Chant Café

There is so much to do in parish life for the laity. Why do so many lay Catholics insist that the only place they can serve is in the sanctuary?

Pope Francis provides some fascinating insight into this problem

“We priests tend to clericalize the laity,” Francis said. “[We] focus on things of the clergy, more specifically, the sanctuary, rather than bringing the Gospel to the world… A Church that limits herself to administering parish work experiences what someone in prison does: physical and mental atrophy.

“We infect lay people with our own disease. And some begin to believe the fundamental service God asks of them is to become greeters, lectors or extraordinary ministers of holy communion at Church. Rather, [the call is] to live and spread the faith in their families, workplaces, schools, neighborhoods and beyond.”

The reform that’s needed is “neither to clericalize nor ask to be clericalized. The layperson is a layperson. He has to live as a layperson… to be a leaven of the love of God in society itself…. [He] is to create and sow hope, to proclaim the faith, not from a pulpit but from his everyday life. And like all of us, the layperson is called to carry his daily cross—the cross of the layperson, not of the priest.” – Pope Francis

This book is much handier than the Liber Usualis — and suitable for most singing in the extraordinary form. See here.

People come to church to encounter God. A good worship service is transcendent; it helps people detach from this present world to connect with the divine. But when traditional churches try to be contemporary it usually comes across as forced, stilted or artificial. This dissonance jerks people back into the mundane world. Worshippers focus on the distraction instead of the Lord.

So here’s my advice to every church: be who you are. Do what you do well – and do it over and over. If you want to innovate, do so within the bounds of your culture.

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Gorgeous and exciting video.

Jeffrey Ostrowski is a real-world parish musician who has seen a need for a super entry-level book of sung propers. He has produced this with Lalemant Propers, explained in more detail below and offered for sale and free download here. Essentially, this book picks mode II and sets the entire liturgical year to it. This is excellent practice for chanting and singing. I can easily imagine that there are certain parish contexts in which this would be valuable. Even if you are doing more complex versions, sometimes you just need to sing the offertory in the simplest way possible.