Cultivating "emotionally charged worship"
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Hat tip to Rorate Caeli Twitter feed for this riveting comment by Fr. Thomas Reese in a recent NCReporter article:

    "Neither the conservative nor the progressive narrative has a good explanation for the Catholic exodus. My personal belief is that it has little to do with theology and more to do with a desire for emotionally charged worship services and a sense of community, which are absent from most Catholic parishes."

    Of course, I believe the celebration of the Roman rite that is most likely to capture the hearts and minds of most Catholics is the Mass as Cardinal Ratzinger described it, the Extraordinary Form celebrated according to the norms of Sacrosanctum Concilium: "This is why it is very important to observe the essential criteria of the Constitution on the Liturgy, which I quoted above, including when one celebrates according to the old Missal! The moment when this liturgy truly touches the faithful with its beauty and its richness, then it will be loved, then it will no longer be irreconcilably opposed to the new Liturgy, providing that these criteria are indeed applied as the Council wished."

    Pope Pius X's call to "restore" the parts of the Mass to the people was, I think, a recognition of the need people have for emotional connection and affirmation. The congregation in the Roman rite in many places had become silent and passive and the Mass had become perhaps more of an intellectual exercise than an emotional one.

    One sees how powerful the emotional reaction is when the people feel welcomed and engaged, e.g. the phenomenon of the Trump rally where the crowd feels "needed" and responds with enthusiasm to the overtures of the speaker and has even begun to "dialogue"---quite an amazing thing: Trump asks a question to the crowd, and they answer. It is, obviously, on the most basic, almost primitive, level of discourse, but the people's hunger for an emotional, affirmative encounter is plain to see, as is their appreciation for someone who wants to give them a voice.

    I believe people are looking for the same affective experience and the same human interaction in the liturgy, though obviously on a far more exalted level. What is fascinating is that Fr. Reese says that this kind of interaction and community atmosphere is not available in most parishes, fifty years after the Bugnini reforms. Why is that??? Wasn't that the primary reason for the reforms---the active participation of the people and the emphasis on the communitarian aspect of the Eucharist.

    Why did it fail? I believe with all my heart the answer is in Cardinal Ratzinger's answer above: When the Vetus Ordo "with its beauty and richness", with its solemnity, mystery and profundity, "truly touches the faithful" that is, when it is celebrated with the full, active and conscious participation of the people, "then it will be loved".

    This is, by the way, also my answer to Msgr. Pope's recent article, where he laments the decline in interest in the Latin Mass. Are the people being taught to say the responses? Are they being encouraged to understand and participate in the Mass? Rather than placing the blame on not enough advertisement, I would suggest there needs to be more effort made to celebrate the 1962 Missal according to the "essential criteria of Sacrosanctum Concilium." That is clearly the winning formula, but hardly anyone ever attempts to put it into practice.

    Fr. Reese is 100% correct: Connecting emotionally with people during the Mass is the first step in forming a Catholic population. How the people pray determines how they believe and live. Lex orandi statuat leges credendi et vivendi. It always comes back to that crucial concept.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I have observed that the priests and people celebrating the EF are making the same mistakes that caused it to be rejected by the majority of Catholics.

    Fr. Reese: That fool needs to shut up.

    Emotionally charged worship: No, thanks. Hysteria abounds everywhere to begin with. We don't need more Oprah moments in Catholic worship.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    This is hard to write: I find myself agreeing more with Charles than with Julie, at least about "emotionally charged worship".

    To have "emotionally charged worship" is to have that which is primarily an emotional experience, not an act of worship. Can one be emotional at Mass? Of course one can. Can one be filled with a range of emotions (sadness for our personal sins and gratitude for the generosity of God, for example)? Certainly. But the goal shouldn't be to create emotionally charged worship.

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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    This is hard to write: I find myself agreeing more with Charles than with Julie...


    See, that wasn't so hard now, was it? LOL

    As a life-long Southerner, I have seen plenty of emotionally charged worship. I tend to think it is something of a dead end that will leave you comfortless when the feelings wear off.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    I think it was a priest that coined the following phrase, but I can't remember where I heard it: "Increase in emotion does not equal an increase in faith."

    The main problem I identify with "emotionally charged worship" is that it normally becomes an end in itself, and therefore does not serve the purpose of worship at all.

    I don't think we need an increase in "emotionally charged" worship: we need an increase in prayerful worship experiences.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    It's rather striking to read the Mass being compared to a Trump rally....
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    I would note that, at least in much of the USA, the quality of being emotionally charged was probably much more associated with devotions than the Mass in preconciliar generations.

    One interesting aspect of that is that, other than for school children, devotions were voluntary rather than preceptually obligated.
  • WICatholic
    Posts: 35
    I think the emotion is a result of the liturgy within ourselves, but never should it be purposely created. My mom has teared up at some Masses at our Parish due to the beauty of the choir and the beauty of the hymns, but ultimately I always feel that first comes great Liturgy, and if done well and the way the Church directs, it will create a deep down love and connection to God.
  • johnmann
    Posts: 175
    The bulk of the Catholic exodus probably isn't due to anything that's commonly blamed. Not only do we see a similar exodus in Protestant communities, both liberal and conservative, but also in Jewish communities and secular fraternal organizations.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    ...anything that's commonly blamed.

    How true! How often have we witnessed even in modern times how that a people under unfortunate rulers, experiencing trying conditions, and so forth, are very religious and ardent followers and believers in their Catholic or Protestant faith. When conditions change for the better the practice of their faith diminishes or vanishes all together. We have seen this happen in Ireland, Poland, Spain, nearly the whole of Europe, and any number of other places. Add to that the powerful anti-religious temptors of our time, such as highly sophisticated consumerist and secularist entities, and a deft and patently anti-religious cultural phenomenon, and the attraction to piety becomes an embarrassing burden which many cannot bear, or, frankly, feel relieved of. Even several decades ago in this land one caught and spread with immense glee the 'Christmas spirit' and joyfully greeted everyone with merry tidings, and had them gleefully returned. Now, wishing someone a merry Christmas is likely to earn him or her a scowl or a frown from a person who turns to glass-eyed stone. What else can be expected from a populace that listens to the hellish din that they call music, watches the films and television (which often contain violence that would equal or surpass that of the Roman circus) that they do, read the books they do, rear their children with no manners or repsect, worship film stars and sports heroes, all in the remains of a cultural heritage that has been consciously destroyed by its own intellectual elites?

    (As for emotionally charged worship: sometimes it takes the form of the total silence of a contemplating and adoring heart of an individual or three-hundred people. This, often, is a more emotionally charged worship than anything that those who bandy the term around have in mind - pied pipers all!)
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Excellent observations by all. Perhaps I should qualify what I mean by "emotionally charged": I don't mean dancing in the aisle and shouting and clapping and priests on hoverboards singing pop ballads. I mean something quieter but just as real: the tug on the heart one feels singing a beautiful Anglican hymn as the celebrant and twelve altar boys process down the aisle: I mean the wonder one feels hearing children's voices effortlessly weave through ancient Gregorian melodies; the awe one feels watching in silence as the priest raises the Host at the consecration, the childlike anticipation waiting at the Communion rail for Father to distribute the Eucharist, and the feeling of fulfillment as the congregation sings the last hymn, and I wind up my postlude.

    Perhaps it's not the same kind of emotional charge Fr. Reese is talking of, but our EF Missa Cantata provides me with an abundance of joy and content, enough to last the whole week. It has become for me the highpoint of my daily life, and I think that is what Sunday Mass ought to be for all Catholics, to the point that Catholics say: Non possumus vivere sine Dominico. We can not live without the Sunday Mass.

    And, of course, that emotion is not deliberately created, but the music and the community itself goes a long way to creating an atmosphere where the emotions proper to the liturgy can be inspired. Each genre of sacred music is capable of eliciting a different emotional response, and it is the combination of classical hymnody, chant and polyphony that has a synergistic effect which I think is capable of reaching the greatest number of people. The music of the Mass, the Gregorian propers, the hymns, the chanted ordinary and responses and the motets, provide the people with an easily accessible way into the celebration of the Mass.

    I saw that very clearly illustrated this last Sunday when we did not have our usual program with the parts of the Mass and the hymns and antiphons since my printer wasn't working. The people were visibly upset that there was no handout. One man just stood in the back for a few minutes looking so sad and lost. It was as if I had stolen something from him. I felt so bad, but it couldn't be helped.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I just want to reiterate that I'm not talking about a charismatically charged, shouting and gyrating liturgical festival, but, rather, something quite different. I know someone who is a staunch and refined gentleman, extremely traditional and deeply attached to the TLM, but who, whenever a beautiful hymn such as Adeste Fideles is sung at an EF Mass, finds it difficult to get through even the first verse without taking out a hanky to dab his eyes (and those are real tears).

    Let's take another example: who could not fail to be moved by the deep emotion with which French traditional Catholics are known to sing the ordinary of the Mass at the traditional Latin Mass in France? How about the Chartres pilgrimage and the emotional fervor with which 10,000 Catholics sing the Mass and the closing hymn at Notre Dame Cathedral?

    Who could not look at these examples and not fail to be inspired? Can we not recognize that the reason the traditional movement is so strong in France, for instance, is precisely because French traditional Catholics are fully invested in their worship which allows them a space to give an appropriate expression of their emotional attachment to both the Faith and its traditional liturgical celebration?

    I think the French traditional Catholics are proof positive that worship involves the whole person, not just the spiritual realm, nor the intellectual realm, nor the emotional realm by itself. All faculties of the human person must be met and engaged in liturgical worship for the people to be fully invested, and the way the French traditional Catholics worship and live are a great demonstration and example to the world of the power and impact of the traditional rite to gather people in community that is real, substantive, affective and effective.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    "Who could not look at these examples and not fail to be inspired?"

    Probably many Americans. Most of us are not French or, say, Bavarian.

    The USA is *not* a Catholic culture. Never has been. Catholics in this country have brought their own respective national traditions here, and, unfortunately, there was a long-dominant one that squeezed out the others in many places and left many Catholics ripe for imbibing Protestant expectations for worship over a period of generations, especially once they left their urban and rural ghettos for new suburbia after World War II.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Even if the style of worship is not one's preference, I think most people would admire the enthusiasm and devotion of the congregation at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet or the Catholics on pilgrimage to Chartres and would wish to inculcate the same energetic response in their congregations.

    It seems to me that the best way to cultivate a Catholic culture is by establishing genuinely Catholic cult, or worship, and how does one do that? By Catholic worship according to the essential criteria of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which ought to be the Magna Carta of every Catholic liturgical celebration.
  • Abbot Jonathan CoelAbbot Jonathan Coel
    Posts: 167
    (deleted)
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    "Even if the style of worship is not one's preference, I think most people would admire the enthusiasm and devotion of the congregation at St. Nicolas du Chardonnet or the Catholics on pilgrimage to Chartres and would wish to inculcate the same energetic response in their congregations."

    Julie, I love this aspiration, but I am not at all confident of that being a widespread reality on these shores.
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  • Reval
    Posts: 180
    To me, the nugget of the argument is this:

    Many people (a majority?) like emotionally charged worship.
    The Mass in its most reverent form would not be described as emotionally-charged by most people.
    If we lose people in the pews due to our non-emotional music, is that doing people a disservice? Almost causing them to seek out a different experience? Books like "Rebuilt" would argue that we are doing them a disservice, or that we are selfishly pushing "our" music at the expense of other people, who simply don't know better.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    It seems to me we are talking about two camps. One includes the people who want authentic Catholic worship. The other contains the folks who want their ears tickled. It is an age-old distinction, but seems to have gotten worse in recent times.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Reval -
    Yes, it is most definitely a disservice to involve people in what the sources which you reference would call emotionally charged worship. The emphasis here should be worship, with 'emotionally charged' as either contrived by humans or a rare gift of the All Holy. It is the pied pipers whom I reference above who do, in fact, do people a gross spiritual disservice and even harm by confusing 'emotional charge' with genuine worship. Seeking emotional charge is not worship. Generating it is not worship. It may, indeed, be an hindrance to worship. In fact, the absence of it may, if one's soul is fittingly attuned, be truer worship than the contrived presence of it.

    Here is a quote from Meister Eckhart which seems to me apt at this moment:
    If thou seekest aught of thine own thou wilt never find God, for thou art not seeking God merely. Thou art seeking some thing with God, making a candle of God, as it were, with which to find something, and then, having found it, throwing the candle away. [Sermon XL]
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Julie,

    Who could not look at these examples and not fail to be inspired


    I'm not sure what you meant to say, but this sentence is almost Byzantine in its simplicity.

    Cheers,

    Chris
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Er, uh, I've never heard of Byzantine simplicity -
    complexity, yes; simplicity, not so much.
    (Perhaps Charles could weigh in here.)

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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Oops. One too many negatives. No wonder it sounds convoluted.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Er, uh, I've never heard of Byzantine simplicity -
    complexity, yes; simplicity, not so much.
    (Perhaps Charles could weigh in here.)


    Less is more...but more is better!
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Gospodi pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj, Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya. Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both now and ever, unto ages of ages. Amen. Alleluya. Alleluya. Alleluya.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Gospodi pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj, Gospodi pomiluj, Alleluya, Alleluya, Alleluya. Glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, both now and ever, unto ages of ages. Amen. Alleluya. Alleluya. Alleluya.


    Big smile :-)
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    CharlesW

    What I've long said is: Nothing exceeds like excess.
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  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,151
    Nothing exceeds like excess.

    And nothing succeeds like a seed sucker.
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Does a seed sucker wear seersucker?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Sally sucked seeds by the seashore...
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    Sally sucked seeds by the seashore and Stin(k)o sucked seeds in his seersucker suit.
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Ok everyone. Time to get back on topic!
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  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    If we are going to discuss "emotionally charged worship", I am seriously and purposely going to take the notion to the extreme and tell you about a story my pastor (archdiocesan Anglican Use) posted on his blogspot years ago. It was about a Protestant pastor who decided to drive his motorcycle up a ramp to demonstrate the concept of "unity". Needless to say, this didn't end all too well.

    No, I have no interest in "emotionally charged worship". Let us just stick to Catholic worship, that is, prayers (including appropriate singing), preaching (by properly trained and designated clergy), and sacrifice (Holy Eucharist).
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Seed Sucker is a leading designer of organic apparel with environmental messages, and offers an eco-fundraiser for schools and organizations to raise money ...
    according to St. Google.

    Was this what CHGiffen was referring to, or something else?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    No, I have no interest in "emotionally charged worship". Let us just stick to Catholic worship, that is, prayers (including appropriate singing), preaching (by properly trained and designated clergy), and sacrifice (Holy Eucharist).


    I would agree with that. One of our problems after Vatican II, was trying to ape everything we thought the Protestants were doing. Why the powers that be/were thought Protestants had some special enlightenments to be shared with us and imitated is anyone's guess. It wasn't ecumenism, which was the rage at the time, but more like general craziness. I'm afraid it hasn't died out completely.
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  • johnmann
    Posts: 175
    Aimee Semple McPherson was the pastor (in)famous for the motorcycle sermon.

    image

    Thank God we don't have priests riding around on hoverboards or anything like that.
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    Cuz we don't need no stinkin' hoverboards, right?

    http://cdn.archinect.net/images/1200x/ca/cap18q0gqdgkzjur.jpg
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  • Blaise
    Posts: 439
    Johnmann,

    The pastor I was thinking about was a man, and this incident occurred around 2008 or 2009. He ended up in the ICU. I do not know his name, but I am not going to derail this thread to look for it.

    The point I was trying to make was that if Catholics follow the Protestants and their "emotionally charged worship" to the extreme and to the logical conclusion, this is one possibility. If we stick to our principles, however, most likely no one will end up in a trauma ward.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    In some cases, the desire for emotionally charged worship may be linked to the Evangelical Protestant idea that a cathartic emotional experience is not just a sign of conversion; it's almost a necessary sign of conversion, so that services ought to seek to provoke an intense experience.

    This is somewhat different from Catholic understandings of the spiritual life which do not treat emotional "consolations" and "desolations" as reliable signs of one's state of soul.
  • MBWMBW
    Posts: 175
    Is this really an either/or question? Either unbridled emotion or "say the black, do the red"? Is it not possible that Catholic worship can encompass both the touching on deep and significant emotion and the rigor of dignified traditional worship?

    I believe a synthesis is both possible and necessary if we are to have anything meaningful to bring to our present world. I believe that both going too far into emotional sensationalism and shrinking into rubricism are dead ends.

    If emotionally charged worship is to be avoided, must I avoid all music which strongly moves people? Do I become a musical hamburger flipper, doling out the safest old (or old sounding) pieces? (I am not saying that all old music is hamburger. However, we must avoid a "do you want a fauxbourdon with that" mentality.)

    In the same way, if we believe in over the top emotional worship, we also do not connect with the whole human person who necessarily has both emotion and intellect. If all I am after is emotion, I am in danger of setting off disastrous unintended consequences. Over the top emotional music will tend to be throwaway, unconnected with the past of either the religion or the individual. The proverbial cheap thrill.

    Brain research shows us more every day that the dualist notion of body and brain separation is a major and destructive error. It is not merely that they are inseparable, it is that there is complete connection. In the same way, emotion and intellect, as we understand them in threads like this, are completely connected. We would do better to realize this and begin to program accordingly (when our work situation allows). Nobody knows where this is all going, but I hope we avoid the dead ends.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    Yah, well, Pius X's formulation remains normative: "....raise the minds AND hearts of the Faithful to God...."

    That certainly doesn't apply exclusively to sacred music, if music is indeed "pars integralis" of the Mass.

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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I believe a synthesis is both possible and necessary if we are to have anything meaningful to bring to our present world. I believe that both going too far into emotional sensationalism and shrinking into rubricism are dead ends.


    Exactly, MBW, and you said this so much better than I ever could. I understand how people in the OF might shudder at the phrase "emotionally charged worship", but coming as I do from the perspective of the EF, I find the concept quite appealing since the EF Masses I have attended many times in the past were the polar opposite of being "emotionally charged." In fact, in many venues, I would venture to say the prevailing EF Latin Mass model treats the faithful as if they are disembodied spirits silently wafting into the church like an audience of ghosts and leaving the same way----with zero effort made to connect the people in the pew with the celebration.

    That experience is what has motivated me at our present EF Latin Missa Cantata to do all I can within the Church's liturgical guidelines to help the congregation feel welcome and engaged, principally by allowing them to sing hymns, antiphons and the parts of the Mass that pertain to them. The liturgical music plays a huge part in creating the emotional atmosphere and setting a "mood." We have to be almost scientific in choosing the hymns, motets and instrumental music which will elicit the most appropriate and elevated emotional response. If anybody thinks church music can't be emotionally charged, I'd beg to disagree. For example, I was just listening to King's College sing O Little Town of Bethlehem and thought it capable of evoking the perfect emotional response for the season: wonder, piety, humility, joy, and I believe it would be a fine choice for the opening or closing hymn at tomorrow's EF celebration of the Feast of the Holy Family.

    In the same way, I think tomorrow's Introit and all the propers, and the mass setting from the Kyriale also deliver an emotional charge. Granted, it's a more cerebral response than the what you'd get from the ballad-crooning priest on the hoverboard, or a Life Teen rock band, but chant is certainly capable of stirring the emotions.

    At any rate, my only point was to say that Fr. Reese's remark struck a chord with me. No doubt his definition of "emotionally charged worship and a sense of community" may be different than mine, but I think I understand the basic sense of what he's saying: that somehow Catholic liturgy must be emotionally fulfilling, and, I would add, intellectually challenging, and spiritually and psychologically rewarding. In addition, Catholics also need to feel loved when they go to church.

    I don't think Fr. Reese is borrowing from the Protestants to describe Catholic worship in those terms: these are just basic human needs. Are we really saying that the Roman rite can not, or should not, satisfy those fundamental longings of the human heart?
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Julie,

    Coming as I do from an EF environment, but having grown up as an Episcopalian and converted in a place where the EF wasn't available..... I don't have a problem with music which elicits an emotional response, for music worth the name has that capacity, and documents refer to (what I'll paraphrase as) barely under control responses to the awesome mysteries present before us. The problem isn't with emotionally charged music. The problem, rather, is with this being the goal, rather than a byproduct of the worship of God. To love God involves my whole heart, mind, soul and strength. To produce an emotionally charged experience (as an end in itself, mind) is to worship something other than God.

    To your last comment: the Roman Rite should worship God, and permit those who submit to the rite to do so. Since "emotionally satisfying" is hard to measure in an absolute sense .... it's worth noting that Amazing Grace , OEW, Were you there when they Crucified my Lord all produce an emotional response, but not the same response in all people. Used at Mass, these pieces produce in me a sense of revulsion, a sense of sorrow that someone should so mar the beauty of the rite .... I join my suffering to that of Christ as the only way to endure such stuff. I'm well aware that this is not the response of others (even hereabouts) but since the goal was to produce an emotionally charged (or satisfying?) experience -- whose satisfaction matters?
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  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    Brain research shows us more every day that the dualist notion of body and brain separation is a major and destructive error.


    Aristotle and Aquinas had that one figured out a while back...

    Speaking of those fellows, they also had some things to say about the importance and usefulness of appropriate emotional response (which is not necessarily 'restrained' or 'suppressed', but simply 'of the right sort'), its connection with intellect, etc., which are probably relevant, here, but I'll resist the temptation to write a treatise.
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    A dualist approach to intellect and emotion is also not a great idea, either.
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  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    I understand how people in the OF might shudder at the phrase "emotionally charged worship"


    As others have mentioned, there's an appropriate (and as we know, inappropriate) emotional response to cultivate.

    On Eagle's Wings at a funeral and O God Beyond All Praising at the end of a cathedral liturgy elicit different responses.

    One focuses on people, on the warm-fuzzies that my dearly beloved grandfather is in a better place, etc.

    The other provokes an emotional response to the grand inexplicable immensity of unfathomable mysterious grace and glory (and other large words which are all a waste of hot air, by intent of the hymn's text).

    One deals with the emotions of man's worldy experiences and sufferings, the other with man's encounter with God. Both are emotionally charged, but only one is the proper orientation of liturgy.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    One's a paraphrase of a psalm, the other isn't either.

    One was written by a Catholic priest, the other by an Anglican priest.

    While THAXTED elicits a greater emotional response from me than the tune of OEW, I wouldn't reduce the emotional response to the latter to warm-fuzzies et cet. That's not going to do anything to promote sacred music, but be counter-productive and prove yet again how easily people get in their own way.
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  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    As many of our colleagues on this forum have stated before: could it have something to do with the quality of the music? This is the main difference between the two songs in the example: On Eagle's Wings, and THAXTED: THAXTED is objectively better music than OEW is. Yes, I do think there are objective standards for beauty, as many on this forum have also stated.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    I'm, uh, glad that you don't proceed so far as to suggest that OEW's would be better if sung to Thaxted! But, yes, your basic premise is evidence of acumen.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    One was written by a Catholic priest, the other by an Anglican priest Jesuit.


    Fixed
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    ?
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640

    As many of our colleagues on this forum have stated before: could it have something to do with the quality of the music? This is the main difference between the two songs in the example:


    Yes.

    The emotions elicited result from both the words being sung and HOW they are sung.
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