Chant Café

Just a brief note that the excellent volume Hymnarium O.P. is back in print!

For more information or to purchase, here is the link.

Sometimes we liturgical commentators spend a little too much time on the ideal plane of the choir loft without getting the full congregational view of things.

In those times I attend Sunday Mass in the pews, I find it astonishing how much of the average worship experience is dominated by a role unmentioned in the GIRM: the ubiquitous usher.

The distractions available to ushers are legion. Before Mass, they can stand in the back of church chatting, or in the sanctuary doublechecking the sacristan’s work, or in the nave guiding people to seats they could easily find themselves.

During the collection they can say “thank you” to each person who puts something in the basket. Or they can swoop the basket under people who give through their bank, as a helpful reminder.

All of these things I have winessed, and I have also seen usher’s heroics as well. Ushers tend to be amazing with persons who need help, from pointing out the restroom to sitting folks in the wheelchair section to asking that Communion be brought to a person with mobility problems. There is no place medically better to collapse, except in a hospital, than at Sunday Mass, due to the instant and decisive activity of ushers.

On the other hand, ushers, in my opinion, belong nowhere near the Communion line. People know how to go to Communion, and ushers have several unfortunate effects on the experience. They are distracting, and sometimes casually so, engaging people at a very solemn moment. Communion becomes something everyone in the row does, in orderly lines, rather than those who are properly disposed.

Suppose this is the first Mass I’ve attended for 20 years, just dropping in, and I haven’t been to confession in 30 years. This would be an odd moment to go to Communion. And yet, there is a man with a badge, insisting that it is my turn. I’d better go.

Or suppose I ate a McBreakfast on the way to a 25 minute early morning quiet Mass. The fast is a rule, I’ll be more prudent next time–if I’m brave enough to disobey the usher.

Or just suppose I am praying deeply, and would like a minimum of input right at the moment. An usher once gave me a quite unnecessary verbal direction about venerating the cross on Good Friday, as I was trying to focus on the Lord in worship at this rare and holy moment. Why did we need an usher directing the veneration line?

Without in any way discounting the generous service of these fine people, in general I feel it’s a good idea to think about the way things have been done, even–or perhaps especially–if they have been done that way for many years.

Gluten makes bread hold its shape, and without gluten, fillers must be used. This is not allowed for Communion.

This is a non-problem–now a PR problem–and the international press has behaved irresponsibly.

7.7.7: An historic moment in the life of the Church.

For me personally Summorum Pontificum opened up an experience of the Mass that enriches my life every day, even though I rarely take advantage of the permission. Perhaps I attend Mass according to the 1962 Missal 8-10 times a year. But when I do, there seems to me to be a great difference in my dispositions, and of my degree of receptivity to grace, than when attending the ordinary form. This taste of heaven, this time out of time, strengthens my heart for the rigors of the Gospel like nothing else has ever done.

The receptivity has to do with a certain silence and peace.

I experience silence, interior silence, even when there is a great deal of activity, for example at a Solemn High Mass, with its overlapping motions and sounds, with prayers repeated, whispered, announced. It is very calm. I breathe more deeply. Such a quiet peace.

This quiet is possible at the postconciliar, ordinary form of the rite. It is possible, but not normal. What is more normal for me is a rushed and hurried experience. The sometimes casual and often thoughtless atmosphere becomes part of my own experience of trying to pray the Mass.

Instead of sharing peace, I share in the distractions all around.

It seems to me that a certain hierarchy has been inverted. Sunday Mass should be the prayer experience par excellence, an experience that our daily Masses and personal prayers echo but never reach with the same profundity. Instead, I find that my private prayers are more devotional and solemn than daily Mass in the ordinary form, which is in turn more prayerful and less distracting than the ordinary form Sunday Mass.

There will be time for hard work and striving in the world, for taking the goods of the Liturgy into every corner of society. But first, these goods of the Liturgy must be available to the faithful at the Sunday Mass. Certainly the Lord is present, the consecration occurs. But it seems to me that the question liturgists should ask is how to help dispose the human heart towards recollection, openness to grace, receptivity to the graces of the sacraments and to the theological virtues.

St. Francis used to tell his brethren that if they were sad, they should go to Confession. For me, I find that when my gas tank of recollection is running low, the extraordinary form of the Mass is available and a help to my heart, and I am truly grateful for this permission.

This September, a five-day conference on liturgical formation and sacred music will be held in the Boston suburb of Peabody, MA, with distinguished speakers and musicians, under the title “Culmen et Fons”.

September 18 to 22, 2017 (Monday to Friday)
St. Adelaide Church, Peabody, MA

Speakers:
Dom Alcuin Reid, author of The Organic Development of the Liturgy 
Fr. Thomas Kocik, author of The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate 
Fr. Marco Testa, pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish, Port Perry, ON
Fr. Neil Roy, author and editor; chaplain at the Saint Benedict Center, Still River, MA

Audience:
The conference is intended for priests, deacons, seminarians, religious, masters of ceremonies, liturgical musicians and singers, and other members of the laity.

Music track:
In addition to the principal curriculum of liturgical formation for sacred ministers, Culmen et Fons will also feature a parallel conference track for all those engaged in the field of liturgical and sacred music. Rehearsals will prepare for providing the chant and polyphony for the sacred liturgies during the conference week. Repertoire will include Hassler “Missa Secunda,” Guerrero “Missa Ecce Sacerdos,” and choral/organ Masses by Duruflé and Widor.

The sessions in sacred music will be directed by
Michael Olbash, music director, St. Adelaide Church, Peabody, MA
David Hughes, music director, St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT

More information on talks, schedules, and registration is at the conference website, http://culmenetfonsma2017.com .

California’s Poet Laureate Dana Gioia writes:

By third grade, I had the text indelibly memorized, though the only word I understood was sacramentum. The literal meaning of the words seemed unimportant compared to the experience of singing. Back then I felt no genuine attachment to what the sisters reverently referred to as “the Blessed Sacrament.” (That devotion came much later.) The Eucharist was mostly an abstract idea. I sensed a sanctity in which I could not participate. But as I stood singing this short hymn with all my friends and teachers, I physically felt enraptured and exhilarated in the act of veneration.

Much more here.

The Twin Cities’ Star-Tribune visited this year’s Colloquium and had this to say:

Experts and students of the ancient sacred music from across the globe have gathered for what is billed as “the most in-depth teaching conference … on sacred music in the world.” They’re honing their musical skills and bringing the solemn choral notes to several St. Paul churches.

The centuries-old chants were tossed out of most Catholic churches after the Latin mass was put in deep storage in the 1960s. That was a mistake, say members of the Church Music Association of America, and a lot of people now recognize it.

Much more here!