How to Celebrate/2: Music and Song
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 337
    From the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, a study on music in the liturgy:

    http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20120404_come-celebrare2_en.html

    Therefore, our service to the liturgy in liturgical celebration does not envisage our putting personal tastes and particular agendas ahead of what the Church has handed down to us.


    There is also an interesting discussion of the instruments of Sacred Scripture, but we are still left with only the ambiguous notion that only instruments that can be rendered suitable for sacred use are allowed. Is there any place that defines that more clearly?
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 337
    And this:

    http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20101201_musica-sacra_en.html
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 337
    Here I am, uh, by myself, uh, talking to myself.

    From the second,
    Sacred music is prayer ordered to raise hearts and minds to God. Beyond the challenges represented by personal or cultural preferences, the purpose of sacred music is always praise of God. The active participation of the assembly must be ordered to this end, so that the dignity of the liturgy is not compromised and the possibilities for an effective participation in divine worship are not darkened. Active participation does not exclude different levels of participation that, of themselves, indicate that "participation in the act" is not diminished by the fact that one might not be singing everything at every moment. Sacred music must be conformed to the liturgical texts and devotional music must be inspired in biblical or liturgical texts, taking care in every case not to hide the ecclesiological reality of the Church.

    It is not enough to have everyone singing, but they must be, in their words, praising God. So much of the Gather-worship is sung with gusto and prayer, but the words themselves lack "ecclesiological reality."
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 337
    (I just moved to a new parish as music director, and it's my first taste of working with Gather.)
    Hence, in its expressions of religious faith, textual fidelity and measured dignity, sacred music must become a symbol of ecclesial communion.

    Gather - religious faith=check, textual fidelity=...well..., measured dignity=attempts at it, maybe

    When these elements are lacking, the sacred music ceases to fulfill ecclesial communion.

    Quoting St. JPII before the above quote, the document says
    The liturgy, like the Church, is intended to be hierarchical and polyphonic, respecting the different roles assigned by Christ and allowing all the different voices to blend in one great hymn of praise.
    This is interesting in light of the Ostermann/Mahrt choral ordinary discussion.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    RomanticStrings:

    I have had many conversations with myself on this forum. It is not uncommon.

    The documents you cite (which I read) seem ambiguous and clumsily formed. That is my impression anyways. I have always gone back to the 'big three' of the types of music that the church promotes and encourages; chant (Greogorian), polyphony and organ.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    One phrase of interest which is largely ignored:

    Sacred music is prayer ordered to raise hearts and minds to God


    Break that down: it is "prayer," thus TEXT (the Word, Logos) that is primary. That is bolstered by the "textual fidelity" phrase in another of your cites. This is why Gather (and most hymnody) is not, strictly speaking, "sacred" music. "Devotional", yes.

    The other widely-ignored item is the conjunction "and" in the phrase '....elevates the mind AND heart to God....'

    Neither boozy sentimentalism (the heart) nor rigorous asceticism (e.g, later Schoenberg) fulfill the desire for BOTH 'mind' and 'heart.' By no co-incidence, Chant hits the nail on the head.
    Thanked by 1a_f_hawkins
  • RomanticStringsRomanticStrings
    Posts: 337
    I do find the studies there to be odd. They are often surprisingly brief, or particularly thorough (the latter includes studies of the priest in relation to several elements of the Mass). I know that they do not constitute liturgical law, but they do give us a good framework for to how to think of these issues.

    In relation to dad29's last point, did anyone see the opening Mass for the synod? Responses and Acclamations, Ordinary, and Propers all chanted!
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