Chant Café

March 21, 2012 by Jeffrey Tucker

Hilarion Alfeyev: St Matthew Passion. No 1

Readers will love this fascinating interview in Crisis Magazine with Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, and also this moving clip from his own St. Matthew Passion:

March 21, 2012 by Kathleen Pluth

…we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.

Apart from the occasional slipups on the part of the celebrant (prevenient grace?) the choir (better learn those chant responses before Holy Week–and look out for the Showing of the Cross and the Lumen Christi!) and certain bad habits of some of the people (and also with your spirit), adapting to the new translation of the Mass seems to be going rather well. And how easily the change of diction has already elevated the entire atmosphere of the Mass!

However, there is one particular liturgical moment that does not seem to be going well. At a spoken Mass, such as many daily Masses, the first line of the Sanctus isn’t making sense. In the old translation, it was spoken like this:

Holy, holy, holy Lord,/ God of power and might.
Now, it seems to be often spoken like this:

Holy, holy, holy Lord/ God of hosts.

We may be missing something important here, which perhaps the translation intended to resolve. In the older translation, the pause between Lord and God had a grammatical effect. “God of power and might” functioned grammatically as an apositive, effectively a description, of Lord.

In the new translation, it seems much clearer now that the words are meant to be invoked as a proper name, “Lord God of Hosts,” “Adonai Elohim Zabaoth,” as we read powerfully in the prophetic Books and the Psalms, or “Dominus Deus Sabaoth” in Latin, which also comes across, phonetically, as a name of power.

I think that in our spoken Masses, we can reclaim a liturgical sense of this revealed power by simply following the punctuation. The rhythm is like the passage from the Gettysburg Address quoted in the title of this post:

Holy,/ holy,/ holy Lord God of hosts.

March 20, 2012 by Mr. C

“Northern,” no wait…”Southern Exposure”

Father Allan, ala in Rose, at St. Jos.’s Hall

Deep readers of this blog will already be familiar with this priest (pictured nattily this last Sunday afternoon after Sunday Mass and during his city’s Cherry Blossom Festival!). I must admit that I’ve so identified with his perspectives for two reasons. First, he approaches the profound issues facing the Church and her liturgies with an almost unbridled optimism. Second, he channels that optimism often in an unfettered and ironic iconoclasm while still respecting his philosophical opponents’ integrity and opinions.
This is my way of introducing and recommending Cafe visitors to also frequent Father Allan McDonald’s blog SOUTHERN ORDERS. You can read his bio and the sundry articles and take in his passion for life and all things liturgical there.
He came to my attention during the advent of our fellowes over at Fr. Ruff’s PRAY TELL BLOG, where Father Allan has attracted quite a share of detractors as well as supporters. Too many of the former likely regard him as the southern Fr. Zed, but I would debunk that by simply saying Father labors and chronicles pretty much in his own vineyard, and applies the “global” perspective to what matters in Macon!
I don’t know that he is a gastronome of Fr. Z’s stature, but he is tons of fun.
What is it about the South and the Catholic renaissance in the US? Auburn, AL., Macon, Raleigh, Charleston, Naples…. I keep telling m’ bride that if I go to the market and am not back in an hour to phone North Carolina!

Cheers.

March 19, 2012 by Jeffrey Tucker