Chant Café

Fr. Z has the story.

Even if you are not an EFer, this document will matter, and profoundly.

There are only a few spots remaining at the Sacred Music Colloquium. Readers of this site need to understand that sending a musician or priest to this conference is that surest guarantee that he or she will come back home ready to do the right thing for a parish music program.

And just to deal with a common worry here, it is not the case that anyone is hit over the head with a big copy of the Graduale Triplex while here. There are many people who come from a Praise and Worship, or Glory and Praise, background. These people will not be ridiculed or put down for their views. There is no fundamentalist attitude on display. The goal of the Colloquium is to expose people to the full tradition of liturgical music – and I’ve never seen a case where there aren’t great results.

Even if a person doubts that pastoral merit of chant, doesn’t it make sense to learn about the tradition, even if only from the point of view of history and musical competence? There really is no good reason for any Catholic musician not to understand and be enlightened.

I say all of this because there is no question that the colloquium will be filled to capacity, and readers of this site need to be aware of the opportunity here. If he means volunteering to pay the way of someone else, that would be a good thing to do. This conference offers the greatest hope for fundamental, long-lasting change in your parish. It is a much better way to use resources than grumbling ever week or otherwise railing in private. Let’s bring more light and less heat to this issue.

Send this link today: http://musicasacra.com/colloquium

COLLECT

Current

Almighty and ever-living God,
give us new strength
from the courage of Christ our shepherd,
and lead us to join the saints in heaven.

Forthcoming

Almighty ever-living God,
lead us to a share in the joys of heaven,
so that the humble flock may reach
where the brave Shepherd has gone before.

AFTER COMMUNION

Current
Father, eternal shepher,
watch over the flock redeemed by the blood of Christ
and lead us to the promised land.

Forthcoming

Look upon your flock, kind Shepherd,
and be pleased to settle in eternal pastures
the sheep you have redeemed
by the Precious Blood of your Son.
Who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

_____________

Because I missed this last week:

3rd Sunday in Easter

COLLECT

Current

God our Father,
may we look forward with hope to our resurrection,
for you have made us your sons and daughters,
and restored the joy of our youth.

Forthcoming

May your people exult for ever, O God,
in renewed youthfulness of spirit,
so that, rejoicing now in the restored glory of our adoption,
we may look forward in confident hope
to the rejoicing of the day of resurrection.

AFTER COMMUNION

Current

Lord, look on your people with kindness
and by these Easter mysteries
brings us to the glory of the resurrection.

Forthcoming

Look with kindness upon your people, O Lord,
and grant, we pray,
that those you were pleased to renew by eternal mysteries
may attain in their flesh
the incorruptible glory of the resurrection.

The Catholic News Agency offers a nice summary of Benedict XVI’s remarks at an international liturgical conference in Rome. The Pope once again explained that tradition and progress do not need to be in conflict. “Actually, though, the two concepts are interwoven: tradition is a living reality that, in itself, includes the principle of development, of progress.”

Sometimes I wonder if Americans who read these sorts of statements just gloss over them and don’t think about the radical implications. If the Pope’s words were taken seriously, the prevailing parameters that govern liturgical discourse in the United States would completely fall away. He is saying that tradition need not be frozen in time, and progress cannot be unhinged from its past. Tradition needs development in order to speak to new times, while true progress cannot occur without a firm foundation in what has been. It strikes me that everyone could learn from this approach. If it were taken seriously, we would have a basis for going forward.

If the news story is accurate, the Pope apparently mentioned Latin and Gregorian chant in particular as institutions that provide for the continuing between the past and the future, and he therefore urged more diligence in adhering to the clear wishes of Vatican II in this regard. He goes further to say that the purpose of the Second Vatican Council was to urge a new way of thinking about the liturgy and its purpose; it never set out to be a mandate for wholesale reconstruction and upheaval.

There are times when I really wonder if improvement in music from about 1500 forward is really illusory. There is only ebb and flow, with some bright moments along the way. Consider this.

This is one report among so many I’ve seen at how well the SEP works. And note the direction of change here: from guitar songs to sung English propers with the goal of a Gregorian embrace. The SEP is what makes this change possible.

I just wanted to say that I have now been the Director of Music for two Sundays at a small parish in Southern Oregon. Last week I stuck pretty much with the format that the choir was used to, which was mostly OCP guitar music, however I added in a gregorian chant during communion, and I used a chanted version of the Gloria in English, that I found searching the forum. The chants went over well, and the choir who had no background in chant outside of Sanctus and Angus Dei, XVIII during Lent and Advent, learned them very quickly.

This weekend at the Saturday vigil and the Sunday Morning Mass, I decided to use the SEP. At the Saturday vigil where I was the lone cantor, I sang the introit, Offertory and Communion from the SEP and this morning, because the RE kids crowned Mary, I was asked sing a Marian song for the Processional, which I did, however I was still able to keep the Offertory and the Communion. I was quite amazed at how quickly the choir was able to learn them, and how well the came off. Ever more so I was surprised by the amount of people who thanked me for bringing back the propers and for using chant. So I just wanted to say thank you to Adam Bartlett and the CMAA for providing these.

As a Byzantine Catholic, I’ve often been very put off by what I’ve seen in Roman liturgies, and really wasn’t sure what could be done to make them better. Then I was able to attend the last colloquium in Chicago a couple years ago, and saw how beautiful the Roman rite could actually be (I had sung at the William Byrd Festival in Portland, OR, so I wasn’t totally without exposure to a good Roman liturgy, but that was all I’d really experienced). Me ending up in this parish was quite out of the blue. I really was worried that it would be an up hill battle all the way, however things are off to a good start with the majority of the people being happy with the vision I’ve put forward.

The priest who is an ex monk and I are planning to bring about fully sung masses starting in Advent with the new translation, and hopefully I’ll be able to use this summer to present some workshops to the laity, on chant, ect. I’ve already been able to recruit some people in the congregation who want to learn all the chant ordinaries, so they can disperse themselves throughout the congregation so that people hear other people singing and not just the choir.

Things are off to a start and I hope they can continue in a positive direction. I’m hoping to be able to do away with Respond and Acclaim in a month or so, but we’ll see. But above all it was wonderful to be able to reintroduce the propers to the mass. Without them it just feels like people aren’t really even getting the mass, since part of it is missing. Thanks again to Adam, the CMAA and everyone who has donated to the cause.