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Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

To Fix the Chant, Focus on the Word

Very interesting arrives at the Cafe:

Some time ago, when I woke up to the fact that “the Sacred” was steadily diminishing in my life, I determined to do something about it: I founded a schola to bring the Sacred back to the Masses in the parish church that my wife and I attend. In this effort your Chant Café has been a monumental discovery. Although I had not even heard of the article How to Start Your Own Garage Schola (co-authored by you with Arlene Ost-Zinner), I had already followed the steps you had outlined there. I had even discovered on the Internet — by pure chance — the Jubilate Deo booklet.

Some departures from your five steps were, however, inevitable. Our parish was in a state of interregnum (the outgoing pastor was reluctant to start anything new just before departure; the incoming pastor had vowed not to change anything substantial throughout his first year). What to do? I had a schola, and no place to chant.

At this point I made a startling and unexpected discovery — chant is prayer. First and foremost, it is prayer. Teaching chant (a skill I had acquired when I attended a major seminary) I would be teaching people a new way to pray! (At this point, I’m afraid, you are likely thinking — “The earth is round, you say?” Still, hear me out.)

We had our first meeting in a room of the Public Library. (No space was available at the Parish.) After introductions and some casual chatting I called the group to order. Then I said: “Let’s begin with a prayer. Just follow me.” Then I intoned the words “Our Father …” and all in the room chanted on one note, peacefully and beautifully, to the final Amen. The silence that followed was deafening. I will never forget that moment.

Since that first evening we have begun our weekly practice-sessions exactly that way. Afterwards, before the practice, I say — “Remember, we are learning to pray. The words we pray are the most important part of chant.”

I have been astonished at how much this emphasis on prayer has contributed to our ability to chant well and, perhaps more important still, to wait patiently for the opportunity to chant in the liturgy of the Church. Above all, striving to attain una voce chanting is almost automatic. The shared music brings us together. Our differences disappear. Before we practice a chant we read the prayer out loud and discuss what the intention of that prayer is and, of course, how we should pray it when we chant. The result is always wonderful. There are no more alleluias sung like dirges, nor pedestrian Glorias, nor frivolous-sounding pleas for God’s mercy. The chanted prayers are earnest and real.

I believe that one of the major problems, both in teaching and in learning how to chant (particularly when the chanter has a professionally-trained voice) arises not so much from the unique features possessed naturally by each voice as by all the later acquisitions common in secular vocal music, such as shading, tremolo, bravura, coloring, styles, etc. However, when the emphasis is on the words rather than the music this is not so. In my experience these all gradually disappear without any attention paid to them. Each chanter seems simply to realize that these elements have no place in chanted prayers, that there is a sustaining difference between secular and sacred music.

We are now in our fourth month. We have no official standing in any of the parishes of southern Oregon and must wait to be invited to chant on special occasions. We have a respectable repertory of liturgical chants, principally in English, but also in Latin. We have sung the mass at two retreats at our local St. Rita’s Retreat House. Yesterday at a funeral in Grants Pass, we chanted two propers (Introit: Requiem Aeternam; and the recessional, Subvenite) as well as the In Paradisum at the final incensing — all in English.

In about six weeks we will chant a mass — this time all in Latin — a celebration on the occasion of an infant baptism and also two First Holy Communions of a family from Rogue River. The celebrant, a member of the Fraternity of St. Peter, is brother to the father of these children. (The children’s father is a member of the schola.) Our schola also anticipates an invitation to chant a mass at a local mission church. We will afterwards begin tutoring and rehearsing their choir group members who have expressed an interest in learning Gregorian Chant. God knows where we will go from there. In His will is our peace.

I’m sure there is nothing exceptional about our experience. You have heard, I’m sure, and will continue to hear from more and more individuals on the front-lines of this battle who are steadily gaining ground. Because of the great assistance and inspiration of individuals like you and all your associate liturgists and musical experts, we will prevail. The best way we can thank you at present is with our prayers. All the rest will come as a matter of course.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Sad, Suffering Return of “Godspell”

This review of the Godspell revival made me laugh:

“Godspell” is showing its age, at least as represented by director Daniel Goldstein’s production at New York’s Circle in the Square Theatre. This first Broadway revival of the beloved 1971 “rock musical” might be compared to a middle-aged person trying to recapture youth. In people the result is sad to see, but here it’s just boring.

What seemed fresh and light 40 years ago — 20-something actors cavorting around in colorful ragtag costumes singing and acting out Jesus’ parables, with him leading and joining in the fun — now seems like a church pageant aimed at getting the youth group more interested in religion. Nothing in this revival is of Broadway quality except the songs, which were adapted by composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz from the Episcopal hymnal and the Gospel of Matthew.

Even the songs suffer here because of choreographer Christopher Gattelli’s formulaic dance moves, which in the case of the show’s breakout hit, “Day by Day,” look more like a cardio class warm-up.

You only know for sure that it is in the National Catholic Reporter because the reviewer’s main complaint is that the producers didn’t update the production with inclusive language.

I’ve never understood the appeal of Godspell. It opens, as I recall, with a number that pokes fun at St. Thomas Aquinas and scholasticism as an intellectual discipline. No thanks.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Gregorian Chant is so Jewish

There is nothing Catholic that is not rooted in the Old Testament. Our Catholic faith did not spring up out of nowhere, but out of the faith of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

This is true liturgically speaking, as we have a tabernacle, altar and priesthood in the New Covenant, similar to the Old Covenant. We also have Gregorian chant, which is rooted in Old Covenant worship. The Psalms were not merely read, but chanted in public worship of God, which Jesus himself participated in as a child.

This chant was more fully developed in the Catholic Church and became what we now refer to as Gregorian chant. I’ve listened to many types of chant, but none quite as beautiful as Gregorian.

Pope Benedict XVI has encouraged the faithful to reacquaint themselves with this chant and use it liturgically; we want to follow our Supreme Pontiff’s lead.

Read more from Sister Rosalind Moss at the NGReg

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Why Is Catholic Music Such a Mess?

I get this question enough that it justifies an article. Here’s the scenario. A long time Catholic of bourgeois sensibilities, a man who trying to hold on to his faith but doesn’t attend Mass on a regular basis, decides that it is time to try again. He goes to a parish not far from his house. The processional says to him: nothing has changed from the last time I tried this. He grinds his teeth throughout. By communion time, he is nearly losing his mind. The recessional hymn puts him over the top. He goes out to the parking lot cursing under his breath, mad all over again, recalling why he doesn’t go that often.

The problem is the music. It is bad pop music, shabbily done by people who nonetheless seem to be pretty proud of their performance. The entire Mass, the man keeps asking himself: how does it happen that the most beautiful liturgy, the product of 2000 years of tradition, could be reduced to this? More importantly, isn’t there something that can be done about it?

I receive phonecalls and emails along these lines all the time and have for many years. The stark contrast between what exists and what they remember Mass to be, or imagine it can be like or have seen or heard elsewhere, is too much too handle.

I see my main job here as trying my best to calm people down and get them to see that the source of the problem is not as metaphysically malicious as they might at first think. We do not need a purge, as tempting as that idea might sound. Nor is the solution some dramatic leap into an authoritarian future in which a Bishop or the Pope imposes one set of music and tosses out everyone who doesn’t go along, as satisfying as that fantasy might be.

There are a number of core reasons why this problem persists, and these reasons are related to each other in complex ways. Let’s first be clear that the musicians themselves typically feel a sense of discomfort about what they are doing. They are not entirely sure that they are really making a contribution to the liturgy. They feel a sense of disconnect with what is happening on the altar. They are unclear about whether the music they are doing is really appropriate. But they are unpaid volunteers who are aware that no one seems to be objecting, and they do receive compliments from time to time. Hence, they reason, they might as well continue what they are doing, which is showing up to Mass 30 minutes early and selecting for hymns and otherwise doing what they already know how to do. They do not see the big picture. They do not imagine what they cannot musically render or understand.

The number one issue, in my own view that has been formed over a decade of close study, is that the musicians themselves do not know better. Most people doing music in the Catholic Church do not even have a rudimentary understanding of the musical demands of the Roman rite. They do not know what parts of the Mass constitute the ordinary structure of the Mass. They do not know that the propers of the Mass exist. They have no idea how the music is related to the word or the calendar (apart from Christmas and Easter). They have no idea what is mandatory, what is an option, what is the Church’s choice, what is the publisher’s choice, what tradition consists of, or how to tell genuine liturgical music from nonliturgical music.

This is because they have never been told. And a reason that they have never been told is that very few people actually have this understanding at all. You can attend ten national conventions, read ten books, subscribe to all the major liturgy publications, troll websites all day, talk to your pastor and grill your predecessors, and still never discover these basic points about the Catholic liturgy and its musical demands. Yes, you will come away with some slogans and with the knowledge that “the people” need to participate but do not (it’s always easier to focus on the sins of others), but that’s about it.

The core information about the role of music is not known because it is not known, and this problem is not only serious at the grass roots; it goes straight to the top. Again, it is not malice that is preventing this knowledge from leaking out; it is just that so much information has been lost during these confusing decades that there are very few around that truly get it.

The second problem is that the resources to actually make a musical contribution to the liturgy have been missing for many decades. The music book of the Roman rite, the Roman Gradual, is unknown to 98% of musicians in the Catholic Church. They’ve never seen a copy and never heard of it, even though it is mentioned in both the Missal and in the instruction for the Missal. Even on the off chance that they have seen this book, they can’t read either the language (Latin) or the notation (four-line staff). They do not know that there are English versions of this available. If they did know this, they wouldn’t know how to get them.

Historians who have looked in detail at this problem note that it all began in the 1960s as an extension of a problem that pre-existed the Second Vatican Council. In a Low Mass culture, it was common to replace the sung propers with hymns and spoken propers. When the prevailing style of hymns changed in the 1960s from stodgy to groovy, and Mass propers fell by the wayside, that tendency to match the music with the times also stuck. That’s why the first signs of what many regard as corruption began to appear in the 1960s. Pop music began to dominate, first in the area of songs as replacements for propers. Only later did it become common for the ordinary chants of the Mass to be replaced by settings that matched the style of the new songs. By the early 1970s, it was a clean sweep. All the music of the Mass had a completely different face. By the time that the Roman Gradual that pertains to the ordinary form was actually printed in 1974, the whole issue has already been settled and the book was widely ignored.

There are other problems out there, to be sure. People talk about the problem of the publisher cartel, and it is a problem. But as I often remind people, they way to deal with this problem is simply a matter of changing the market. You have to change the buying preferences of the consumers. It’s pretty simple. You can do this without legislation, crack downs, hectoring, or belligerence. It is just a matter of supply and demand. In markets, products come and products go. If you don’t like what sells, support something else.

What about legislation and mandates? Statements from on high? Impositions from authority? I don’t consider these to be part of any real solution. There will continue to be statements just as there have been for decades. They are not as important as actually changing hearts through real experience. This is why educational colloquia and teaching conferences are so important. And it is why books like the Parish Book of Chant and the Simple English Propers are also so important. We have to have the resources. And we have to have the money to fund the production of these books and conferences – and generous donors (blessed are they!) are in short supply.

This is my sketch of the world we’ve inherited and how we must work to change it, the one I’ve relayed seemingly hundreds of times. There is a solution to the problem and it can be brought about quickly. We don’t need decades. But we do need passion, work, funding, and prayer.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

Homily on the Immaculate Conception by Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth

A Sermon preached by Monsignor Andrew Wadsworth in the London Oratory, December 8th, 2011.

Tota pulcra es, Maria: et macula originale non est in te!
Thou art all beautiful Mary and the stain of original sin is not in thee! [Alleluia Verse from this Mass of the Immaculate Conception]

I never fail to be moved by the grandeur of this wonderful feast and not least with regard to its particular significance for this great Oratory Church and the Congregation of Fathers who so faithfully serve it. I am sure that everyone present at this Solemn Mass is fully aware of this link but for the benefit of the visitor who may not know, I take a moment to recall the story.

When the major cities of Europe were overshadowed by the threat of destruction during the darkest days of the Second World War, the Fathers of the London Oratory made a solemn pledge to Our Blessed Lady that if this Oratory Church, dedicated to her Immaculate Heart were spared destruction, they would keep this feast of her Immaculate Conception with particular splendour and solemnity in perpetuity. Thank God their prayer was heard and in war-torn London, the Oratory miraculously remained unscathed and we gather this evening in fulfillment of that pledge.

It is most appropriate that splendour and solemnity be the expression of our belief in this dogma of the Immaculate Conception, for above all other Marian Dogmas it expresses the superabundance of God’s grace, the immensity of the Divine condescension in the mystery of the Incarnation and the beauty of the plan for our salvation as conceived in the Eternal Will. This is not a day for any kind of neo-protestant minimalism which sees Our Blessed Lady merely as a woman like any other and consigns and limits her significance to that of exemplifying the perfect Christian. No, today’s feast opens our hearts and our minds to the awesome truth which inspires the words of Our Lady herself in the song of her Magnificat: Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae: ecce enim ex hoc beatam me dicent omnes generationes. God has made in the humility and the humanity of Our Blessed Lady something before which we can only marvel.

Such was the reaction of Blessed Pius IX in the moment of his declaration of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception on December 8th, 1854. Having spent all his holy life, his boyhood, his priesthood, as bishop, cardinal and Pope under the conscious protection of the Mother of God, during the time of his exile at Gaeta, he spent long hours in prayer before an image of the Immaculate by Scipione Pulsone, and he pondered the challenging words of the saintly Cardinal Luigi Lambruschini, formerly Archbishop of Genoa, sometime Secretary of State to Gregory XVI and most bitter opponent of the Masonic architects of the Risorgimento. Cardinal Lambruschini had said:

“Holy Father, you will not be able to heal the world unless you proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Only this dogmatic definition will reestablish the meaning of Christian truth and bring minds back from the paths of naturalism upon which they have become lost.”

The counsel of Cardinal Lambruschini encouraged the Holy Father to consult the Bishops of the Church. Speaking to the Sacred College gathered for the consistory of December 1st, 1854, Pope Pius IX demonstrated his joy and surprise that the written responses from the world’s episcopate not only confirmed the piety of priests and people in regard to this most hidden of Our Lady’s privileges, but even crowned heads were among those who petitioned for the universal belief in the Immaculate Conception to be declared dogma. For this reason, on December 8th 1854, in the most solemn manner known to our Catholic Magisterium, Pope Pius IX defined ex cathedra, before one hundred and seventy bishops and innumerable pilgrims gathered in the Basilica of Saint Peter, the dogma of Our Lady’s Immaculate Conception.

The voice of the Sovereign Pontiff broke and tears filled his eyes as he paused before uttering the infallible words:”We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which holds that the Blessed Virgin Mary, at the first instant of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace of the Omnipotent God, in virtue of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of mankind, was preserved immaculate from all stain of original sin, has been revealed by God, and therefore should firmly and constantly be believed by all the faithful….”

Contemporary accounts of the occasion record that as the Pope began the words of the solemn definition, he became very pale and there was concern among bystanders that he might faint. Commenting on this, some time later, the Pope said that he hadn’t been feeling ill in the slightest but rather, in the moment of defining the dogma, God had permitted him to look upon the purity of Our Blessed Lady and he felt himself completely overwhelmed in peering into the abyss of such holiness.

Following the solemn definition of the dogma, the cannon of nearby Castel Sant’Angelo boomed and the bells of the basilicas and churches of Rome rang out the glorious news. The Catholic faithful of the world rejoiced, and grace flooded their souls as they prayed the prayer Our Lady herself had given St Catherine Labouré some twenty years earlier, “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

In considering the great truth of this dogma, it would be a mistake to see it in purely negative terms concerning only Our Lady’s preservation from the stain of sin, but we should also consider that this privilege, which is uniquely hers, places Our Blessed Lady at the apex of any classification in terms of holiness, she is quite simply honorificentia populi nostri, the highest honour of our race. As Dom Gérard Calvet OSB, the saintly founding abbot of Sainte-Madeleine, Le Barroux, wrote:

“To say that the Blessed Virgin is the Queen of the Universe and that she is exempt from all stain, is to establish between her and creation a relationship which is entirely unique, for the royalty of Mary is experienced in our earthly universe in such a way that neither her purity nor her brilliance are compromised, rather in the manner that the stars are not affected by impurities in the air.”

It is for this reason that we poor sinners, are made confident in approaching one who was conceived without sin, for we see in her, in a most marvelous way, God’s plan of salvation which is nothing less than the rescue of sinful humanity, our sanctification and reconciliation with the Eternal Father.

At compline, the Church dwells on this thought in the last verse of Psalm 90: Clamabit ad me et ego exaudiam eum, cum ipso sum in tribulatione, eripiam eum et gloricabo eum. Here we have the assurance that the sinner will cry out to God and be heard, for God is with us in our great troubles and will deliver us from all the harm that sin and the world can affect and will in his time glorify us. Who can doubt the importance of the role of Our Blessed Lady in this rescue operation? For did she not reveal herself to St Bernadette as the Immaculate Conception at Lourdes only four years after the declaration of the dogma, asking for prayers for sinners ? It is here that we understand that perfect purity is united to the most tender mercy and is wonderfully revealed in the Immaculate as it us in God himself.

In matters spiritual, only God is truly able to match the remedy to the affliction, and in the mystery of the Immaculate Conception we gaze upon something of the perfection of his response to the enormity of our human dilemma. It will probably not be for us, as it was for Blessed Pius IX, to whom it was granted to perceive, albeit for just a moment, the immensity of the marvel which God has accomplished in Our Blessed Lady. For us, his courage and prudence in declaring this dogma should be a consolation and an assurance in this ‘vale of tears’. The words of St Bernard entreat us: Respice stellam, voca Mariam! We look to the star and we call upon Mary and we do so in the hope that such great purity and perfection as we find in her may aid us in our own battles with the poison of sin and enable the joy of this day and our solemn celebration to be a foretaste of what, please God, we shall know one day with her in heaven. Thou art all beautiful Mary and the stain of original sin is not in thee!