Chant Café

Many pastors and administrators in the United States and around the world are formulating responses to the current pandemic. I thought I would offer some of my personal considerations in case they might be helpful.

Pro-Life: The coronavirus affects persons who are weak in more tragic ways. I feel that the response of the Church should consider them in particular.

End of Life Pastoral Care: At its worst, episodes of this virus have precluded funerals and most likely the presence of a priest at the end of life. “Flattening the curve” would enable ministers to reach everyone who needs it and to have at least private funerals for the souls of those who have passed.

The Domestic Church: With the social media literally at our fingertips, pastors and their staffs could easily formulate home “care packages” to enable families to continue their Catholic home mission. It could be a very good Lent, celebrated at home.

Protecting the Triduum: It is 4 weeks until Good Friday, and a serious response now would help us recover our footing in time to celebrate these liturgies as they deserve. Choirs would suffer but could also, at least in theory, practice together using technology.

Communion on the Tongue: Holy Communion need not include contact if both the recipient and minister are careful, and reception on the tongue often involves less contact than reception in the hand.

Sunday Mass: Common sense measures might include dispensation of vulnerable persons and disinfecting pews, as well as omitting the sign of peace.

At the risk of overreacting, it seems to me that in the United States we are generally under-tested for the virus, and the statistics of existent cases may be artificially low.

May I invite all of our readers to pray for those who are making decisions at this time, including our Church and civic leaders, for families, and for those who are dying today.

Christendom College will offer free organ lessons and $500 in tuition reduction for a student starting in the Fall of 2020.

Next fall, there will be one beginning scholarship in organ opening up which will provide free lessons and $500 in tuition reduction.

Specifics can be found at this link: https://www.christendom.edu/the-benedict-xvi-organ-scholarships-2020-2021/

These scholarships are part of a generous bequest of an anonymous donor to train parish organists. The recipient is expected to study the organ, working toward a degree program in music at the college.
Students must submit an audition video by March 6 and, if selected, will need to come to campus to audition in person on Saturday, March 28. If there are any questions you should contact Dr. Kurt Poterack at: kpoterack@christendom.edu

Two women manage to heist  the musical works of St. Hildegard of Bingen from Nazi and Soviet hands in this fascinating story.

As divisions in the Church reach an astonishing screeching pitch, one particular Scripture passage has been on my mind.

 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

We are in a cosmic battle, not a war against fellow Catholics. One of our common enemy’s most powerful tactics of division is also his easiest to employ: anger, hatred, resentment,  scorn, sarcasm, schism.

I think we should muster ourselves and turn against the evil one who threatens us, instead of fighting constantly among ourselves. All of the easy points have already been scored.

Yes, there are blatantly corrupt prelates. But there are also shining examples of exemplary bishops. Why not talk about them?

Yes, there are public menaces who speak in bewildering scattershot against the faith while pretending to represent it. But there are also faithful priests and teachers who live both their vocations and their apostolates in extraordinarily fruitful lives of service. Why are the most-read blogs not full of their stories?

Yes, there are goofy and often tragic abuses of Catholic institutions. But there is also a constant flowering of new and effective initiatives for the authentic spread of the Gospel. Why aren’t these stories going viral?

In every age, the most effective defenders of the Catholic faith are the saints whom God gives to the Church. I suggest we find them and follow them into the real battle, and make their radiance more widely known.

Let all the Church acclaim St. Paul,
And sing the glories of his call.
The Lord made an apostle be
From one who was his enemy.

The name of Christ set Paul afire,
Enkindling him with great desire;
And higher these same blazes reached
When of the love of Christ he preached.

His merits are forever praised,
For to the heavens he was raised,
And there, the all-mysterious word,
That none dare speak, by Paul was heard.

The Word, like seed sown in a field,
Producing an abundant yield,
Fills heav’nly barns whose stores of grain
Are tilled and grown on earthly plains.

The shining of the lamplight gleams,
And drenches earth with heaven’s beams.
The dark of error’s night is past;
The reign of truth has come at last.

To Christ all glory, and all praise
To Father and the Spirit raise,
Who for the nations’ saving call
Gave us the splendor of Saint Paul.

Translation © 2008 Kathleen Pluth. Listen to Latin original here.

The world lost one of its greatest champions of the beautiful this week.

The philosopher Roger Scruton worked to restore a sense of beauty that was lost in the 20th century’s love of the brutal and the shocking, the flat and the banal.

The real-world results of abandoning beauty are utterly dehumanizing. In his classic BBC documentary “Why Beauty Matters,” Scruton spoke about architecture’s responsibility for urban decay: “This building is boarded up because no one has a use for it. Nobody has a use for it because nobody wants to be in it. Nobody wants to be in it because the thing is so…ugly.” Ironically, the result of a utilitarian ideal in architecture is block after block of abandoned buildings.

Church art must take heed to this prophetic call for a restoration of the sense of the beautiful. We live in a time when 1 out of 6 young converts to Christianity come to believe in a visit to a church.    We can’t afford to “update” our sanctuaries with eurotrash posters and ill-suited furnishings, with exposed sound equipment and felt banners.

Beauty is not naive. Devotion is not childish. Idealism is not an abandonment of the real. We are spiritual, and renewed, creatures of Beauty Himself, and our churches and the worship they are built for must foster a sense of hope in Him.

“As Christians, we have a musical awareness of life: In our hearts resounds the song of thanksgiving of being redeemed. Its melody is love, and its harmony is joy in God.”

Cardinal Mueller, today. Much more here.