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Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Hymn Tune Introits for June

My article in the current Adoremus Bulletin includes these Hymn Tune Introits for the Sundays and major feast days of June.

Sorry, a day late and a dollar short for Corpus Christi!

June 2, Corpus Christi
He fed them with the finest wheat,
Alleluia, alleluia,
And honey from the rock to eat,
Alleluia, alleluia.

 June 7, Sacred Heart
His heart’s designs forever stand,
From age to age His loving plan,
That He may save their souls from death,
In famine save their life and breath.

June 9, Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Lord, my stronghold and my light
My saving help — whom shall I fear?
The evil-doers, with their might,
Will fall themselves, when they draw near.

June 16, Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
My voice, O Lord, incline to hear.
I call to You: my help, be near.
My faithful God and Savior be.
O Lord, do not abandon me.

June 23, Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
The Lord God is His people’s might,
Protecting His anointed’s right.
Your heritage, Lord, save and bless,
And lead them, Lord, in righteousness.

June 24, Birth of Saint John the Baptist (during the day)
God sent a man; John was his name,
For testimony to the light.
To make God’s people fit he came:
A people righteous in God’s sight.

June 28, Evening, Vigil of Saints Peter and Paul
Th’apostle Peter, guide of all,
Worked with the Gentiles’ teacher, Paul,
And we enjoy their work’s reward:
To know the precepts of the Lord.

June 29, Saints Peter and Paul (during the day)
These men drank from the Lord’s own cup,
In triumph o’er their weakness trod.
They helped the Church to be built up,
And they became the friends of God.

June 30, Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
All people dwelling on the earth,
O clap your hands, rejoice, applaud,
And with resounding shouts of joy
Cry out unto the living God.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Is Inculturation an Excuse for Pop Music at Mass?

Here is my new piece at CRISIS

Pop music, even when the text is Christian in its intent, is transient in two fundamental ways.

First, the music itself comes and goes like fashion. This is what it is supposed to do. This is its character. Everyone in the pop world is interested in the new hit whereas hits from the past that last are relegated to the oldies status. Perhaps only a few make it more than a decade. Just think of any performance act that features music of the 1970s. There is a good chance that you could name 3 or 4 of the hits that would necessarily be included.

Second—and this is so obvious that it hardly needs to be pointed out but I will do it anyway—youth itself is transient. The young get old, new groups of young replace them, and so on. And people always grow up and look back and ask, “What was I thinking?”

This pattern has repeated since, oh, the beginning of time. But it is especially true in our time when no real responsibilities are expected of young people. They don’t have to provide for themselves. They have no meaningful work to do unless it is created for them. They sit at desks most of the day, hang out mostly with their peers, and are not responsible to adults in a way that is integral to their daily life activities.

So yes, many young people today might imagine that they occupy a sub-culture of their own, something self-sustaining and insulated from the rest of the world. That such impressions exist at all is living proof that adults in our world have not done their job to prepare young people for life. So it’s no wonder that we see so many post-college meltdowns among those who have never actually encountered an authentic adult world before and cannot navigate it or even understand it.

The question is whether this sub-culture has any relevance whatsoever for the important choices we make concerning music at liturgy. The answer, I believe, is that it does not.

Read the whole thing

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Pontifical institute to offer master’s in Gregorian chant, organ

This item caught my eye.

The Pontifical Liturgical Institute, which is located at the Order of St. Benedict’s Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm (Sant’Anselmo) in Rome, has launched a two-year master’s degree program that focuses on Gregorian chant and the organ.

“A very important part of liturgy is the music and chants, and now we’ve been able to unite with the Pontifical University of Sacred Music and offer this master’s,” said Father Jordi Piqué, president of the institute.

Professors include the abbot primate of the Order of St. Benedict and Archbishop Piero Marini, president of the Pontifical Committee for International Eucharistic Congresses.

Posted on by Kathleen Pluth

Mere Priesthood

In the past few weeks there has been a bit of a kerfluffle based on a rather silly survey of a few US priests, regarding the new translation of the Mass.

While the results of that survey must be taken with a grain of salt, I think there is probably some truth in it, in that some priests are dissatisfied with the new translation.

And, I think, that is just fine.

The new translation was easily accepted by the people in part because the Order of the Mass did not change much for us. Oh sure, we had to learn words like “consubstantial,” but long sections of each prayer, including the entire Our Father, were kept as-is. We did not have much adjusting to do.

For priests, in contrast, the adjustment was thoroughgoing. And again, I think this is a good thing.

Given the very awkward reality of the versus populum posture, the priest has a number of challenging decisions to make about his ars celebrandi. How much eye contact with the congregation is appropriate, and at what liturgical moments? Where else can he fix his gaze so as not to distract? Will he smile so as to project warmth? Will he hold an upright or a relaxed posture? Will he look at the lectors during the readings so as to indicate attention, or close his eyes, or look directly forward?

These questions become more pointed when the priest speaks. Will he use a normal everyday voice? Does he have a special tone of voice reserved just for saying Mass? Will he take on a persona of an actor, a television anchorman, or a motiviational speaker whom he admires? Will he try to project emotional engagement and pastoral outreach with the prayers? Will he take on the style of a teacher, trying always to get across “the main points?”

A priest who does any of these things will struggle with the new translation.

The orations of the new translation reduce the priest to being merely a priest. He cannot be an anchorman any more, if that was his style. He cannot rattle off the prayer in a casual tone–he cannot be just one of the guys. The new translation does not accommodate itself to play-acting of any kind. And this is really ok.

A priest has the most enviable and difficult job in the world, and once those hands are laid upon them, there is no running away from the task. There’s no making it into something else. He is our intermediary, anointed for our service. He’s not just one of the guys anymore, and if public speaking is part of his job, the orations are not the time for that. The orations are, clearly, prayers. From us, to God, through him, our other Christ–which is to say through Him–our prayers rise to God.

The priest should normally find the orations to be an ascetic experience, because they do not express merely human desires. The orations elevate our desires, expressing those hopes which as Catholics we ought to desire. It is a high honor to be able to express these prayers, but it is a challenge as well, and speaking them with all their force is bound to feel a bit uncomfortable at the beginning.

For what it’s worth, musicians who seek to sing the Church’s authentic music undergo a similar ascesis. Instead of doing our best Beyonce or Kingston Trio act, we begin to subsume ourselves to the less-easily-personalized contours of the chant. Instead of choosing our favorite comforting songs, we sing the texts of the Mass appointed for the day. While making enormous gains, at first it can seem that we’ve lost something. Instead of us shaping the Mass, the Mass begins, over time, to shape us.

And that’s just fine.

Posted on by Adam Wood

Lauda Sion: My first chant

Other than some vernacular hymn translations (“Sing, My Tongue” on Holy Thursday), The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is the anniversary of my introduction to Gregorian Chant.

When I was in High School, the Diocese of Orlando had a Gay and Lesbian Ministry, sort of a support-group/social-club that had grown out of the diocesan AIDS Ministry. The group had a monthly Mass together, which was held at my parish, and my brother planned the music for it until he left for college, at which point I took over. Of course, it was the 1990s, so I didn’t know anything about Propers or chant or traditional sacred music or anything. (Kids these days have it so easy.) The funny thing is, for what you might assume is a fairly progressive, 90s-typical ministry, most of the people who came to the CGLM Masses appreciated traditional music, and probably would have wanted to be singing Gregorian Ordinaries and Propers. (More than a few of them had been in a monastery or seminary earlier in their life). At any rate- we did pretty conventional 1990s LitPop as you’d probably imagine.

Then, one June (or May?), I was dutifully studying the Lectionary texts so that I could pick out four appropriate songs (you know how it is), and discovered that there was this optional Sequence for Corpus Christi. I knew what a Sequence was (we did some vernacular setting on Easter and Pentecost), but I didn’t know there was one for Corpus Christi. I had to ask around- where do you even find music for this?

A wonderful old Servite priest (the Order staffed our parish at the time) named Fr. Damian informed me: you need a Graduale Romanum. I ordered one from GIA (okay- my mom ordered it). When it arrived, I went over to the rectory and Fr. Damian taught me how to read this weird four-line notation.

I sang the shortened version (from “Ecce Panis”) at the CGLM Mass. Sadly, our regularly-scheduled weekend Masses did not have the sequence, nor do I think they ever have in all the intervening years. I still have my Graduale Romanum, and it is just as mysterious and beautiful to me now as it was then.

I think about Fr. Damian, now asleep in Christ, every year when this feast rolls around. He was truly a holy man, perhaps one of the holiest I’ve ever met. I’m sure he would be thrilled to know that more and more people are learning that weird four-line notation than ever before.