Chant Café

In his inaugural address to the curia in Advent 2005, Pope Benedict spoke against reading the Second Vatican Council as though it had made a rupture with the past.

The historical reasons that contributed to a  sense of rupture–it was the sixties, after all–combined with internal reasons. One thinks of the dearth of documents issued before the last months of the Council, while the public was deluged with breathy news dispatches throughout the Council’s course, suggesting revolution.

The Pope Emeritus did not, however, contrast the “hermeneutic of rupture” with a “hermeneutic of continuity,” as is often suggested. Rather, his expression for the authentic interpretation was a “hermeneutic of reform,” by which he meant “continuity and discontinuity on different levels.”

I’m currently reading the first volume of Jesus of Nazareth, and I notice that the Pope Emeritus has used a similar hermeneutic in Biblical studies as well, to interpret the Law of the Old Testament. He writes of the perennial, divine Law, against which all norms must be measured, and the casuistic Law given for a time, to shape the social order. There is continuity and discontinuity, but on different levels, with different purposes.

What is this “reform” all about in the Church? Certainly it is not meant to be the divisive “reforms” that really are revolutionary, factions and schisms and the like.

Maybe reform is the following. Reading and hearing about the lives of the saints in the Liturgy of the Hours or at daily Mass, I’ve heard time and time again about the “reformers” in the Church. It’s almost as though this is a category of saint, like “martyrs” or “apostles” or “virgins.” They often had difficulties in their lives, these “reformers.” They seemed to be always swimming against the tide. But perhaps what was truly going on was a “hermeneutic of reform,” or “continuity and continuity on different levels.” They were able to hold constantly to what truly is of perennial value, while interpreting ephemera for what they are.

Learn how to read square notes on Friday, and stay for more advanced sessions on Saturday.  Pre-registration required. Complete information here.

The Diocese of Marquette, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, is offering its second annual Sacred Music Conference on July 12-13, 2013.

The 2013 Sacred Music Conference will be held in Escanaba, MI. Those from the Diocese of Marquette and neighboring dioceses are highly encouraged to attend!

Topics will include:

• Gregorian and English Chant
• Organ registration and use
• How to start a schola
• Choral music study
• Practical ways to build and improve your music program
• Resources, and much more!

There will be time for prayer, discussion, as well as social time. Sung Vespers and Holy Mass with multiple scholae and polyphonic choir.

For more information and to register online, visit: dioceseofmarquette.org/sacredmusic

A mysterious stranger posting on the Musica Sacra Forum under the codename MHI offers his/her translation of the office hymn Auctor beate sæculi, for the Feast of the Day.

Like the office hymns in general, it is chock-full of theology, and the translation is really well done.

 Auctor beate sæculi

O blessèd Founder of the world,
O Christ, who dost all things redeem,
art very God of very God,
and gleaming of the Father’s gleam.

Thy love it was that earth and sea
and stars with bounteous craft did make,
took pity when our fathers strayed,
and did our own confinements break.

Thy love it was did thee constrain
on thee to take the mortal clay,
the latter Adam, to restore
that which the former took away.

Let not that force of noble love
out of his proper seat depart,
and let the nations draw the grace
of pardon at that spring, thy Heart.

The which for this did suffer pangs,
for this also the bitter spear:
that us, who were in filthy state,
its flowing wave and blood might clear.

O Jesu, glory be to thee,
who from thy Heart thy grace dost pour,
to Holy Ghost and to thy Sire
for ages hence and evermore.

For most of my students, singing is a means of expression—a way of drawing out what is in us (the ex in expression). Athanasius very nearly inverts their reasoning: The first and most important outcome of singing the Psalms is impression. In singing, the truth of the Psalms is drawn into the depths of one’s being rather than out of the depths of one’s being.

Athanasius explains that “in the other books [of Scripture], those who read … are relating the things that were written about those earlier people.” Imagine an ancient preacher reading to his church the story of Moses and the burning bush. As the story is read, there are two separate actors: Moses, and the preacher, who is reading about Moses. In this sort of reading, Athanasius says, “those who listen consider themselves to be other than those about whom the passage speaks.”

On the one hand is Moses, who is worshiping; on the other hand is the congregation, who is listening to the account of Moses worshiping. In contrast, Athanasius says, consider the Psalms: “He who takes up this book … recognizes [the words] as being his own words. And the one who hears is deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of the songs, as if they were his own songs” (my emphasis).
For Athanasius, the first virtue of the Psalms is not that they allow me to express my emotions. Rather, singing the Psalms makes it possible for me to express Moses’ or David’s emotions as my own (“as if they were his own songs”). Singing is first of all an act of imitating. I take another person’s words, another person’s declaration, on my own lips and into my own heart. For Athanasius, singing begins as impression rather than as expression.

Read More at Christianity Today.