Chant Café

In response to many requests, Msgr. Wadsworth has made available his homily for the Ember Day Mass.

A Homily for the Ember Saturday in the Octave of Pentecost

Preached by Msgr Andrew Wadsworth at a Solemn High in the Church of the Epiphany, Pittsburgh at the Colloquium XXI of The Church Music Association of America
June 18 2011

From the text of the Introit, and indeed the Epistle of this Holy Mass: Caritas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris (The love of God is poured forth in our hearts.)
Pentecost, as we know, is the culmination of the Easter festival, which, my breviary informs me, ends today after the office of None. The feast of Pentecost and its octave explains to us how the power of the mystery of Jesus, the mystery of Christ’s suffering, dying and rising is communicated and received; communicated by God, and received by us. God’s plan of salvation is, shall we say, expressed in summary form in the breath-taking readings of today’s Mass.

If a person were to walk in from the street, and one knowing nothing of the Faith that we hold, if that person were enlightened by the Holy Spirit to understand what they were witnessing at this Mass, just about the whole truth of the Catholic faith is laid before them. Today’s great feature is the distinctive sequence of prophecies, alleluias and collects of this Ember Day Mass. Our faith is made so much clearer to us; for we hear of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit (Joel 2,28-32); we hear of the harvest which God expects (Lev 23, 9-11;15-17;21); we hear of the possession of the land (Deut 26,1-11) and the fruitfulness of that land (Lev 26,3-12); and we hear, finally, of the purification by fire, which is the suffering and the trial through which we must all pass (Dan 3, 47-51).

In today’s great Epistle (Rom 5,1-5) we hear that we have, through God’s great mercy, access through faith in Christ, to grace. And then, the Gospel we’ve just heard (Luke 4,38-44) tells us how that grace is put to work, by God, in our hearts, to heal us. In this, Simon’s mother in law is a picture of the Church. This morning at Matins, St Ambrose in his wonderful homily commenting on the Gospel, makes it clear that the fever of Simon’s mother-in-law is an expression of the weakness and the vulnerability that we know so well.

He says, Febris enim nostra, avaritia est : febris nostra, libido est : febris nostra, luxuria est : febris nostra, ambitio est : febris nostra, iracundia est (Homily by St Ambrose, Book. iv. on Luke 4). Our fever, the weakness which so easily and obviously besets us, is that avarice or lack of generosity, lust, selfishness or greed, ambition and anger. These are the things in the human heart which keep us from God and one another. They are impediments to the action of the Holy Spirit and they are very real impediments to God’s plan.

What is that plan? The Fathers of the Church called it nothing less than divinization, the process of expanding the human heart so much that eventually it can receive God Himself. Scripture says: “when we see Him, we shall be like Him” (1John 3, 2-3). I’m sure I don’t only speak for myself when I say that we are all very much a work in process – the process whereby a heart becomes sufficiently generous to receive God Himself.

God has given us this great promise which we hear at the heart of this Mass, the song which is on the lips of the Church as this Mass begins: the Love of God is being poured forth in our hearts. It points us toward heaven, just as the liturgy does. It points us towards the goal, as it were, to which this procession must move.

Today, in our tradition, is a great day for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit in the gift of ordination, the ordinations to the minor orders, and even to the major orders, culminating in the ordination to the priesthood just before the Gospel. We can see how, in God’s providence, and in His plan, this priestly people which makes up the Catholic Church, should, through the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy, expand its heart to receive God Himself.

We know, do we not, that it is in the liturgy, at its best, that maybe just for a brief moment, the veil is lifted? And we perceive, even in this life, something which is the life of heaven, which breaks through, into our hearts. It is principally in the liturgy that we learn the language of heaven, and the song of heaven.

We are told that the Fathers of the Church learnt the chant from the angels, and that our singing altera ad alterum, antiphonally from side to side, is an imitation of the choirs of angels that sing responding to one another. When we sing, we should be like them, because we shall have become what we sing: Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Holy, holy, holy…

I just received news that the Catholic Truth Society has received permission to print a Latin-English hand missal this year. The samples I’ve seen look very beautiful.

Amazon placed yet another large order for the Simple English Propers last night. This again suggests that the backorder list is huge. All good!

The USCCB made a stunning announcement last week that said that the music for the new Missal can be used immediately if the local bishop approves. This has sent parishes across the country scrambling for Mass cards to put in the pews so that the people can start chanting. I had been looking and begging myself until someone pointed out just how easy such a thing would be to make.

Sure enough, this one small sheet (8.5.x11) includes Kyrie, Gloria, Credo text, Sanctus, Acclamations, and Agnus. It’s a start. You can download it here.

I’m not sure that I see the need for music on the Credo. People would probably learn it better without worrying about notes. They only need to listen several times to a strong cantor.

Here it is

Next year’s Colloquium is at the Cathedral of the Madeleine, June 25- July 1. Here are some images from this Fickr page:

There was a great deal of interest in Edward Schaefer’s class on semiology at the Sacred Music Colloquium – something that had long been requested by participants but we had not been able to fit into the schedule. It was very interesting class, a chance to tap into the work of hundreds of great chant masters over a hundred years in order to understand why we have the music we have. The class left me with a profound respect for that early generation of Solesmes monks who took on the task of correcting the chant in light of paleographic research – a task later picked up by Dom E. Cardine.

In the 1980s, the primary publishing spot in the English-speaking world for semiological research was Sacred Music magazine as published by the Church Music Association of America and under the editorship of Msgr. Richard Schuler. The topic was the most frequently visited theme throughout the 1980s, with contributions by Dom Cardine, Fr. Columba Kelly, Robert M. Fowells, and Dom Laurence Bevenot.

Together these 40 pages of material constitute a guide to this topic, including the repeated clarification that semiology is not a method for singing but a research project that picks up the original principles that guided Dom Pothier and Dom Mocquereau. Indeed, the collection opens with Cardine’s own tribute to Mocquereau.

I hope everyone can benefit by having these articles all in one file: The Semiology Collection from Sacred Music.