalism, careerism and triumphalism, but there are as many conceptions of what all that means as there are people who assure us that they are all evils.  There is a lot of talk about people who are reactionaries, nostalgic and Pelagians, but these are fast becoming convenient labels people are using against their adversaries, no matter what they actually believe.

And then there is a lot of talk about externals.  What should the Church look like?  There is an obsessive concern with the image of the Body of Christ.  If we do X, Y, and Z, then maybe people will view the Church in a different light.  And so yet again Catholics become divided over what we should look like.  Laypeople and clerics who are usually mild-mannered, law-abiding citizens of Church and State see a picture of a cardinal in lace and silk and start frothing at the mouth like it’s the end of the world, and launch hateful attacks against people they have never met from the safety of their computer screens.  Other laypeople and clerics watch a video of a cardinal in chasalb and peace signs and the same dynamic ensues.  We are told bowing and scraping to priests and bishops is medieval, but in order to be modern we must bow and scrape to the opinion of the world.

Finally, there is a lot of talk about freedom.  Everyone thinks they have a right to be heard, and everyone is entirely sure they are the ones with all the answers.  But at the same time, they insist on excluding those with whom they disagree from the discussion.  The more people clamor for dialogue, the less they seem to actually want to listen and engage, the less they want to go down the arduous path of working together towards a solution.

I do not claim the charism of infallibility, but I am confident that these are all adventures in missing the point.  Clericalism, careerism and triumphalism do not exist because there also exist certain titles, privileges or vesture.  They exist because original sin has wounded human nature and we are not fully converted to Christ.  Men do not become monsters because they are named monsignors, and sinners do not become saints because they are simpletons.  A new iconoclasm may succeed in replacing all of the vestigial Baroque panoply of the Counter Reformation Papal Court we are told is evil with modernist minimalism, but we will have just exchanged one form of externalism, formalism, for another.  We will have gone from a war over image and externals to the dictatorship of polyester, and we will wake up after the smoke clears and realize that nothing has really changed, because men will always find a way to sin.

There is no doubt in my mind that there are sincere people who are intent on razing the bastions to end the Church as we know it because they are confident that a kindler, gentler Church will rise from its ashes.  One of the fascinating things is that everyone from sedevacantists to secularists think Francis will be the catalyst for this.  Will he do this at all?  Will he do this by sanitizing conciliarism by collegiality, ignoring Ottaviani’s warning that the first collegial act of the Apostles was to abandon their Savior?  Will he do this by imposing it by papal fiat?  These are the questions that are turning in people’s minds today.  I confess that I have stopped looking for answers to those questions, and sought refuge in Jesus, in prayer and hope. 

I do know that there are young people out there, clergy, seminarians and lay faithful, who have bought into Pope Benedict’s vision for a New Liturgical Movement and the admirable exchange that can happen between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the one Roman Rite.  Those same people also have the same desire to reach out to the “existential peripheries”, get the Church out of the sacristies into the streets, and proclaim the Mercy of God to the world.  Pope Francis’ actions resound in their hearts as Pope Benedict’s resound in their intellect.  They don’t want to have to choose between the two. 

But if the Reform of the Church starts from exchanging one set of externals for another, and not from Jesus, then they will feel themselves as orphans.  Any new found freedom in the Church will exclude their voice, and thus compromise any contention that all are truly welcome in the Church.  Not that there are not other visions within the Church that are good and noble and holy, but to eviscerate by words or deeds what has gone before, is to risk alienating from the center, from the heart of the Church, a great source of energy and life these young people bring to the world.        
Posted on by Arlene Oost-Zinner

Surprise!

A special edition of the CMAA’s Winter Chant Intensive -for intermediate to advanced chanters – will be held January 3 and 4, 2014, at St. Clare of Assisi Catholic Church in Surprise, AZ. Long live the revolution in the desert! Full details coming next week.

Posted on by Charles Cole

Children’s Choirs

Chant Café readers will be well aware of the importance of Children’s Choirs for nurturing and developing the young through music and catechesis and for introducing them to Chant and other music worthy of the Liturgy. I invited NLM readers to submit details of choirs for children which I posted over there recently and I have reposted the list below. I hope that ultimately we can turn this into a directory on an official page somewhere. If you know of any choirs not yet listed, please add the details in the comments box. So far we have choirs in the USA, Canada and parts of Europe. Here is the list so far:

UNITED STATES (State alphabetical)

SURPRISE, AZ
St. Clare of Assisi: a new children’s choir for students in grades 3-8, forming on the west side of the Diocese of Phoenix Arizona. The choir will specialize in Gregorian chant and sacred music. Contact is Director of Music Matthew J. Meloche mmeloche@diocesephoenix.org

SACRAMENTO, CA
St Stephen the First Martyr Church: boys and girls are taught Gregorian chant and theory, modern notation and classic repertoire, theory and solfege. Choir is directed by Jeffrey Morse, a distinguished Chant expert and fine musician who many will know from CMAA Colloquiums. Contact Jeffrey Morse moravocis@mac.com

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO
Corpus Christi: The St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum offers a music education and choral experience which includes instruction in sight singing, theory, Catholic catechesis and Gregorian chant. The St. Cecilia Choir (7+ years) and the Mary’s Angels Choir (under age 7) rehearse on Friday afternoons. Open to non-parish members. Contact the director, Valerie Nicolosi, at valnic33@sbcglobal.net Website

NORWALK, CT
St Mary’s: Director of Music David Hughes, a key CMAA figure and leading Catholic musician has a huge music programme involving a number of choirs with excellent opportunities for children. Contact David Hughes music@stmarynorwalk.net Website

CHICAGO, IL
St John Cantius: The Holy Innocents Choir has nearly 100 children. Gregorian Chant and modern notation are taught, as well as catechesis. Rehearsals on Saturdays, sings at OF and EF Masses, Propers and Ordinaries; polyphonic mass settings; motets and hymns. Also occasionally sings the Divine Office with the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius. Contact Director Br. Chad McCoy, SJC, email holyinnocentschoir@cantius.org Website

TOPEKA, KS
Most Pure Heart of Mary Catholic Church: Schola Cantorum founded three years ago as an “after school choir school.” 25 choristers and 8 probationers (lower parts are choral scholars from the local university) directed by Lucas Tappan. The Schola sings every other week for the sacred liturgy as well as for concerts and tours. This year the students will be recording their first CD. Contact Lucas Tappan ltappan@mphm.com Website

ELLICOTT CITY, MD
Regina Caeli Schola Cantorum: a Gregorian Chant class for children grade 3-8. Rehearsals on Mondays. Contact the Director Mia Coyne miacoyne@gmail.com Website

PASADENA, MD
St Jane Frances de Chantal: Parish Children’s Choir for children grade 3-8, rehearses on Wednesday evenings and sings for Sunday 10am Mass. Gregorian Chant and Hymns. Director Mia Coyne miacoyne@gmail.com Website

CAMBRIDGE, MA
St Paul’s, Harvard Square: home to the renowned St Paul’s Choir School, one of two Catholic Choir Schools in the USA. Musical boys in 3rd grade should apply for entry at 4th grade. Contact John Robinson, Director of Music 617-868-8658 jrobinson@choirschool.net Information Website

DULUTH, MN
St Benedict’s: Children’s Schola for boys and girls grades 2-8, directed by Sandra Eller, to study sight reading skills using solfege, and sing Latin and English chant in modern and Gregorian notation. Rehearses Wednesday evenings, sings for Sunday Mass once a month. Contact Director Sandra Eller nannybouje@gmail.com Website

ST. PAUL, MN
Cathedral of St Paul: The Cathedral Choir School of Minnesota is an after-school program at the Cathedral on Wednesdays for Choristers in grades K-12, beginning with Benediction and concluding with Mass. Contact Jayne Windnagel jwindnagel@cathedralsaintpaul.org Website

LEMAY (ST. LOUIS), MO
St Martin of Tours: a new children’s choir focusing on Chant and polyphony directed by Mary Pentecost, weekly rehearsals (Thursdays) and singing at a monthly Mass. Auditions for children in Grades 3-12. Contact Mary Pentecost (314) 544-5664 Information Website

HELENA, MT
Cathedral of St Helena: The St Cecilia Choir for boys and girls aged 7-15 sings once a month at the 11am Mass with weekly rehearsals on Tuesdays. Website

RALEIGH, NC
A new youth schola (12+ years old) directed by Dr. Patricia Warren to compliment Schola Vox Clara, a Schola which serves the Extraordinary Form in the Diocese of Raleigh. Weekly rehearsals to sing for one EF Mass per month to start. Mixed voices, and gentlemen with both unchanged and changed voices are welcome. No prior choral experience is necessary. Contact Dr. Patricia Warren,
Director, Schola Vox Clara pwarren@christeluxmundi.org

NEW YORK, NY
St Catherine of Siena: home of the Manhattan Catholic Children’s Choir for children aged 8-14, directed by Julie Woodin. Contact jwoodin@stcatherinenyc.org Information Website

LATROBE, PA
Holy Family: Schola Cantorum sings at a weekly Diocesan Extraordinary Form Mass. Its members are girls and young women ages 14-23, who sing Gregorian Chant and Renaissance polyphony alone, and occasionally with a men’s Schola (in formation). Contact Fr. Stephen Concordia O.S.B. stephen.concordia@stvincent.edu Website

SALT LAKE CITY, UT
Madeleine Cathedral: The Madeleine Choir School, a superb Cathedral Choir directed by Gregory Glenn with vocal training from Melanie Malinka, both inspirational musicians who are well-known to those who have attended the Colloquium the past two years in Salt Lake. Website

CHARLES TOWN, WV
St James the Greater: a number of children’s choirs – Sacred Heart Choir for Kindergarten-Grade2, Saint Cecilia Choir for girls grades 3-8, Saint Gregory Choir for boys grades 3-8, Archangelus Chorale for high school students and Holy Trinity Ensemble, and auditioned choir for grades 5-12. Contact Director of Music Gary Penkala liturgy@stjameswv.org Website

MILWAUKEE, WI
Basilica of St Josaphat: a new children’s choir is being formed. Contact Christopher Berry Director of Music berryc@archmil.org Website

The American Federation of Pueri Cantores Website

CANADA

CALGARY
St John the Evangelist: Sacred Heart Choir School is a program for homeschooling boys and girls in grades 3-12 based at St John’s, an Ordinariate Parish. Classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact the Principal, Paul Hudec phudec@shaw.ca Website

TORONTO
St Michael’s Cathedral: St Michael’s Choir School for boys has three choirs which sing at the Cathedral: Elementary Choir (Grades 3 & 4), Junior Choir (Grades 5 & 6), Senior Choir (Grades 7-12). Contact musicoffice@smcs.on.ca Website

Oratory of St Philip Neri: The Oratory Children’s Choir – Children learn chanted ordinaries of the mass, English propers in psalm-tone and 2-pt fauxbourdon and motets from Medieval to 19th Century repertoire. Grade 4-12. Contact Oratory Music Director, Philip Fournier: laetatussum@gmail.com Website

EUROPE

PARIS, FRANCE
Notre Dame de L’Assomption 1er: Les Petits Chanteurs de Passy for boys and girls aged 8-14. Rehearses Fridays and Saturdays, sings polyphony with adult back row. Contact contact@petits-chanteurs-passy.fr Website

Saint-Eugène – Sainte-Cécile 9e: Les Petits Chantres de Sainte-Cécile, a new choir for children launches at the end of September 2013. Rehearsals on Saturday afternoons. Contact the Director, Clotilde de Nedde clotildedenedde@gmail.com Facebook Website

HAARLEM, THE NETHERLANDS
St Bavo Cathedral: The Koorschool is a Choir School for boys and girls from age 8. Contact info@koorschoolhaarlem.nl Website

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM
London Oratory SW7: The London Oratory Junior Choir for boys and girls aged 8-16 directed by Charles Cole. Three rehearsals per week and two services including the Sunday 10am Mass. Gregorian Chant Propers and Ordinary, motets from Medieval/Renaissance through to present day. Also sings for the Royal Ballet’s productions at Covent Garden. Contact oratoryjuniorchoir@gmail.com Information Website

PEMBURY, UNITED KINGDOM
St Anselm’s TN2: Ordinariate SATB choir with some children which sings plainchant and polyphony directed by the composer Antony Pitts. Rehearses Thursday evenings and sings Solemn Mass on Sundays and Feastdays. Contact Parish Priest +44 1892 825009 Website

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

“I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse.” Selling your pastor on Gregorian chant.

Most things in this world are settled through marketing.

For example, there’s that old story about the Jesuit seminarian and the Franciscan seminarian. They both smoked cigarettes, and at their seminary they would hang out in the smokers’ doorway during classroom breaks. One day they got to talking about the way their religious activities limited their tobacco use, and resolved to do something about it. Both men committed to asking permission to smoke during prayer time.

The Franciscan student went to his superior and said, “Father Master, would you mind if I smoke during prayer time?” Father Master lost his cool. “Of course I mind, Brother! You’re a Franciscan! You’re supposed to be concerned about creation, and here you are smoking! Look at the carbon monoxide, think of your lungs! And, those things are very expensive, and you’re supposed to be in love with poverty! It’s bad enough that you smoke at all, much less during prayer time. Absolutely not!”

The Jesuit student went to his superior and said, “Father Master, would you mind if I pray while I smoke?”

It’s all in how you sell it.

Now, we who know Gregorian chant know that it’s what every parish needs. But perhaps we could do a better job of marketing. What if we were to phrase the question in a way that practically demands a “yes?”

  1. Father, would you like the children in your parish to learn to pray?
  2. Father, would you like the people in your parish to become more aware of the liturgical year?
  3. Father, would you like the teenagers in your parish to be prepared to sing at international gatherings such as World Youth Day?
  4. Father, would you like to improve the quality of the music in your parish?
  5. Father, would you like to increase the sense of Catholic identity among the faithful?
  6. Father, would you like to give the people in your parish the tools that they need to become better disciples?
  7. Father, would you like to save money on hymnals and worship aids?
  8. Father, would you like to take the guesswork out of choosing appropriate music for your parish?
  9. Father, would you like your Sunday Masses to be more meaningful and awe-inspiring?
  10. Father, would you like to attract young, professional-level singers, eager to volunteer to sing at your parish, simply because the music program is so wonderful?

If your Pastor says “yes” to three or more of the above questions, then you need to check out the latest in quality music, the Graduale Romanum and its companion volume, the Gregorian Missal. Think of it as an instant upgrade to the new i-Phone, except it’s for Liturgy.