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Posted on by Adam Bartlett

“Singing the Mass” Now Available from Solesmes

Christopher Barlow writes to inform us that the new Solesmes edition Singing the Mass is now available for purchase at their newly revamped webstore.

This book contains chant settings in Latin and English, in square notation, for the Order of Mass and the Ordinary of the Mass (i.e. it contains no settings of the Proper). It contains variant settings of the Pater Noster so that it can be used equally in the United States, the UK and Australia.

Mr. Barlow has informed us that Solesmes is offering a 50% discount for orders of 50 or more. The book retails at €25.

This volume is a very exciting sign of progress in our present chant revival. Nothing like it has come before from Solesmes.

Posted on by Mr. C

“Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away…”

There may be much, much more to our dear friend Kathy’s analogy about we LitMusicGeeks being more like frustrated Broadway “performers/composers/conductors” than first meets the eye. The days before Nov.27th and now after are rife with the Monday-morning quarterbacking, the 20-20 hindsight, the “I told you so’s” from all quarters. For those who remember the early film musicals, the playwrite, the director, the producer, the cast, everyone had to grab the first newspaper out of the earliest bundle to hit the skids at the newstands to GET TO THE REVIEW! That was then, this is now: talking heads everywhere in every medium, still talking passed each other, some holding their ground even if it means some, uh, revision; others harumphing that no one died (!) and this, too, shall pass. Still others still insist the sky is either “Gold, Jerry, I tell ya, gold” or “Falling! It’s falling I tell ya, you just wait.” I think what’s most disconcerting is that the very notion of some of “us” dusting our sandals off and voting with our feet is playing out still, while others find it totally appropriate to take some victory laps: “Yay, Us!”
This is my take on “yesterday….”

First Sunday of Advent-Lectionary: 2
READING 1 IS 63:16B-17, 19B; 64:2-7

You, LORD, are our father, our redeemer you are named forever. Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not? Return for the sake of your servants,
the tribes of your heritage.

Now that “it” has come and is another day and date for the books, despite many invocations, pleas, approbations and no small measure of anxiety and arrogance from all sides over the implementation, what struck me about yesterday were these readings. How they indict any and all who regard God in or as an abstract? How much energy that could have been directing serving God’s people truly in need was wasted by hardened hearts who seemed so convicted that this liturgical priority was the paramount missio, and abandoned both the word and deed that are our true gospel imperatives? And how could any critic, pro or con, not call upon Him to help them discern the nature of their service, and how best to realize their relationship to “the tribes of (His) heritage.”? Heritage is so much more than inheritance. It is about relationship not value. And how many relationships have been injured by putting the Lord on hold during the years of this rancorous conference call?

Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down, with the mountains quaking before you, while you wrought awesome deeds we could not hope for, such as they had not heard of from of old. No ear has ever heard, no eye ever seen, any God but you doing such deeds for those who wait for him.

Does anyone remember about the man who climbed to the roof of his house as it floated down and away in a river during a raging storm? He eschewed the help of a neighbor who called from a rowboat; “No, I’m fine, God will save me.” Then he sent a police rescue motor-launch elsewhere, again declaring “I’m fine, God will save me!” Finally, when a Coast Guard helicopter dropped a rescue basket, he waved them off, shouting “I’m okay, go on, God will save and rescue me!” His house soon dissolved into the deep and he drowned. At judgment, he cried to the Lord, “God, why did you forsake me and not save me when I was so faithful?” “My son, what did you expect? I sent you a rowboat, police and a helicopter!”
In the midst of the storms of mistrust, intrigue, doubt, perseverance, did no one remember that MR3 did in fact tell us “I AM come down. This is, and always has been awesome what you can do in My Name.” But don’t argue over boats, helicopters, earthly authority or ingenuity, opportunities seized or missed. Do not wait in your indecision, call upon Him and then trust. It’s called “faith.” It is one of the greatest gifts.

Would that you might meet us doing right, that we were mindful of you in our ways! Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind. There is none who calls upon your name, who rouses himself to cling to you; for you have hidden your face from us and have delivered us up to our guilt. Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.

Behold how angry we all likely got at some point. And we own no such right, as “we” are not “He,” we are sinful. And don’t rest upon any laurels that anyone’s side has prevailed. “All our good deeds are like polluted rags….”
If we are clay, and clay we are, then He will write His Name upon us time and time again, until time is no more. Time isn’t measured in decades, half-centuries or even millenia. We are the clay, we are not the potters.

Posted on by Jeffrey Tucker

The Spectacular Success of the New Missal Translation

As much time as I had spent reading the new translation of the Missal, looking over the differences with the old translation, even saying the new prayers aloud and writing extensively about them, nothing could have prepared me for what I experienced today. The experience was beyond anything I believed would come in my lifetime. I found myself nearly overcome with a kind of controlled glee from the beginning of the Mass until the end.

The changes are few compared with the overall effect. There was a new decorum, a new seriousness. The words are said to be more opaque but the real-life experience in the opposite. The new text peels back the cloudiness that has shrouded the Catholic Mass under the old translation and its attempt to make the incredible so commonplace. At last we have a real match between the language we use and the things we believe. Both are now serious and robust. There is no more of that disunity we had become used to after all these decades.

As I’ve thought about this throughout the day, I’ve realized something I had not fully understood before. And perhaps this explains why the tiny opposition to this Missal is so vociferous and noisy. Here is the thing: the new translation has given the Mass a cultural transplant. I hadn’t known that this would happen ahead of time. But these small changes, the more complex language, the longer sentences, the heightened formality – all of these have a cumulative effect in eliciting a certain kind of intensified belief structure and comportment.

Our choir sings from the front of the nave so I was able to watch people today. For the first time that I can ever remember, I looked up and saw the eyes of 100% of everyone there looking up at the altar. Truly, this was a first. At the Incarnatus Est at the creed, 100% of the people there bowed their heads. At the end of communion, 100% of the people there were kneeling with heads bowed in prayer. I cannot remember ever seeing this kind of unity of purpose.

For whatever reason, the responses were louder than I’ve ever heard them from this congregation. More people attempted to sing. And clearly everyone was paying close attention to the words. The readers, even without instruction, seemed to have a new dignity in approaching the sanctuary, and a better cadence about how they read. In general, there was a sense that what we were all doing was important, significant, and serious – and this sense was not something imposed on top of the Mass but rather flowed from its essence.

You could say that this is because it is all new. Perhaps this explains part of it. But there is more to do than that. The language of the new translation is a different form of English than you would ever hear someone use in conversation. It cannot be mistaken for the usual blather we hear from television, radio, store clerks, and coworkers all day. It is the language of liturgy and that causes us to sit up and take notice. it causes us all to behave.

I can tell you, it is much better in real life than it is on the flat page. I would say that this is even true of the chants, which are much better in use than in practice. The Kyrie was effective. The Memorial Acclamation was very good. The Sanctus, which I had previously not been disposed toward, was remarkably good and nicely balanced with the style and approach of the rest of the Mass. The Agnus worked too. I think I can be happy with these Missal chants for a long time, and whereas I used to grant certain criticisms of the opponents of these chants, I’m now a believe that these are exactly what we need.

I suspect that many people who had doubts coming into this project have changed their minds already. In the New York Times today, Fr. Anthony Ruff is quoted with extremely critical remarks to the journalist: “The syntax is too Latinate, it’s not good English that will help people pray,” But on this blog today, he writes: “It all went quite well at the abbey, and I was struck by the beauty of the liturgy…. Overall, I liked it much more than I expected.”

Excellent. I’m sure many people felt the same way. Actually, so far as i could tell, most people seemed very excited about the whole thing. Most Catholics attend Mass in something approaching what a friend of mine calls “a vegetative state.” It’s true enough. It’s been true for years. To put matters bluntly, most Catholics have been bored out of their minds at Mass, and I think this might have something to do with the plainness and mundane quality of the language. With that stripped away, the boredom factor seemed vanquished.

An older gentlemen after Mass opined that he felt a strong sense of relief, like a bad chapter in the history of Catholicism had been closed and a bright new one had opened. “Well, we went full circle, didn’t we, and we are back to where we were in 1965.” There is a certain sense in which this is really true. It is a fresh start for the reformed liturgy, a fresh start for the postconcilar English-speaking Church, and a fresh start in our lives as Catholics. I’m so grateful that I’ve lived to see it.

The people who were involved at all levels in the production of this Missal are required as a matter of a vow to remain anonymous because they were working for the Church and not for themselves. Still, I would like to congratulate each one of them. What they did took courage. It took daring and guts. It requires something truly heroic to stand against the winds and prevail in this way. It takes special people to embrace something so profoundly counterculture and push it all the way to reality. They did it and we are all grateful to them for it.

If anyone is reading this who stopped going to Mass long ago, please consider coming back. You will find something wonderful, something completely out of this world.