The Two Hymn EF Sandwich
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Why? Seriously, I find this really surprising. Organ improvisation on the Introit or on other chant tunes before and after Mass or other appropriate organ music (I am not always convinced that Bach belongs there) but as preparation for the EF Mass?
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  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    During Lent?
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    This is a spinoff thread, yes?
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    At our EF Missa Cantata we have a two-hymn EF sandwich, but the filling is G.R. Propers, a chanted ordinary and polyphonic motets. That's the church equivalent of a a foot long double decker hero.
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  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    You usually name a sandwich after the filling.
    You have a Propers sandwich on hymn.
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  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,193
    OREOmousse pro invicem.

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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Any time of the liturgical year.
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    I walked into a 2 hymn EF sandwich tradition on the new gig, and i've kept it, with modifications. I think that people are used singing and want to sing English hymnody, and there's no place else to put it in the EF. (They sing credo 1 well, and the chant masses somewhat.) For us, now it's more a pita/1 hymn sandwich. It never takes more than 2 verses to get the crew in place for the Asperges, so we do those, and sing the rest of the verses of that hymn at the end. The other thing that I tried on Ash Weds and want to do on other holy days is to have the priest and servers enter on the Introit; that's what it's there for.
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  • matthewjmatthewj
    Posts: 2,700
    Well, during Advent, Lent, and Masses for the Dead, what you describe would be inappropriate. Other times of the year it would be fine.

    It would depend on the community - if the people enjoyed singing a hymn before and after Mass and a good majority of them stayed for the hymn and sang, I would do the hymns most weeks.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Intriguing idea about continuing the same hymn before and after Mass, Jeffrey. That has real possibilities, esp. with a hymn like My Song is Love Unknown which has a number of integral verses.

    Our pastor wanted us to institute the 2-English hymn sandwich at our EF Mass, and I find that having vernacular hymns that highlight the theme of the Mass or the season is an excellent pedagogical and devotional tool. Since the Mass itself is in Latin, I think it makes it makes eminent good sense to use the entrance and closing moments as a way both to introduce that day's liturgy in a language people can understand and prepare them to enter into the sacred space of the Mass, and in closing, as a way to wrap up in beautiful English and a captivating tune, a takeaway thought before the people exit.

    For example, this is what we sang this Sunday, the First Sunday of Lent, with our children's schola:

    Entrance: Glory Be to Jesus (WEM IN LEIDENSTAGEN)
    Introit: Invocabit me
    Kyrie: Mass XIV Jesu Redemptor
    Grad: Angelis Suis
    Tract: Qui habitat
    Credo I
    Offertory: Scapulis Suis
    Offertory Motet: Angelis Suis (Fux)
    Sanctus: Mass XIV
    Agnus Dei Mass XIV
    Communion Antiphon with verses: Scapulis Suis
    Communion Motet: O Salutaris Hostia (Pierre de la Rue)
    Antiphon: Ave Regina Caelorum
    Closing: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (ROCKINGHAM)

    I'm sure there are other vernacular hymns that may have connected with the theme of this Sunday more closely, but these seemed particularly suitable for the children.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    P.S. One more thought, if I may, on the subject of the EF. (Settle yourself in for yet another long lecture on the value of English hymns at the EF Latin Mass.)

    I recently came across this old NCR article by Fr. Ron Schmit, entitled "Attempt to resurrect pre-Vatican II Mass leaves church at crossroads" in which the author strongly disparages the resurgence of the EF in his diocese.

    From what I could tell, his main objection to the usus antiquior resides in his perception that the traditional Latin Mass is primarily the occasion of "a powerful clergy ministering to a passive people."

    His startling conclusion: "The extraordinary form is incapable of activating us as the priestly people of God -- the vision of Vatican II. "

    It would seem Fr. Schmit's only experience with the Latin Mass was unfortunately that of "a mute onlooker", or as "a dumb and idle spectator", where, as is sometimes the case today even as we speak in some Latin Mass venues, the vocal participation of the laity is strongly discouraged, with written notices like this:

    ""During Low Mass the responses to the Priest are made exclusively by the acolytes who serve the Mass, while the faithful assist in prayerful silence."

    Fr. Schmit is not alone in his visceral reaction against this deadly paradigm of the Latin Mass. I know from personal experience with others that it was the "creeping Low Mass minimalism" as one person expressed it to me, that propelled them away for years from the Latin Mass and still has them on the run away from it.

    So, what does that have to do with the 2 English hymn EF sandwich? Just about everything, in my opinion. It is one very important way we can help acclimate and welcome people to the Latin Mass. As Pope St. John Paul II famously said, "lack of participation equals alienation." Allowing the people to sing a verse or two of an English hymn before and after Mass is a simple, easy way of inviting them into the celebration of the Mass and priming them in a way to sing or say their parts of the Mass, and of helping them at the end of Mass express in majestic, poetic English something of what they have just experienced.

    Or, to put it another way, an English opening hymn helps the people to transition from the mundane to the sacred, and the closing hymn helps them come down from the heights, so to speak, and go back into the world.

    As beautiful and thrilling as organ instrumental preludes and postludes are (outside of Lent, of course) I think the benefit of engaging, and "activating" the people with beautiful vernacular hymnody outweighs the benefit of them hearing gorgeous organ music (which is still possible as they exit, anyway).

    Anything one can do to welcome and acclimate the people to the EF liturgy is worth the effort since even after fifty years or more, the effects of alienation from that liturgy are still energizing people to reject it and embrace "aggiornamento" with all their hearts.
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  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    PREACH!
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    "creeping Low Mass minimalism"


    Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes. I've spent countless hours trying to convince fellow 'trads' that it really doesn't take that much effort to give Mass that extra something by singing - but they're all so stubbornly utilitarian that it gets irksome after a while.

    I'm pretty sure if O'Brien ever took me into Room 101, the thing I would see in there would be a celebration of Low Mass - Non-"Dialogue" - without hymns of any kind.

    Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, since it is still the Mass.


    But not much.
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  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    The problem is people like me, If I am not in the choir I generally don't sing, I prefer to participate in other ways! (In the EF!)

    This 2 hymn sandwich is interesting, it really does sound like a good idea... BUT it will not work where I live in England as we always sing the Marian anthem after each Sung Mass...

    I also hope this would not stop the singing of ancient processional Hymns, Salve Festa Dies etc. before Mass. Also I do not understand how the congregation can not join in Attende Domine, my children 2 1/2-9 can already sing the chorus (we have been singing this as our family prayers since the First Sunday of Lent) There are plenty of Latin Hymns that should be ble to be sung by the majority of the congregation.
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  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    Responses said by the people (without all the pious glaring at those who do, thank you, the lady with the special hat in the front row) would go a long way towards eliminating the feeling that something at least ought to be congregational--a feeling that probably gave rise to the devotional prayers following Mass, as well as to the hymns.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    towards eliminating the feeling that something at least ought to be congregational


    This is exactly the reasoning that got us Peter, Paul & Mary Wannabes at Mass back then.

    Is God going strike down all those priests who for centuries did not permit participation?

    Do we seriously think that God has much to do with or think about the way priests have abrogated their authority and given the reins over to untrained lay people?
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Tomjaw,

    It's interesting that you mention the ancient Latin processional hymns. The Schola St. Cecile at St. Eugene-St Cecile in Paris uses them all the time so that is certainly a very worthy option, I imagine. For example, on the Second Sunday of Advent they sang the Audi, Benigne alternating with polyphony:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJmKDqFS_sQ

    Regarding the Marian antiphon, the custom here is for the priest (with biretta in hand) and servers to wait in the sanctuary until it is finished, and then the priest puts on his biretta and all process out so a recessional hymn works splendidly.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    P.S. I'm no expert, but from what I understand, the people did sing at Mass once upon a time, otherwise why would Pope Pius XI have said this in Divini Cultus:

    It was in the churches, finally, where practically the whole city formed a great joint choir, that the workers, builders, artists, sculptors and writers gained from the Liturgy that deep knowledge of theology which is now so apparent in the monuments of the Middle Ages.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I have yet to see a great difference between a 4-hymn sandwich and a 4-proper sandwich. In either case, the text can be unrelated to the focus of the day and be completely irrelevant. Many would consider the proper to be set to better music, but that is aesthetics more than practical application. Good hymns, carefully chosen and enthusiastically sung are an asset to liturgy.
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  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I feel I should mention that the four-proper sandwich you describe is really only found in the Novus Ordo. The reason being Bugnini and Co.'s dismemberment of the Calendar and Lectionary, forcing those putting the new Graduale together to try to find the best possible solution for any given day, and often it can (in the N.O.) be a stretch to find out just why XYZ is the offertory for this particular Sunday---often that chant only 'makes sense' in Year B, and only when the 'long form' of the First Reading is used. Christoph Tietze even mentions this in the study of the Introit in his book of Introit Hymns published by LTP.

    In the E.F. these things are usually better coordinated.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I agree.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    BTW, TomJaw, I forgot to say that the Schola St. Cecile also often sings congregational Latin hymns at the offertory and at the end of Mass.

    Here's their handout for the Second Sunday of Lent. They sang Audi, Benigne for the entrance, Christe qui lux es et dies for the Offertory and Attende, Domine for recessional. Often, they will alternate with polyphony or organ interludes and the people sing along with great gusto if you listen to the recordings.

    Looks like Cardinal Sarah will be speaking March 5 at St. Eugene's on "The New Evangelization and the Liturgy."
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    It was in the churches, finally, where practically the whole city formed a great joint choir, that the workers, builders, artists, sculptors and writers gained from the Liturgy that deep knowledge of theology which is now so apparent in the monuments of the Middle Ages.


    This may well be an allusion (?) to the people being able to be together in a place within the church, as in "a choir of angels". What do you think? Especially since the area called choir was a place where people could gather together to hear...

    "There is much ambiguity about the terms choir and presbytery. Strictly speaking, the choir is that part of the church where the stalls of the clergy are. The term is often loosely used for the whole of the eastern arm, including the choir proper, sanctuary, retro-choir, etc. At Westminster Abbey the stalls are in the east nave and therefore no part of the choir is in the eastern arm. At Canterbury the stalls are in the eastern arm and the choir occupies its western bays, i.e. the space between the crossing and the sanctuary. In non-collegiate churches the eastern arm is called the chancel, the eastern portion of which is the presbytery or sanctuary. In the earliest Christian churches, e.g. Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, there were but two parts, a nave and sanctuary; there was no architectural choir. The sanctuary occupied the apse, and the apse was joined immediately to the nave, or, in the double-aisled basilicas of the fourth century, such as those of St. Peter and St. Paul at Rome, to the transept; there was no interposition of a choir between nave and apse. The choir was simply the east part of the nave, and was fenced off by low walls, usually of marble, carved or perforated with interlacing patterns — peacocks (the symbol of immortality), lions, doves, etc. These walls were called cancelli, hence the English word "chancel". The word choir is first used by writers of the Western Church. Isidore of Seville and Honorius of Autun derive it from the corona or circle of clergy or singers who surrounded the altar. The choir proper did not exist until the time of Constantine, when the clergy were able to develop the services of the Church. The introduction of the choir, or enclosed space in the centre of the nave, attached to the bema or presbytery, as the raised space came to be called, was the last great change of plan. Round three sides of this choir the faithful were allowed to congregate to hear the Gospels or Epistles read from the two pulpits or ambones, where were built into its enclosure, one on either side; or to hear the services which were read or sung by the inferior order of clergy who occupied its precincts. The enclosure of the choir was kept low, so as not to hide the view of the raised presbytery."

    Catholic Encylopedia
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Perhaps, Noel, but I would imagine Pope Pius XI meant a choir in the conventional sense, as in singing people, since he says this a few paragraphs later in the same document:

    In order that the faithful may more actively participate in divine worship, let them be made once more to sing the Gregorian Chant, so far as it belongs to them to take part in it. It is most important that when the faithful assist at the sacred ceremonies, or when pious sodalities take part with the clergy in a procession, they should not be merely detached and silent spectators, but, filled with a deep sense of the beauty of the Liturgy, they should sing alternately with the clergy or the choir, as it is prescribed. If this is done, then it will no longer happen that the people either make no answer at all to the public prayers -- whether in the language of the Liturgy or in the vernacular -- or at best utter the responses in a low and subdued manner.


    It was Catholic tradition that the people sing and actively participate in the Catholic liturgy, or else Pope St. Pius X would not have called for chant to be restored to the people:

    Special efforts are to be made to restore the use of the Gregorian Chant by the people, so that the faithful may again take a more active part in the ecclesiastical offices, as was the case in ancient times. (emphasis added)



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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    I agree, thanks for posting that!
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    Active Participation means Singing the Mass.

    Repeat.

    Active Participation means Singing the Mass.
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  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    There is one important part of the statement by Pius XI that I think is important, vis:

    ...so far as it belongs to them to take part in it.


    It seems that he is acknowledging that the congregation shouldn't necessarily sing everything. That's more of an observation on the conventional application of FCAP in many US parishes than a statement on the EF, although I still think it's noteworthy.

    @Andrew: I agree: singing the Mass (not at Mass) is what we should be aiming for.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Absolutely, Clerget:

    Provideatur tamen ut christifideles etiam lingua latina partes Ordinarii Missae quae ad ipsos spectant possint simul dicere vel cantare. (SC54)

    the parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which look towards them

    Someone, I can't remember at the moment who, said that in some sense the Missal belongs to the priest, the Graduale belongs to the schola, and the Kyriale belongs to the people, and I think that is a neat way of looking at things.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Not to be against this all, opening up the Kyriale to the people then dramatically limits the number of Mass chants that will be sung, leaving the more difficult and more beautiful to some, unsung.

    Is it preferable to sing the simpler chants with the people singing or singing more difficult chants by the choir to let them shine in their beauty?

    I'm not against the people singing but the more we diminish the role of the choir the less attractive the choir becomes to people.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Active Participation means Singing the Mass.


    No. Never has. Nothing in the "sacred" latin documents say this.
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    But, Noel, our schola has learned just about every mass setting in the Kyriale and the people sing them with us. It will take another year or two before the people are really comfortable with them, but they know quite a few very well: Missae I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XIV and XVII and Dumont's Messe Royale I.

    P.S. As for shining in all their beauty, maybe it's just me, but I find these mass settings so deep and inspiring, I can't get enough of them. They just become part of your soul, and it's very satisfying to hear them sung in alternatim. The choir leads and the people follow; the two work together, and I don't think it gets much better than that.

    At our Mass at least, the choir gets a work out since we sing the G.R. propers and polyphonic pieces at Offertory and Communion. It's a heck of a lot of music to prepare every week, but there is a real panorama of sacred music and the opportunity to extend the themes of that Sunday in a few different genres.
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  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Active Participation means Singing the Mass.


    No. Never has. Nothing in the "sacred" latin documents say this.


    To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.


    113. Liturgical worship is given a more noble form when the divine offices are celebrated solemnly in song, with the assistance of sacred ministers and the active participation of the people.


    bishops and other pastors of souls must be at pains to ensure that, whenever the sacred action is to be celebrated with song, the whole body of the faithful may be able to contribute that active participation which is rightly theirs,


    121. Composers, filled with the Christian spirit, should feel that their vocation is to cultivate sacred music and increase its store of treasures.

    Let them produce compositions which have the qualities proper to genuine sacred music, not confining themselves to works which can be sung only by large choirs, but providing also for the needs of small choirs and for the active participation of the entire assembly of the faithful
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  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    Active Participation does not mean singing, but it surely includes it.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    "Now silently, now by chanted prayer, they will respond together to the invitations which the priest extends to them from the altar; and this pious interchange between the pastor and his flock, between the flock and their pastor, will consolidate the family bond in our parishes, and will strengthen the Catholic sentiment of the Communion of Saints in souls." - Cardinal Mercier
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    . . . And here is another interesting perspective on the active participation of the faithful: it is an act of charity to sacrifice one's own preference for silent meditation at Mass to take a more active part in the liturgy in order to encourage "the restoration of a collective piety."

    "Above all, the more fervent souls among the faithful must not forget that it is an important social duty of charity for them to place their personal fervour at the service of this restoration of a collective piety. It is they, especially, who by their zeal, their active participation in the singing, by the sacrifice of their individual preferences, must restore full vitality to the gatherings of the parish. This can well be called a spiritual work of mercy of the first order." ---Dom Beaudoin, OSB, Liturgy, the Life of the Church, 1906
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  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    ...the more we diminish the role of the choir the less attractive the choir becomes to people.


    Precisely. This is exactly what is happens when the Pastor puts an extraordinary emphasis on the congregation and cantors. Not to say that cantors are unnecessary nor that the congregation shouldn't sing, but that we have to have the balance in the program, or one part of it will disappear. IIRC, the sacred documents do mention the care and training of choirs specifically. They cannot be allowed to fall into obscurity, even at the expense of the Pastor's vision for congregational singing. There are a few situations that I have observed:

    1. When there is a cantor, the choir's role is reduced, especially when the cantor is bellowing into a microphone and the congregation is singing with him/her.

    We have a CHOIR?

    2. When the choir is not permitted to sing without the congregation, the choir's role is reduced. When people are asked to join a choir in such a situation, they are hard pressed to find a reason, as they could do exactly the same task without having to attend rehearsals and put in any of their extra time: they could just sit in the pew and sing.

    3. When the choir's repertoire choices are restricted administratively (directly or indirectly, such as a mandate to NOT sing particular music or styles of music, or language restrictions), it reduces the role of the choir. Nobody wants to be in a choir that doesn't sing good music. Not to say that you can't find good music that meets administrative restrictions, because it's out there, but much of it may not be accessible to your current choir, which means they would not be able to sing it well, which means that you no longer have a good product to sell, which will make it exponentially more difficult to attract new members to your organization.

    N.B.: regarding number 3, there is also the restriction that nothing more difficult than what the congregation could sing is permitted. This also reduces the role of the choir in the same way mentioned above in number 2: if the choir isn't doing anything that the congregation isn't, then why would people want to join your choir? They could just sit in the pews and do exactly the same thing without the extra effort.

    The choir must be allowed to make good music, and the congregation must be able to hear them do it.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Balance in the music. Choir, Priest, Congregation. Emphasis on only one diminishes the importance of the other.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    But, Noel, our schola has learned just about every mass setting in the Kyriale and the people sing them with us. It will take another year or two before the people are really comfortable with them, but they know quite a few very well: Missae I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XIV and XVII and Dumont's Messe Royale I.


    This is wonderful but unattainable in the US NO parish. If this is just an EF Mass with a small dedicated congregation it is possible - though all 12 ordinaries seems impossible. How long has this taken and how many people are involved in choir and congregation? That might help us understand and appreciate what you have achieved, which is great!
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    It's taken almost five years. We have about 10 people in our schola and 15 in our children's schola and about 80-90 people in the congregation. Our pastor is very supportive, and it probably helps a great deal that everything is on a small scale.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    'This is wonderful but unattainable in the US NO parish.'

    I emphatically disagree, Noel. You have voiced what is a very common notion in this country, one which has been expressed even by great chant scholars whom I know and respect deeply. What is at issue here is not ability, but attitude and an atmosphere that is congenial to learning; and, by atmosphere I mean enthusiasm, an infectuous enthusiasm from priests, bishops, choirmasters and cantors that literally erases people's excuses and enlists their willing eagerness to learn. If Episcopalians can do this, then Catholics can, this owing to the fact that, confessional allegiances aside, they are identical in their intellectual and musical endowments. Where they are un-identical is in the cultivated pall of helpless intellectual ineptitude which is rampant in the Catholic Church. Among the English chant resources which US Anglicans have had available to them for over a century is the St Dunstan's Kyiale, an English adaptation of all the Gregorian ordinaries by that revered chant scholar, Canon Winfred Douglas. Many are the congregations (yes, entire congregations) who could sing them all, and do so whilst reading square notes. They can sing the entire Cum jubilo mass (including Gloria, as well as creed I, the Sarum creed) in English as found both in The Hymnal 1940 and The Hymnal 1982.

    What Catholics can and can't do is not determined by that for which they have a normal human aptitude, but by institutionalised ignorance and a carefully (even insistently) cultivated sense of limitedness and intellectual disenfranchisement. A colleague of mine here in Houston taught an entire congregation to sing the entire Orbis factor mass a few years ago. It can be done. It takes patience, determination, love, and an indeflectable enthusiasm and confidence on the part of a visionary choirmaster. It also takes stamina and courage in accomplishing something that takes more that a few weeks, maybe even some months. Admittedly, this is not a venture for those who try something for two or three weeks, or a month, and give up: this is for those who have true musical leadership in their blood.

    Stop saying Catholics can't.
    Please stop saying that.
    Every time you hear it, respond emphatically, 'yes, they most certainly can!'
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  • RoborgelmeisterRoborgelmeister
    Posts: 174
    I think it would be an overstatement that Episcopalian congregations used chant mass settings to any large degree. Of the congregations I am aware of, four, or five masses were taught, with a few alternative Kyries and settings of the Agnus Dei. I can't discern that it was much different in England. Now, in religious houses, it was quite a different matter, and the Kyriale was used in its entirety. To the present question: I would believe that congregations can and will learn a certain number of chant masses. Two books from the 50s and early sixties point in this direction: Our Parish Prays and Sings had a good selection of chants for the ordianry, and it promoted the congregation singing the chant at High Mass. Ted Marier's little Cantus Populi also had a restricted number of chant masses (and a psalm tone Credo), so it's clear that congregational singing of the Ordinary was being promoted. Sadly, of course, this was lost when the vernacular mass swept over all that had gone before. In the US, the number of chant mass adaptations for the 1965 English mass were very few, and appear to have had only spotty use. But I've attended masses (both OF and EF) quite recently where the people are asked to sing the chant ordinary, AND THEY DO! So, it can be done with a good choir leading, an engaging tempo, and even (heresy) so light organ accompaniment when allowed/needed.
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  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Roborgelmeister -
    Chant settings were and are indeed sung to a very large degree in Anglo-Catholic dioceses and parishes throughout the country. Too, they are in the repertory of many Episcopalian parishes who wouldn't necessarily identify as 'Anglo-Catholic'. It is not for nothing that the entire Cum jubilo mass and creed I are in both the '40 and the '82 hymnals, along with a number of other chant settings. It is really quite wonderful to hear a congregation of two or three hundred singing the Cum jubilo kyrie, as well as the rest of that mass. Of course, we sing it periodically at Walsingham.
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  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Show me a NO that can sing:

    Missae I, II, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, XI, XIV and XVII and Dumont's Messe Royale I.

    "Stop saying Catholics can't.
    Please stop saying that.
    Every time you hear it, respond emphatically, 'yes, they most certainly can!'"

    And I will be emphatic.

    Let's not discourage and depress newbies here and lurkers thinking that their efforts to sing a single chant at NO Mass fall short...

  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Stop saying Catholics can't.


    I wouldn't say Catholics can't. What I would say is that more often, Catholics won't.
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  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    I was speaking to my husband about this (he is our choir director) and when I told him what MJO had said, he most emphatically agreed. As a music teacher and band director, he said that his experience has always been that kids will follow you wherever you lead them and will go as high as you take them. The more you challenge them, the more they will give, and the more they give, the happier and more enthusiastic they are.

    He said that when we arrived in our chapel in Queens, and we heard the whole congregation singing Mass IV, led by one cantrix without any organ, he knew we were in the right place. Then, when our pastor gave us the Anglican hymnal and a DVD of a sung Mass from Our Lady of the Atonement Anglican use parish in San Antonio, TX, we knew we had found our model. If those people could sing in Texas, and if the traditionalists could sing in France, and our Congregation could sing Mass IV with literally one little lady leading them, then we knew anything was possible.

    Our experience has been just as MJO says, that the people love to be challenged, and they love to feel that they are being engaged and brought in to participating in the Latin Mass. We introduce a new mass setting and have it in the handout and sing it for 6-8 weeks and move on to the next one. We've been doing this for almost five years.

    We don't just give them the Ordinary of the Mass, but we also put in the chants for some of the propers, the Asperges, the Credo, antiphons and hymn verses. I think having the chant notation in the handout sends the message that we believe they are fully capable of assimilating it, and people tell me they are learning to follow the notes.

    So, we believe in deregulation of the Church's treasury of sacred music. Give the people as much as possible. Believe in the impossible and they will do the incredible. We feel our journey is just beginning, and we look forward to expanding our handout to pursue more and more that dream of the early Liturgical Movement to help the people appropriate and make their own their part in the Holy Mass.

    It is not without reason that Josef Cardinal Ratzinger pointed out in his speech on the 10th anniversary of Ecclesia Dei that in those countries where the Liturgical Movement was strongest before the Council there was tremendous resistance when the Latin Mass was taken away from them.

    Maybe that's why the people of St. Nicolas du Chardonnet decided to take back their church when their Mass was taken away. I don't approve or sanction any kind of disobedience, that should be clear, but I think it is a testimony to the truth that His Eminence Cardinal Ratzinger was trying to illustrate. The more people take ownership of their proper place in the Mass, the more they love it, the more they own it, and the more they value it.

    As MJO said, we have set our expectations so low that the people don't have to do anything beyond what a toddler can do (and I've had six toddlers so I know what they can do!) How much do they value something that costs them nothing, that they have to invest nothing in?
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Julie -
    Amen, and Amen!

    And, Charles, you are right (generally speaking): '...more often, Catholics won't'.
    And, the reasons they won't are addressed in my offering above. They live in an ecclesiastical (if you want to call it that) culture which makes sure that their appetite for more than pablum is consciously or unconsciously discouraged if not outright forbidden on an institutional level.
    This is deathlily discouraging to those who might be willing to learn; it is music to the ears to those who have learnt that if they whine just right they won't be asked to tax themselves with the Catholic Gregorian masses that the Episcopalians and Ordinariates are singing.
    Too, they have priests (and bishops, yet) who imagine that their authority is superior to that of popes and councils, and use this imaginary authority to 'forbid' chant.
    But for all this and more, they most certainly can.

    P.S. -
    I have seen on youtube and witnessed in person preparations for mass, even at cathedrals, being conducted by what would be a choirmaster, backed up by what would be a choir, plus a band of guitars, double-basses, trumpets, simulacrum, grand piano, etc., hopping about and excitedly cajoling the people in rehearsal of a rather complex psalm responsory, a jig-like rather catchy alleluya, and other parts of what would be a mass setting that were not all that easy. The atmosphere was not at all other than circus-like. Such ardour as this, if harnessed in the cause of real liturgical music, learning a Gregorian mass and other niceties, could produce wonders.
    No. Never ever say Catholics can't. I should think that everyone would get tired of saying this... get tired of hearing it.... it is unspeakably demoralising... and, like most such fallacies, it is repeated so often that, though it is utterly false, people actually come believe it! Catholics deserve better.... and are capable of it. 'Declare ye this and let it be heard to the ends of the earth.'
    Thanked by 3JulieColl Gavin eft94530
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Charles' assessment is a basic echo of a disease, not a symptom, of a condition Mary Jane Ballou wrote short of decade ago in "Sacred Music" : Catholics won't sing simply because they've been conditioned, which becomes congenital, to ignore whatever the latest fad or fashion or idiom (idiocy) is being sold to them from the latest musician, pastor, vicar who claims in public to have the silver bullet of FCAP.
    Thomas Day doesn't even matter in this equation. Unfortunately neither does MJO, JMO or Mahrt for heaven's sake.
    But what Mahrt gets is "think globally, act locally."
    Thanked by 2noel jones, aago JulieColl
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Catholics won't sing simply because they've been conditioned, which becomes congenital, to ignore whatever the latest fad or fashion or idiom (idiocy) is being sold to them from the latest musician, pastor, vicar who claims in public to have the silver bullet of FCAP.


    This is true. My main issue with FCAP as it is commonly pursued in the United States is that the manner in which it is pursued betrays a serious misunderstanding of what FCAP actually is.
    Thanked by 1melofluent
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