Letters from my Windmill
Posted by Fr Christopher Smith
I have loved most of my life in cities. As a child, when I had to go and visit my grandparents in the country, visits which came with an alarming frequency, I always grumbled because I knew I would be Bored with a capital B. Accustomed as I was to television, cassette players, friends in the neighborhood and prank calling on the telephone, I never came to appreciate the pastoral beauties of rolling green hills, the smell of fresh hay, and the sounds of rivulets of water and whinnying horses. In fact, I pitied the country folk with the same kind of childish compassion that I had for the starving famine victims in Ethiopia my mother called to mind when I refused to eat collard greens. How sad that they could not live in a city.
The first time I came across Hilaire Belloc’s Path to Rome, I expected a book detailing the intellectual Sturm und Drang that accompanied converts to Catholicism like myself. Instead I found a travelogue which read like an enthusiastic anthropologist’s account of joys of Catholic peasantry. While I appreciated the oft-quoted line, “Wherever a Catholic sun doth shine, there’s always laughter and good red wine,” I imagined myself sipping a meticulously bioengineered Bordeaux at Café Flo in Paris while explaining why St Anselm’s arguments for the existence of God were meaningless, not drinking pastis out of a jug at a game of petanque with old men in Nimes.
Belloc’s “How to Travel Disguised as a Catholic Peasant” meant nothing to me at the time, because my own experience of the faith was wrapped up in extracting myself from fundamentalist Protestantism of the South and the spirit-eating virus of secularism everywhere.
I am firmly convinced that there is a way to develop a Catholic culture in the heart of the city. European immigrants to America had a Catholic culture in large cities like Boston and New York. Some will argue that such a culture still exists. My own experience of what remains of it has led me to see it as a Catholicism of convention rather than a Catholicism of conviction, something unable to sustain neither the convention nor the conviction in the long run.
I would like to think that celebrated liturgical centers like the Oratory in London and St John Cantius in Chicago can provide an oasis in the desert for urban-dwellers, that curious creature whose name is disturbingly close etymologically to bottom-dwellers. Yet, at the same time, even as I participated in a glorious Rogations Procession in an Anglo-Catholic garden in Manhattan, I still had the sense that there was a disconnect between liturgy and life.
There is a lot of talk about how to bring the liturgy to the people where they really are. If I live in the city and my idea of harvesting is a sale at Dean and DeLuca, can I really appreciate the earthy language of Rogations? Would it not be better then to scrap Ember Days entirely and replace them with something more “relevant,” like a protest against nuclear war? Need the language of faith be tied to an ancient agricultural world that none of us, including today’s farmers, inhabit?
It was reasoning like that which led Annibale Bugnini to argue that, since the hours of the day are no longer divided into seven Roman-inspired hours, the Breviary had to reflect that we now live in morning, afternoon and night. Prime was suppressed, and Terce, Sext and None have become Mid-some time of-day Prayer. Liturgical progress was declared a fait accompli because finally the liturgy was adjusted to the real life of believers. Just as no one would ever build a library of cassette tapes today when one can do marvels with MP3s and MP4s and I-things and other abbreviated devices that make our lives more efficient, many wish to remake the Church according to the mind of reason and plain common sense.
Anyone under the age of 30 can see that living together is the best preparation for marriage, so the Church must adjust its teaching to what young people reason as common sense. Young people love loud music and spectacle, so the liturgy does not lose any of its essence, the Church does not become any less Catholic if we all “get with the program” and cast off the shackles of anachronism and embrace the wisdom of the modern city. And so on and so on and so on.
Meanwhile accomodationist Catholicism of this very type has ended up in churches deprived of youth and the older folks engaging in pew-and-blog warfare over what they think the Church should be about. In trying to separate the wheat of the essence of the faith from what is taken to be the chaff of historical accretions and traditions and beliefs fallen into desuetude, no one seems to be able to make a hearty loaf of bread anymore that anyone wants to eat.
But that hearty loaf of bread which was Catholic culture was not the result of a recipe fabricated by rationalist gastronomes. It was the place where Catholic belief, prayer and practice, regulated by a liturgical rite, permeated the ordinary life of ordinary people. Belloc’s peasants did not set about to analyze or produce Catholic culture. They just lived it.
I am getting a glimpse of what this really means, and much to my chagrin, I see that the symbiosis of rural life and Catholic culture is quite natural in a way that the modern urban intellectual, especially if he is a Catholic of conviction, cannot always perceive. Authors like Flannery O’Connor, Evelyn Waugh, Jacques Maritain, or Francois Mauriac are all exemplars of a certain self-conscious Catholicism. They are all part of what has been termed a Catholic literary revival, even when their characters or theses are not “explicitly” Catholic at all.
All of them lived as urban-dwellers for whom the faith was an assent of the intellect to divine truth which formed their lives. Their faith is certainly authentic, but it is still essentially apologetic, because it is at variance with other conceptions of the human person, God, and the Church. Even though O’Connor’s stories reflect the life of the rural South, her theological anthropology is often the result of urban academia, of Teilhard de Chardin’s quest for meaning in the face of modern questions.
Compare this self-conscious, apologetic Catholicism with that of Alphonse Daudet. Practically unknown outside of France, this prolific nineteenth century writer lived the tension between the simple pleasures of a happy boyhood in Provence and the tortured glitterati of Paris. Catholicism permeates his stories of Southern France, not because of a desire to develop characters or a moral with a Catholic idea behind them, but because he describes the inhabitants of down-home country Provence as they are: shorn of pretext and filled with humour. Letters from My Windmill is a collection of stories of people Daudet knew growing up around Nimes. The faith of the characters is not self-conscious, but it is remarkably liturgical.
Today’s liturgical iconoclasts repeat like a mantra that, in the bad old days, no one knew what was going on because Mass was in Latin and the priest’s back was to the people. The characters of Daudet’s book, set as it is amidst Provencal peasantry of another century, would be all totally ignorant if the mantra were correct. The liturgoclasts would laugh at the shepherd explaining to Stephanette that a shooting star was a soul going up to paradise. But have they constructed any community-building rite more touching than that of an entire village continuing to give Old Cornille corn to grist in his windmill when everyone was sending their corn off to fancy new factories in the city?
One imagines the horror with which the modern liberated Christian reads an entire paragraph describing sumptuous processions, “the Pope’s soldiers singing in Latin, the rattles of the begging friars,” only to end in the bald assertion, “That was how the Popes of Avignon governed their people; that was why their people missed them when they were gone.”
Every page mentions causally that some event happened after Vespers, of how the Blessed Sacrament was exposed in every church so the faithful could pray for the sick Dauphin, why “there was not a soul about in the village streets, all were at High Mass” because “our lovely Provence, being Catholic, allows the soil to rest on Sundays.” The book is filled with amusing tale about the village clergy: how the chaplain of the chateau forgot to say Midnight Mass on Christmas because he was thinking of food, how Father Balaguere kept saying Benedicite instead of Dominus vobiscum and how “like hurrying wine-harvesters treading the grapes” priest and server “splatter about in the Latin of the Mass, sending splashes in all directions.”
One of the most side-splitting stories in the book is that of how a Norbertine canon saved his monastery from starving by inventing an elixir of fragrant herbs that everyone wanted. The priest then gets addicted to his potion, and even the Prior’s addition of prayers at the end of the Office for “Father Gaucher who is sacrificing himself in the interests of the community” can’t stop him from singing in his stupor. Daudet calls the clerical medicine man a “worthy parish priest” who then muses aloud, “Mercy me, suppose my parishioners heard me!”
I think that Daudet’s book is illustrative of many things: it gives the lie to the criticism that “fossilized Tridentine worship” had no place in the hearts of the people, and it shows that simple faith lived in a community of neighbors, priests and laity alike, produces joy. He does so not by making an argument, but by describing people whose lives were shaped by the faith. Daudet’s churchgoers are not angrily marking their territories as clergy or laypeople; their relationship is harmonious precisely because they accept the tradition as it has always been handed down to them, without rationalizing it or analyzing it. These are not unintelligent or unsophisticated people. They know their history, they know their crafts, they know their faith.
Crawling into Daudet’s abandoned windmill and enjoying these stories for their literary value has meant a lot to me. If I knew my faith, my craft, my history from my vantage point in the secular city as they did theirs from abandoned windmills! I no longer fear that leaving the city will bore me or that my faith will be shipwrecked if I can’t parry with the truly uncivilized, who live, neither in the countryside nor in the metropolis, but where God is a mystery to be ignored or exploited and not three Persons with whom to share an endle
at 12:19 AM
Labels: Fr. Christopher Smith
http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/08/letters-from-my-windmill.html#comments
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Monday, August 2, 2010
Why Humility Opens Doors
"Nice guys finish last," says the world. "The last will be first," replies Jesus. My guess is that the Lord of creation knows best who really wins in the end. And he says in this Sunday's gospel, "whoever exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted" (Luke 14:11) To understand why the humble get ahead and why the meek shall in.
http://catholicexchange.com/2010/08/02/132941/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicex+%28Catholic+Exchange%29
http://catholicexchange.com/2010/08/02/132941/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+catholicex+%28Catholic+Exchange%29
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Without Chant, the Catholic People Have No Voice
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Without Chant, the Catholic People Have No Voice
Posted by Jeffrey Tucker
Fr. Ruff posts this fascinating article from Orate Fratres, Feburary 22, 1936. It is called Why People Do Not Like Chant. The author is stricken with grief that everyone but Catholics seems interested in Gregorian chant. Meanwhile, as regards Catholics, "the people have truly no voice at all which can be claimed Catholic." If the situation was improving, which it was, this was interrupted by the ghastliness of the slaughter and upheaval called World War II.
I've attempted an HTML export here. I'm sure it has typos, but you get the drift.
Orate Fratres
February 22, 1936 NO. 4
WHY PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE GREGORIAN CHANT
IT is a well-known fact that the chant of the Church is not appreciated. Everyone who has been connected in some capacity or other with its restoration will bear witness to this statement. But no one really likes to admit it. It seems strange that, thirty-two years after the demand of the saintly Pius X for a return to the sacred chant, such wide-spread prejudices still prevail. This is the more painful, because Catholics are decidedly slower than non-Catholics in realizing the value of a treasure in their keeping.
Whereas here and there (and at that oftener than one would surmise) those outside the fold are curious to know about it, those of the flock are in general very reluctant to show any genuine interest. While a "Guild of Protestant Organists," or the department of music of some secular university, or again some musical group, will professa sincere eagerness to penetrate the charm of Gregorian melodies, Catholic institutions and societies (not to speak of parishes), have ignored the fact, sometimes even contemptuously, that there is such a thing as an art called Gregorian. Some readers who have not gone through the hard grind of introducing the chant, wonder, perhaps suspiciously, at this frank statement; but it would be convincingly vindicated by all teachers who have tried in some way or other to labor in the barren field. No illusion can prevail against such an acknowledgment; and it will serve the restoration of liturgical music better than a proud denial of guilt. Remedy can begin only where there is consciousness of the evil.
Why should it be within the Church herself that the chant is today mostly discredited? If there is an intrinsic value in Gregorian art, we have utterly failed to make it one with our religious concepts and our actual religious experiences. And thus we ask ourselves if the problem of the chant is not just as much of a religious as of a musical nature? This has long been our personal conviction. In other words, if our people cannot give vent to their inmost religious sentiments through the chant, it is because these sentiments have taken a direction entirely estranged from the inspiration of the chant. A break between the chant and our religious sentiment does not prove the chant wrong; it proves that we are wrong. For the chant was the most authentic utterance of religious experience in the early centuries.
It is deplorable that so far nothing has been able to overcome the prejudice against the chant, at least to a marked degree. It has, indeed, been welcomed in a few places; but in the majority of churches and chapels there is not even heard the faintest echo of its wondrous strains. We can by no means say that the chant is the general vehicle of Catholic devotion; in very few places indeed has its authority prevailed to the point where it is made the main source of inspiration in Catholic services. The chant was perhaps by "mission" the "voice of the Church"; it is not any longer the "voice of the people." And having lost its tradition, the people have truly no voice at all which can be claimed Catholic.
The most intruding vulgarity has invaded the t,emple, and holds fast against the most courageous attempts towards the restoration of the chant-attempts which, indeed, have been multiplied during the past twenty years. Many came to the rescue of the dishonored chant; paleographic science has vindicated its glorious authenticity and its unique place in the evolution of musical art; men of genius and taste have marvelled at its simple beauty; schools have opened their portals to students eager to learn about its beauty and form; demonstrations have proved that it can enhance, by its own power, the greatness of our liturgical services. But the choir loft has remained estranged.
Although the authority of the Church is unchallenged by the opposition, both of these have been traveling in parallel ways without ever meeting in open clash. While the decrees of the Holy See and the ordinances of the ordinaries have repeated or interpreted the principles of the Motu proprio with an ever increasing clearness, choir and people alike have been drifting along carefree and forgetful. And perhaps sheer authority will never give back to the faithful the voice which they have lost. Chant is not to be confused with a matter of faith. Were it such it could be enforced through penalty; but such is not likely ever to be the case.
Pius X was the first to realize this difference. This he expressed in his introductory letter to the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, when he insisted on having obedience prompted by the knowledge of the motives which command a reintroduction of the chant into Catholic life. Undoubtedly Catholics do not like it because they do not appreciate it. And until they are educated to like and enjoy it, it is unreasonable to hope that they will sing the chant.
Therefore, instead of deploring sine fine this sad lack ofappreciation, let us survey the groups which make up Catholic opinion in the matter. After we have studied them, remedial plans can be suggested. Proceeding from the altar to the choir-loft, we will meet the clergy, the children, the congregation, and the mixed choir.
The restoration of the chant depends largely on the stand taken towards it by the clergy. We take this opportunity to mention this attitude though our doing so requires respectful criticism. Would it be offending in any way to say that the clergy at large does not profess an enthusiastic admiration for the chant? Is it not true that priests in general are not crediting Gregorian melodies with being the "supreme form of liturgical music" and doubt very much its practicability? Such a skeptical attitude has its excuse: most members of the clergy never received a good foundation in the knowledge of the chant, and many have been quite disgusted with the failure of their loyal attempts to introduce it in their churches.
However, one would not be bold today in asking the following questions: "What would eventually be the vote of the clergy, should a free poll be organized on the question of restoring or rejecting the chant from our liturgical services?" "Can it be said that a concerted effort' has been attempted by an organized priesthood to bring about the restoration commanded by the Holy See?" "Is the study of Gregorian chant still a side-line or rather (what it should be) a main feature of the program of education in our minor and major seminaries?" Whatever answer you give, blame or excuse, it remains evident that the lack of efficient leadership among the clergy in this matter is apt to have a disastrous influence on the opinion formed by the laity. And this is sufficient to diagnose the most important cause of the great difficulties encountered in the work of restoration.
Close to the sanctuary we meet the children. And what they feel about the chant is a very important matter. Their opinion is likely to be free from unjust prejudice, and everyone is conscious that it has an important influence on the future. American children show a delightful openness of heart towards the chant. You may call to the witness-stand all those who have ever worked with them in any State and none will deny this optimistic affirmation.
Exception made for rare, forlorn places, and even there, they always respond to an intelligent presentation by a soulful rendition. Children never dislike the chant, and are prompt to express both their lovely appreciation of it as well as their sharp criticism of vulgar sacred music.
This attitude calls to mind the ex are infantium of the psalm. More than once we had to learn from the little ones what our sophistication or indifference had forgotten and sometimes forsaken. Before the children discovered for us the chaste beauties of the chant, they brought back into the world true Eucharistic life. And their spontaneous return to charming Gregorian songs was preceded by their intimate friendship with Jesus in the divine Eucharist. Now then, we have the experimental proof that like or dislike of the sacred chant is more a religious than a musical problem.
The congregation presents a more complex attitude: it is neither "likes" nor "dislikes." It is the same apathy into which the loss of liturgical cooperation has brought them. How could they be expected to sing with pleasure the musical expression of a prayer which has no longer any meaning for them, especially since they have been gradually reduced to mere onlookers and listeners? This attitude is more or less passive; but all pastors who have tried to overcome it know how hard they have to fight and how many times they have to retreat before a new effort. However, the faithful in the pews appreciate the chant. It has been a repeated experience with the writer that if you do not advertise Gregorian chant with the undiplomatic publicity that it is the music imposed by the Church, but just prepare a service well with a group, many comments will attest that the congregation is pleased. And they all will emphasize that "it was very prayerful and soul-stirring." We ave had so far but a single inscance to the contrary; it came from a "high-society center."
It is in the choir-10ft that the enemy is entrenched as in a fortress. Oftentimes the pastor looks on his choir as his crux, and rightly so, though he may at times forget the good will, the regular attendance, the fidelity of many members. The choir members are not to be blamed; the institution itself is the deep-rooted evil. It has grown and outworn itself into a spirit entirely opposed to the essential objectives of a liturgical choir. It is neither religious nor musical. A religious, a liturgical, a parochial spirit are usually well-nigh impossible with the mode of enrollment, the lack of religious functioning, the location for singing; a musical spirit cannot be formed with the usual repertoire of vulgarities or secondrate music which has been for so long the lot of Catholic choirs.
Add to that the sore fact that many of those who assume (or have to assume) the mission of directing the choir are not prepared to exercise a real authority to educate their group. Their musicianship and their knowledge of the liturgy are too elementary. Unfortunately, improvised musical directors, unless they be humble enough (and some are indeed), will either discredit the chant which they do not appreciate or will ruin it by lack of real presentation. And even when they do fulfill their task, they will encounter many difficulties which at times look insuperable to the most courageous pioneer.
From the examination of groups which make up this criticism, as well as from general considerations, we may sum up the reasons why the chant is not liked, or positively disliked:
1. The loss of that special spiritual feeling which comes only with the experience of liturgical life.
2. The lack of positive leadership impossible to many priests who did not have the opportunity to study the sacred chant welt
3. The passive attitude of the laity in the liturgical services.
4. The incomplete formation of many of our choir-directors.
5. The deformed spirit of our mixed choirs.
The picture looks dark. Perhaps it is well to see it thus. But there is a very bright spot among the shadows, and so the situation is much more hopeful than is our description of it. It will be the object of the entire series of these articles until next Advent to propose remedies. We ask the reader patiently to wait for them.
ERMIN VITRY, O.S.B.
at 8:20 AM
Labels: Jeffrey Tucker
3 comments:
Andrew said...
I think this article is revealing. Imagine if Christians gradually ceased to pray the psalms. Over time the language and imagery of the psalms would become foreign to them and in a few generations the people would find very little in them that they could really take hold of and make spiritually their own. This is exactly our present problem with the chant. Much of its inner beauty and power is only intelligible to a select few who have taken it upon themselves to educate themselves in it. What a sad state we are in. If only the Second Vatican Council's mandate for active participation had led to a real effort to form the People of God in this wondrous music. The liturgical movement of the early 20th Century was certainly sabotaged by something foreign to the spirit of the liturgy....
July 31, 2010 11:18 AM
Jake Tawney said...
Rather than posting a short comment, I wrote a follow piece on this article available here:
http://causafinitaest.blogspot.com/2010/07/article-on-sacred-chant-1936.html
In general, however, I though the article was timely enough to have been written just yesterday. In fact, on my first skim through the piece, its publication date alluded me. It was only on my second pass through that I realized it was written in 1936.
July 31, 2010 12:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Greetings,
When Jews returned to Isreal, when they did not speak Hebrew people would say: Speak like a Jew. It was their cry to re-establish Hebrew as a spoken Language.
Perhaps we should have a similar statement: Sing like a Catholic!
July 31, 2010 6:21 PM
http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/07/without-chant-catholic-people-have-no.html#more
Without Chant, the Catholic People Have No Voice
Posted by Jeffrey Tucker
Fr. Ruff posts this fascinating article from Orate Fratres, Feburary 22, 1936. It is called Why People Do Not Like Chant. The author is stricken with grief that everyone but Catholics seems interested in Gregorian chant. Meanwhile, as regards Catholics, "the people have truly no voice at all which can be claimed Catholic." If the situation was improving, which it was, this was interrupted by the ghastliness of the slaughter and upheaval called World War II.
I've attempted an HTML export here. I'm sure it has typos, but you get the drift.
Orate Fratres
February 22, 1936 NO. 4
WHY PEOPLE DO NOT LIKE GREGORIAN CHANT
IT is a well-known fact that the chant of the Church is not appreciated. Everyone who has been connected in some capacity or other with its restoration will bear witness to this statement. But no one really likes to admit it. It seems strange that, thirty-two years after the demand of the saintly Pius X for a return to the sacred chant, such wide-spread prejudices still prevail. This is the more painful, because Catholics are decidedly slower than non-Catholics in realizing the value of a treasure in their keeping.
Whereas here and there (and at that oftener than one would surmise) those outside the fold are curious to know about it, those of the flock are in general very reluctant to show any genuine interest. While a "Guild of Protestant Organists," or the department of music of some secular university, or again some musical group, will professa sincere eagerness to penetrate the charm of Gregorian melodies, Catholic institutions and societies (not to speak of parishes), have ignored the fact, sometimes even contemptuously, that there is such a thing as an art called Gregorian. Some readers who have not gone through the hard grind of introducing the chant, wonder, perhaps suspiciously, at this frank statement; but it would be convincingly vindicated by all teachers who have tried in some way or other to labor in the barren field. No illusion can prevail against such an acknowledgment; and it will serve the restoration of liturgical music better than a proud denial of guilt. Remedy can begin only where there is consciousness of the evil.
Why should it be within the Church herself that the chant is today mostly discredited? If there is an intrinsic value in Gregorian art, we have utterly failed to make it one with our religious concepts and our actual religious experiences. And thus we ask ourselves if the problem of the chant is not just as much of a religious as of a musical nature? This has long been our personal conviction. In other words, if our people cannot give vent to their inmost religious sentiments through the chant, it is because these sentiments have taken a direction entirely estranged from the inspiration of the chant. A break between the chant and our religious sentiment does not prove the chant wrong; it proves that we are wrong. For the chant was the most authentic utterance of religious experience in the early centuries.
It is deplorable that so far nothing has been able to overcome the prejudice against the chant, at least to a marked degree. It has, indeed, been welcomed in a few places; but in the majority of churches and chapels there is not even heard the faintest echo of its wondrous strains. We can by no means say that the chant is the general vehicle of Catholic devotion; in very few places indeed has its authority prevailed to the point where it is made the main source of inspiration in Catholic services. The chant was perhaps by "mission" the "voice of the Church"; it is not any longer the "voice of the people." And having lost its tradition, the people have truly no voice at all which can be claimed Catholic.
The most intruding vulgarity has invaded the t,emple, and holds fast against the most courageous attempts towards the restoration of the chant-attempts which, indeed, have been multiplied during the past twenty years. Many came to the rescue of the dishonored chant; paleographic science has vindicated its glorious authenticity and its unique place in the evolution of musical art; men of genius and taste have marvelled at its simple beauty; schools have opened their portals to students eager to learn about its beauty and form; demonstrations have proved that it can enhance, by its own power, the greatness of our liturgical services. But the choir loft has remained estranged.
Although the authority of the Church is unchallenged by the opposition, both of these have been traveling in parallel ways without ever meeting in open clash. While the decrees of the Holy See and the ordinances of the ordinaries have repeated or interpreted the principles of the Motu proprio with an ever increasing clearness, choir and people alike have been drifting along carefree and forgetful. And perhaps sheer authority will never give back to the faithful the voice which they have lost. Chant is not to be confused with a matter of faith. Were it such it could be enforced through penalty; but such is not likely ever to be the case.
Pius X was the first to realize this difference. This he expressed in his introductory letter to the Cardinal Vicar of Rome, when he insisted on having obedience prompted by the knowledge of the motives which command a reintroduction of the chant into Catholic life. Undoubtedly Catholics do not like it because they do not appreciate it. And until they are educated to like and enjoy it, it is unreasonable to hope that they will sing the chant.
Therefore, instead of deploring sine fine this sad lack ofappreciation, let us survey the groups which make up Catholic opinion in the matter. After we have studied them, remedial plans can be suggested. Proceeding from the altar to the choir-loft, we will meet the clergy, the children, the congregation, and the mixed choir.
The restoration of the chant depends largely on the stand taken towards it by the clergy. We take this opportunity to mention this attitude though our doing so requires respectful criticism. Would it be offending in any way to say that the clergy at large does not profess an enthusiastic admiration for the chant? Is it not true that priests in general are not crediting Gregorian melodies with being the "supreme form of liturgical music" and doubt very much its practicability? Such a skeptical attitude has its excuse: most members of the clergy never received a good foundation in the knowledge of the chant, and many have been quite disgusted with the failure of their loyal attempts to introduce it in their churches.
However, one would not be bold today in asking the following questions: "What would eventually be the vote of the clergy, should a free poll be organized on the question of restoring or rejecting the chant from our liturgical services?" "Can it be said that a concerted effort' has been attempted by an organized priesthood to bring about the restoration commanded by the Holy See?" "Is the study of Gregorian chant still a side-line or rather (what it should be) a main feature of the program of education in our minor and major seminaries?" Whatever answer you give, blame or excuse, it remains evident that the lack of efficient leadership among the clergy in this matter is apt to have a disastrous influence on the opinion formed by the laity. And this is sufficient to diagnose the most important cause of the great difficulties encountered in the work of restoration.
Close to the sanctuary we meet the children. And what they feel about the chant is a very important matter. Their opinion is likely to be free from unjust prejudice, and everyone is conscious that it has an important influence on the future. American children show a delightful openness of heart towards the chant. You may call to the witness-stand all those who have ever worked with them in any State and none will deny this optimistic affirmation.
Exception made for rare, forlorn places, and even there, they always respond to an intelligent presentation by a soulful rendition. Children never dislike the chant, and are prompt to express both their lovely appreciation of it as well as their sharp criticism of vulgar sacred music.
This attitude calls to mind the ex are infantium of the psalm. More than once we had to learn from the little ones what our sophistication or indifference had forgotten and sometimes forsaken. Before the children discovered for us the chaste beauties of the chant, they brought back into the world true Eucharistic life. And their spontaneous return to charming Gregorian songs was preceded by their intimate friendship with Jesus in the divine Eucharist. Now then, we have the experimental proof that like or dislike of the sacred chant is more a religious than a musical problem.
The congregation presents a more complex attitude: it is neither "likes" nor "dislikes." It is the same apathy into which the loss of liturgical cooperation has brought them. How could they be expected to sing with pleasure the musical expression of a prayer which has no longer any meaning for them, especially since they have been gradually reduced to mere onlookers and listeners? This attitude is more or less passive; but all pastors who have tried to overcome it know how hard they have to fight and how many times they have to retreat before a new effort. However, the faithful in the pews appreciate the chant. It has been a repeated experience with the writer that if you do not advertise Gregorian chant with the undiplomatic publicity that it is the music imposed by the Church, but just prepare a service well with a group, many comments will attest that the congregation is pleased. And they all will emphasize that "it was very prayerful and soul-stirring." We ave had so far but a single inscance to the contrary; it came from a "high-society center."
It is in the choir-10ft that the enemy is entrenched as in a fortress. Oftentimes the pastor looks on his choir as his crux, and rightly so, though he may at times forget the good will, the regular attendance, the fidelity of many members. The choir members are not to be blamed; the institution itself is the deep-rooted evil. It has grown and outworn itself into a spirit entirely opposed to the essential objectives of a liturgical choir. It is neither religious nor musical. A religious, a liturgical, a parochial spirit are usually well-nigh impossible with the mode of enrollment, the lack of religious functioning, the location for singing; a musical spirit cannot be formed with the usual repertoire of vulgarities or secondrate music which has been for so long the lot of Catholic choirs.
Add to that the sore fact that many of those who assume (or have to assume) the mission of directing the choir are not prepared to exercise a real authority to educate their group. Their musicianship and their knowledge of the liturgy are too elementary. Unfortunately, improvised musical directors, unless they be humble enough (and some are indeed), will either discredit the chant which they do not appreciate or will ruin it by lack of real presentation. And even when they do fulfill their task, they will encounter many difficulties which at times look insuperable to the most courageous pioneer.
From the examination of groups which make up this criticism, as well as from general considerations, we may sum up the reasons why the chant is not liked, or positively disliked:
1. The loss of that special spiritual feeling which comes only with the experience of liturgical life.
2. The lack of positive leadership impossible to many priests who did not have the opportunity to study the sacred chant welt
3. The passive attitude of the laity in the liturgical services.
4. The incomplete formation of many of our choir-directors.
5. The deformed spirit of our mixed choirs.
The picture looks dark. Perhaps it is well to see it thus. But there is a very bright spot among the shadows, and so the situation is much more hopeful than is our description of it. It will be the object of the entire series of these articles until next Advent to propose remedies. We ask the reader patiently to wait for them.
ERMIN VITRY, O.S.B.
at 8:20 AM
Labels: Jeffrey Tucker
3 comments:
Andrew said...
I think this article is revealing. Imagine if Christians gradually ceased to pray the psalms. Over time the language and imagery of the psalms would become foreign to them and in a few generations the people would find very little in them that they could really take hold of and make spiritually their own. This is exactly our present problem with the chant. Much of its inner beauty and power is only intelligible to a select few who have taken it upon themselves to educate themselves in it. What a sad state we are in. If only the Second Vatican Council's mandate for active participation had led to a real effort to form the People of God in this wondrous music. The liturgical movement of the early 20th Century was certainly sabotaged by something foreign to the spirit of the liturgy....
July 31, 2010 11:18 AM
Jake Tawney said...
Rather than posting a short comment, I wrote a follow piece on this article available here:
http://causafinitaest.blogspot.com/2010/07/article-on-sacred-chant-1936.html
In general, however, I though the article was timely enough to have been written just yesterday. In fact, on my first skim through the piece, its publication date alluded me. It was only on my second pass through that I realized it was written in 1936.
July 31, 2010 12:57 PM
Anonymous said...
Greetings,
When Jews returned to Isreal, when they did not speak Hebrew people would say: Speak like a Jew. It was their cry to re-establish Hebrew as a spoken Language.
Perhaps we should have a similar statement: Sing like a Catholic!
July 31, 2010 6:21 PM
http://www.chantcafe.com/2010/07/without-chant-catholic-people-have-no.html#more
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Traditional Mass for Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
August 15 Sunday, 2PM
Introit- proper
Kyrie IX
Gloria XI
Gradual- proper
Alleluia- proper
Credo III
Offertory- proper
Sanctus XI
Agnus Dei XI
Communio- proper
(Motet? Ave Maria (Arcadelt)
Salve regina (or we could have an organ postlude)
Introit- proper
Kyrie IX
Gloria XI
Gradual- proper
Alleluia- proper
Credo III
Offertory- proper
Sanctus XI
Agnus Dei XI
Communio- proper
(Motet? Ave Maria (Arcadelt)
Salve regina (or we could have an organ postlude)
Sunday, July 11, 2010
July Schola Calendar
At Resurrection Church (practice on Tuesdays at 7:30 PM)
Satruday Mass (9AM) (Warm-up starts at 8:30)
July 10, 24
Kyrie XVII
Gospel Accl.
Sanctus XVIII
Mysterium Fidei and Amen
Agnus Dei XVIII
Panem de Caelo
Salve Regina
At St. Martin's (Little Sisters of the Poor)
July 18, Sunday, 10:30 (warm-up at 10AM)
Entrance: Praise to the Lord (201)
Kyrie (857)
Gloria (858)
Responsorial Psalm:
He who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord
Offertory : Proper (schola)
Sanctus (859)
Mysterium Fidei (priest)
(all)
Mortem tuam annuntiamus Domine,
et tuam resurrectionem confitemur, donec venias
(We proclaim Thy death, O Lord, and we confess Thy resurrection, until Thou comest.)
Doxology: Amen
Agnus Dei (862)
Communion Proper (schola)
Communion Hymn: Beautiful Savior (204)
Recessional: Salve Regina (708)
Satruday Mass (9AM) (Warm-up starts at 8:30)
July 10, 24
Kyrie XVII
Gospel Accl.
Sanctus XVIII
Mysterium Fidei and Amen
Agnus Dei XVIII
Panem de Caelo
Salve Regina
At St. Martin's (Little Sisters of the Poor)
July 18, Sunday, 10:30 (warm-up at 10AM)
Entrance: Praise to the Lord (201)
Kyrie (857)
Gloria (858)
Responsorial Psalm:
He who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord
Offertory : Proper (schola)
Sanctus (859)
Mysterium Fidei (priest)
(all)
Mortem tuam annuntiamus Domine,
et tuam resurrectionem confitemur, donec venias
(We proclaim Thy death, O Lord, and we confess Thy resurrection, until Thou comest.)
Doxology: Amen
Agnus Dei (862)
Communion Proper (schola)
Communion Hymn: Beautiful Savior (204)
Recessional: Salve Regina (708)
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Back from the 'Mountain'; a Reflection
Hello, everyone. I hope everyone is having a wonderful summer. I wanted to share my experience of seven days of
'musical heaven,' sacred music Colloquium XX, I attended last week. It was held in Duquesne Univ. in PA. There were about 250 people (including many young people) there. Everyday we sang (prayed), learned and discussed sacred music and Liturgy that our Church and Pope wish us to have in our local parishes. We had a beautiful Mass everyday with many priests who also came to learn more about sacred Liturgy that is authentic to the Church's teachings and tradition. The Masses were incredibly beautiful (I guess this sort of things you cannot describe with words). We had both Novus Ordo (new form of the Mass) and Traditional Mass, and both of them were so reverant and sacred with music that is the integral part of the Mass, that you cannot see much boundaries between the two forms.
Was Vatican II a rupture or a continuation of the Tradition into our time? Is 'active participation' truly meant for the congregation doing so many things and singing everything during Mass? or doing our roles by uniting ourselves with the priest and offer to Christ? Do we truly understand the teaching of
'lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi?' The way we worship (pray) leads to the way we believe, and it leads to the way we live. As a musician, I can say that since we know that singing well is praying twice, therefore the way we sing in Mass will lead to the way we believe and lead to the way we live. I learned and was confirmed to believe
'sing like a Catholic, believe like a Catholic and live like a Catholic.
"The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believers who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith recieved from the apostles." (CCC1124)
Somehow music in Mass became a loophole after Vatican II. Music in Mass cannot be decided by the tastes of any individuals. There are norms and rubrics of the Church for sacred music and sacred instruments for Mass. Somehow they have been forgotten by many Catholcs. I believe the Church's own music is going to be restored in the Catholic Litrugy in near future. I was very surprised to see more and more young people at the Colloquium every year. There's a hope in our future.
Here's a link to recordings to the Colloquium.
http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium/
I strongly recommand Fr. Kirby's talks. (scroll down, almost to the bottom, to the breakout sessions ) There were only 3 presentations, and all of us who were there knew that the talk should have been for 5 days and all day. After listening to his talk at the Colloquium, I felt like I was struck by a thunder. He is so much in love with Christ, and his love for Church, Liturgy and chants are not seperable.
Enjoy! (I'll be making CDs of his talks. If anybody want them for your prists, let me know.)
"The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given first place in liturgical services." (Section 116, the Second Vatican Council, in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy)
This is what the Church says (has been said). How many parishes do you know that follow her instruction as above ?
Mia
(Save the Liturgy, Save the world)
'musical heaven,' sacred music Colloquium XX, I attended last week. It was held in Duquesne Univ. in PA. There were about 250 people (including many young people) there. Everyday we sang (prayed), learned and discussed sacred music and Liturgy that our Church and Pope wish us to have in our local parishes. We had a beautiful Mass everyday with many priests who also came to learn more about sacred Liturgy that is authentic to the Church's teachings and tradition. The Masses were incredibly beautiful (I guess this sort of things you cannot describe with words). We had both Novus Ordo (new form of the Mass) and Traditional Mass, and both of them were so reverant and sacred with music that is the integral part of the Mass, that you cannot see much boundaries between the two forms.
Was Vatican II a rupture or a continuation of the Tradition into our time? Is 'active participation' truly meant for the congregation doing so many things and singing everything during Mass? or doing our roles by uniting ourselves with the priest and offer to Christ? Do we truly understand the teaching of
'lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi?' The way we worship (pray) leads to the way we believe, and it leads to the way we live. As a musician, I can say that since we know that singing well is praying twice, therefore the way we sing in Mass will lead to the way we believe and lead to the way we live. I learned and was confirmed to believe
'sing like a Catholic, believe like a Catholic and live like a Catholic.
"The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believers who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith recieved from the apostles." (CCC1124)
Somehow music in Mass became a loophole after Vatican II. Music in Mass cannot be decided by the tastes of any individuals. There are norms and rubrics of the Church for sacred music and sacred instruments for Mass. Somehow they have been forgotten by many Catholcs. I believe the Church's own music is going to be restored in the Catholic Litrugy in near future. I was very surprised to see more and more young people at the Colloquium every year. There's a hope in our future.
Here's a link to recordings to the Colloquium.
http://music.dierschow.com/2010Colloquium/
I strongly recommand Fr. Kirby's talks. (scroll down, almost to the bottom, to the breakout sessions ) There were only 3 presentations, and all of us who were there knew that the talk should have been for 5 days and all day. After listening to his talk at the Colloquium, I felt like I was struck by a thunder. He is so much in love with Christ, and his love for Church, Liturgy and chants are not seperable.
Enjoy! (I'll be making CDs of his talks. If anybody want them for your prists, let me know.)
"The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given first place in liturgical services." (Section 116, the Second Vatican Council, in its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy)
This is what the Church says (has been said). How many parishes do you know that follow her instruction as above ?
Mia
(Save the Liturgy, Save the world)
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