Congregational Singing a Sacred Cow? You Decide.

ClergetKubisz

This is sort of the brainchild of recent events and something our dear Noel Jones said in a previous thread about "sacred cows" in the parish. I would like to posit that congregational singing is one of them that is always looming over anyone who works in parish music ministry. The issue is not that congregational singing should disappear, or isn't necessary, but the hard lines and constant advocating for it, even in parishes that are quite strong in this area. My main concern is this: we all know and would probably agree that the congregation can participate in other ways in addition to singing (so, again, to be clear, I'm NOT saying we get rid of congregational singing and participation), but no priest I've met is even willing to budge on the subject. The current quantity of music sung by the congregation must remain or increase. Any decrease in that number is unacceptable, as it is destroying participation in the Mass. Seriously? We can't let go of one hymn? We can't put one song on the program that the congregation isn't supposed to sing (especially when there are numerous other songs, including the contemporary Mass setting, that they can sing and are singing)? I will probably be raked over the coals for this proposition, but here it is: is congregational singing a "sacred cow" in the church, and why? Is there an overemphasis on it? If so, is this overemphasis obstructing the progress of sacred music? Could any obstructions simply be coming from the perspective of the priest (i.e. if the priest doesn't think the congregation can sing it, it's banned, even if there really isn't a problem)? Could it also be that the emphasis comes from clerics who don't want to do the singing themselves (or in the case of some converts to feel more at home in the Mass, singing with everyone else as it would have been done in their home churches)? Or, as the case may very well be: am I just out in left field with this one? Please note that I actually played right field.

CharlesW

I dropped the 'offertory' hymn some years ago so the choir would have a slot of time to actually sing an anthem. No one objected. I don't think the congregation would care if the communion hymn disappeared, too.

Liam

Is your paycheck a sacred cow? (serious humor alert.)

A common mistake: trying to make a uniform ritual change. As it: dropping the N hymn, replacing it with propers or an anthem. Rather than exploring greater ritual variety. So on Sunday N, doing X with the offertory, and on Sunday N+1, doing Y with the communion, on Sunday N+2, an instrumental recessional, on Sunday N+3, doing Z+A for the entrance. Musicians can get into just as much of an expectations rut as a priest or a congregation. In the OF, we have options: prudently put all of them into play, in rotation.

It then doesn't look like some ideologically driven paradigm shift. Why is that an issue? Because people *naturally* resist change. Even if it's change for their ostensible good. If you are an person who values ideas over people, you will tend to discount this reality: don't do that, unless your paycheck is not a sacred cow.

Scott_W

I don't think the congregation would care if the communion hymn disappeared, too.

But that's the cotto salami in the hymn sandwich! :)

Ben

Is congregational singing a sacred cow in many circles? Absolutely.

dad29

Ben has it. But it can be taken in a productive form, too. We switched out the offertory hymn (swiss-cheese part of the sammitch) for a congregational-refrain offertory proper and did the same with the communion--except that we also used a "reflection hymn" (taking the cotto out of the salami.) Encountered little active resistance.

rich_enough

It's more than just "congregational singing" - it's the congregation singing hymns. In other words, as long as more is not expected of the priest himself, he will have no objection. But propose a plan where the people will actually be singing more - i.e. responses at the Kyrie, gospel, preface dialogue, Our Father, etc. (without even mentioning hymns), then the answer tends to be "no."

I'm sure that this all has something to do with resistance to change (and to making the mass longer), but its also caught up in a confused notion of "participation," since singing non-liturgical hymns by definition does not "increase" participation - though I suppose it could be the occasion for it.

The source of this kind of thinking is not very obscure. It's the ideas, hammered away in their seminary, that the liturgy is the "work of the people," and that "active participation" (i.e. the people doing something) was the first principle of good liturgy. As one popular liturgist put it, "Liturgy is doing, not watching." So what's important is that the people are doing something - what they are doing or why is secondary.

I now this sounds ludicrous, but it's the only thing that makes sense of the mindless obsession with the people doing stuff at mass. It's as if unless the people are singing, reading, processing, distributing, announcing, responding, etc. as much as possible, they are not really actively participating. Congregational singing is a way of getting everyone to do something, and hence is one of the most important ingredients to "active participation."

francis

We use a seasonal antiphonal at communion (sep) and works well.

donr

I have removed the Offertory Hymn and replaced it with the Offertory Antiphon from the Lumen Christi Simple Gradual many months ago and have not heard a peep from the congregation or the priests.

CharlesW

I actually had some backing on removing the offertory hymn. The then pastor decided that it was harder for the congregation to get to their wallets and checkbooks while hanging on to a hymnal. Works for me! BTW, we use those heavy GIA hymnals so he kind of had a point.

Salieri

I have my congregation sing the Kyrie (in alternation with the choir), the Gloria, the Sanctus, Acclamation, Amen & Agnus every Week.

Also, we have started using Introit Hymns during the Procession (either Tietze or Pluth), after the choir chans the Introit from the Weber Propers, I have found that this works rather well.

The choir also sings a seasonal offertory (usually from LCSG), and then a hymn usually follows. Sometimes the hymn is switched out for an Anthem/Motet.

The choir sings the communion with verses (Weber) and then the congregation may join in singing a hymn (I like hymns with a refrain during communion like "Jesus my Lord, my God, my all"), but I don't make a big fuss about making the people sing. Sometimes the hymn is switched out for a motet/anthem.

The congregation always sings the "parish antiphon" after Mass - an organ Postlude follows for the recession.

I never replace both the offertory and communion hymns with motets at the same Mass, only one or the other.

If a choral ordinary (either a full ordinary or just a movement or two) is used, there are usually no anthems, except maybe a shorty at communion.

I find that these strike a nice balance: If the people sing the ordinary and the order of Mass (those parts of the Mass which pertain to them), an Anthem will be welcome, and a well executed anthem encourages good congregational singing. And when a choral ordinary is used, it is generally well received, because the people know the text well, since they sing it every week, and, I've noticed, that the next week after a choral ordinary the congregation sing the chant ordinary quite well - it jolts them out of their complacency in singing Sanctus XVIII each week...

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Isn't it fundamentally misguided to argue that Congregational Singing is the measure of a successful Mass?

Ben

An important note for this discussion:

If priests sang their parts as they should be, the people would have plenty to sing, even if the choir did polyphonic propers AND ordinary, or chanted them alone.

Amen
And with your spirit
Amen
And with your spirit
Amen
Thanks be to God
And with your spirit
Glory to you O Lord
Praise to you, O Lord, Jesus Christ
Amen
May the Lord accept...
And with your spirit
We lift them up...
It is right and just
When we eat/We proclaim/Save us
Amen
Our Father...
For the kingdom
And with your spirit
Lord, I am not worthy...
And with your spirit
Thanks be to God

That sounds like a fair amount of singing to me, and that's not even including the ordinary.

Liam

IIRC, Todd Flowerday once reported that (I think it was, but I may remember incorrectly on this ID) Virgil Funk admitted in retrospect in the years leading up to Music in Catholic Worship (1972) that a key decision was not to fight the fight of overcoming the very dominant* Low Mass sensibility from the priests' angle and therefore not prioritizing presidential singing and the dialogues. The people in the pews were seen (from the evidence gathered then to date) as more open to singing than celebrants. My sense is that Funk and his brethren were probably right that would have taken a huge amount of effort to overcome that. The fact that it was not overcome is a salient non-event of the period.

* Outside certain ethnic oases....

Aristotle Esguerra

On the eve of the Passover, after they had slaughtered the Lamb, the chief priests and scribes of the Church of Pretense said to themselves*, "We will continue to pretend to worship God correctly, and our people will continue to pretend to believe."

*in so many words

Adam Wood

Isn't it fundamentally misguided to argue that Congregational Singing is the measure of a successful Mass?

Pronouncing all the Latin correctly is also a misguided measure of a successful Mass. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make sure we pronounce it all correctly.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Adam,

Of course we should pronounce all the words correctly. That's not the same thing as making sure that everyone says every word.

johnmann

"May the Lord accept..."
"Lord, I am not worthy..."

Are those ever sung? They're not even sung at solemn EFs.

Liam

I've heard the latter set to vernacular chant, but it's not provided in any official ritual book so far as I am aware.

melofluent

I hope this brightens his day, but Ben's taxonomy is where to start, then a font of every blessing to follow for every other decision about what to sing when and where. And of course, this taxonomy (articulated most emphatically in 67MS) has been the cornerstone of nearly every article and address that William Mahrt has gifted us.
Basically, ideally "If it's Roman Catholic ritual language, it ought to be sung."
A number of years ago, my former pastor assented to chanting the response to the Universal Prayer. The deacon/lector invokes the prayer, the chanter invites the response with "let us all pray" set to "do do do re ti," upon which PIPs respond "Lord, hear our prayer." (Ti___la ti do....ala Litany of the Saints.) The whole congregation took that up first time and it has elevated IMO the effect of the UP.
@johnmann, yes, those are set in the Missal. I'm currently in the process of gearing up one of our congregations to add those to their responses. I've seen them, Liam. At least in the edition one of our vicars has from which I'm tutoring his canting.

fcb

@Liam:

Liam

Deacon Fritz

I can't see the image, but I trust you and Charles on this point. I don't have a current Missal with all of the Ordo chants.

matthewj

"May the Lord accept..."
"Lord, I am not worthy..."

The Cathedral of Phoenix and the televised Mass for the homebound from the Diocese of Phoenix just about every Sunday.

And yes, both chants are provided in the OF Missal.

johnmann

Are those chants available in Latin?

noel jones, aago

I's like a copy of the algorithm that automatically inserts very timely and on-subect comments...

Here's a routine reminder: Be principled not polemical.

It's a great application of Artificial Intelligence."

Ben

I've heard the latter set to vernacular chant, but it's not provided in any official ritual book so far as I am aware.

They're both right in the missal, and I've sung them in multiple places.

M. Jackson Osborn

Yes!
Emphatically!
Congregational singing is a sacred cow.
It is expected by the Church, it is meet and right, plus inalienable and any other such hyperbolic expressions which might be offered in support of it.
This does not, in and of itself, mean hymnody, as several above seem to think.
All masses (meaning the mass itself) should be sung, and all participants, cleric and lay, are expected to sing their parts. This is, if one wants to call it that, a sacred cow.. a very sacred cow. If one wishes to ornament the mass with hymnody and anthems, this is good, but one should be mindful that these things are ornaments not intrinsic to the mass itself.

There is not a single line of the mass for which chant is not provided in the Roman Missal - except the confiteor. It is generally understood, of course, that the homily does not necessarily need to be sung. Every last other word is. Yes, indeed: this is a Sacred Cow.

MatthewRoth

MJO: one could do the Confiteor in a lower voice recto tono like in the older form of Compline. It would be possible, I think, to sing it to an adaptation of the older melody for the deacon’s Confiteor

mahrt

Both chants in Latin are found in the Missale Romanum of 2002, albeit in an appendix; in the English Missal they are found right in the body of the ordinary, suggesting that they should be the normative way of celebrating the Mass. . (See my repertory article in the forthcoming issue of Sacred Music.)

ghmus7

I would repeat my story that when, visiting a local Presbyterian church as a substitute organist, that the choir director apologized that that is was summer and that there were only one hindered choir members present. How do you think the hymns sounded?
We have to stop arguing about this and get to work inculcating a culture of music and singing in our parishes. A lot of work needs to be done, and cease arguing about details.

stulte

Mooooooo!!!

M. Jackson Osborn

O sacred cow, O sacred cow,
Chant thy propers joyfully.
With voices raised to God on high
We hymn our King beyond the sky.
While priestly ones do cantillate
Our sacred rites in heaven's gate,
O sacred cow, O sacred cow,
Do thou now sing right merrily.

(Culled from the tattered remnants of
an anonymous early XXIst century wordsmith's decidedly paltry efforts.
Kathy could, of course, do much, much better... Adam, too!)

CharlesW

We have to stop arguing about this and get to work inculcating a culture of music and singing in our parishes. A lot of work needs to be done, and cease arguing about details.

I agree. We sing the Ordinary at all masses, but only one of our priests will sing the preface dialogs. Propers are sung by choir and cantors, since the congregation doesn't have texts or music for them. We sing familiar traditional hymns and the congregation generally sings well. Unfortunately, I have noticed a drop off in singing while the organ console is out for rebuild. September can't arrive soon enough! That piano doesn't do at all for leading singing.

Salieri

Congregational singing, in my opinion: All may; some should; none must. It should be encouraged, but it shouldn't be the sole criterion for successful liturgy, and it shouldn't be forced upon people - and that has been the problem over the past 50 years: forced congregational singing and 'active participation' (whatever that means) at the waving hands of 'song leaders' (whatever those are) have become the sole criteria for measuring the success of the liturgical renewal; and when people are forced to do something, they generally resist

Adam Wood

I was at a Mass recently in my home town (not my home parish, another one which a relative works at).
Sunday evening.
LifeTeen/P&W music.
Band.
Screens with words.
Chatty priest.

Congregational singing? Almost none.

I strongly believe that I, as a congregant, should sing to the best of my ability, whatever is presented for congregational singing. So I tried to do that. I even knew some of the music ("Sanctuary," "Blessed Be the Name of the Lord").

How did I fare? Poorly. I couldn't keep up with or follow the music. I didn't have notes to read for the music I didn't know already, so I had no way to sing it other than sort of mumbling along. The acoustic was bad, so I couldn't hear myself well enough, or anyone else --- just the over-amplified "choir".

By the end of the Mass I felt sort of defeated and had given up trying to sing any of it.

I looked around at all people there. None of them were singing. None of them looked even remotely engaged.

I tend to think congregational singing is a decent (flawed, yes, but decent) proxy measurement for actual participation. I also think a lot of people use "congregational singing" as some sort of Orwellian doublespeak to promote their path-of-least-resistance musical agenda.

Viola

I identify with this last post. While on holiday recently in the south of England, we attended a 'family Mass' at a nearby abbey. There was a very good organist and reasonable choir. They had four well-known traditional hymns. Fine. We joined in.
But we were totally defeated by the setting of the Ordinary, which was by Peter Jones, and pleasant enough but unknown to us. Had we been provided with music (and words, as it was repetitive in places) we could have had a stab at it, but we weren't. A nearby couple were attempting not very successfully to join in, which caused some mirth amongst the family (which we sternly suppressed, though tempted to laugh ourselves). So we stood in silence while the choir warbled away.
Point is, if music leaders or whoever want congregations to join in they have to meet them at least half way and make it easy for them. Had they used the simple chant Mass from the Missal, or even de Angelis, it would have been much better.

Viola

PS the singers were not the monks. They had their own Mass earlier.

Liam

Viola

That problem is common across the spectrum of musical idioms. It's a matter of parochial insularity, and either, (i) the assumption that "Everyone knows this" or, (ii) the unstated assumption (very common among Catholics) that we don't need to take overt measures of hospitality to strangers because (A) Catholics are required to be here, so hospitality is not relevant, and (B) non-Catholics should only be here if they want to move into clause (A).

johnmann

The most congregational singing I've witnessed was at a Catholic college Mass with all contemporary music. But I suspect the participation would've been just as great had they been using chant. Unlike say at a LifeTeen Mass, this was an all-volunteer army of college and grad students, including theology students, whose other friends are out to brunch on Sundays. Dedication, will have a greater impact than style every time.

Having said that, the contemporary music seemed work well at drawing in Protestants. On the other hand, I've also witnessed Protestants drawn to Mass with propers, at a historically Protestant college no less. You can get wildly different responses depending on the student body you're working with.

MatthewRoth

I hate when people don’t even give a sheet with the words. It means you can’t participate at all. And, don’t use music under copyright if you can’t be bothered to put together a sheet with words and/or music.

JaredOstermann

"the choir director apologized that that is was summer and that there were only one hindered choir members present."

I hate it when only one hindered singer shows up to choir. Sadly, this has actually happened to me...

francis

Having said that, the contemporary music seemed work well at drawing in Protestants.

We aren't interested in having Protestants feel comfortable being Protestant. We want to attract them to being Catholic. Come ALL the way into the fold, brothers and sisters! And by the way, join us in singing the Sanctus from our 1000+ year hymnal!

Liam

The blindness of Catholic parishes to hospitality brings to mind the attitudes of Boston Brahmin matrons captured by Cleveland Amory in "Proper Bostonians" (1947): such as when one Beacon Hill matron was chided for her failure to travel, and she replied, "Why should I travel when I'm already there?" And when another Brahmin matron was asked by a visitor from New York where Boston ladies got their hats, she replied in puzzlement, "Get our hats? Why, we *have* our hats."

Viola

The comment on Protestants coming to hear Catholic music reminded me of this. In 1820 a priest in north-east Scotland, Rev. Alexander Badenoch, who had recently introduced singing, wrote: 'Our organ is doing very well and the choir improving. Great numbers of Protestants are attracted and the collections on Sundays are double what they formerly were.'

Mike Shawaluk

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