How can the laity participate when a schola sings solemn chant propers?
  • TheUbiquitous
    Posts: 70
    A schola singing the propers is going to be new where I am stationed. I'd rather defuse a problem before it starts by putting a blurb in our worship aid about how individuals in a congregation can participate in proper chants when not singing.

    Any ideas on what to say in the worship aid?

    * There is not a regular celebrant, so getting the explicit support from the ambo is not guaranteed to happen or to work. Moreover, the schola will sing maybe one Sunday a month.
  • Caleferink
    Posts: 434
    Perhaps you could put something in there about being active/actually participating internally, by attentively listening to and praying the text/translation (this is true any time a choir/schola sings on behalf of the people, be it a chant, motet, anthem, etc.). When I encounter this, I think of Matthew 15: 8 - "This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me" and a similar passage in Mark that's actually part of the Gospel reading for this Sunday in the Ordinary Form. Perhaps the first part of what I've said can be used initially, and then if you encounter a lot of backlash the second part could be used as a bit of a subtle challenge/admonition.
    Thanked by 1TheUbiquitous
  • donr
    Posts: 971
    Pope John Paul II, in an address to Bishop of the United States in 1998, explained the three terms describing participation:


    Full participation certainly means that every member of the community has a part to play in the liturgy … [but it] does not mean that everyone does everything, since this would lead to a clericalizing of the laity and a laicizing of the priesthood; and this was not what the Council had in mind. The liturgy, like the Church, is intended to be hierarchical and polyphonic, respecting the different roles assigned by Christ and allowing all the different voices to blend in one great hymn of praise.


    Active participation certainly means that, in gesture, word, song and service, all the members of the community take part in an act of worship … [but it] does not preclude the active passivity of silence, stillness and listening: indeed, it demands it. …


    Conscious participation calls for the entire community to be properly instructed in the mysteries of the liturgy, lest the experience of worship degenerate into a form of ritualism. But it does not mean a constant attempt within the liturgy itself to make the implicit explicit, since this often leads to a verbosity and informality … [nor does it] mean that the Latin language, and especially the chants which are so superbly adapted to the genius of the Roman Rite, should be wholly abandoned.

    taken from this web site - http://www.prayingthemass.com/2010/01/pope-john-paul-ii-on-participation.html
    Thanked by 1TheUbiquitous
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    It might might help respondents here for you provide more context to "will be singing the propers".
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Mary kept these things, pondering them in her heart.
    Thanked by 2TheUbiquitous tomjaw
  • Randolph Nichols
    Posts: 398
    For OF congregations unfamiliar with sung Latin propers, always make sure to provide parallel Latin-English texts; also, as a precaution don't eliminate vernacular hymns entirely (e.g., I keep an offertory and closing hymn).

    Below is an example of my program notes for the Third Sunday of Easter. At our monthly OF Mass the schola chants a Latin introit, the communion antiphon with verses, plus a post-communion Latin hymn. Notice the wording is intentionally designed to avoid confrontation.
    __________________

    The chanted texts sung today before Mass and at Communion are “proper” tests, designated for the Third Sunday of Easter. These sung pieces are intended to accompany processions at the Entrance and at Communion. The Church’s liturgical books also provide for Propers to be sung between the readings and at the Offertory. The texts and chant melodies of the Propers are each prescribed for a specific Mass in the liturgical calendar and provide a Scriptural idea for meditation as the procession is carried out. Propers usually take the form of a refrain with verses, as in the Responsorial Psalm. They complement the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, whose words remain the same each week and provide what is known as the “ordinary” parts of the Mass.

    Although both Sacrosanctum Consilium (the principle Vatican II document on liturgy) and the General Instruction to the Roman Missal give preference and “pride of place” to chanted Propers, these chants require a familiarity with Latin and a command of Gregorian music notation and thus are rarely feasible in the typical parish. As a result, the common practice has been to replace Propers with vernacular hymns.
    Thanked by 1TheUbiquitous
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    A list of the active participation events is a list of what people have left the church.

    Shaking hands at the peace.
    Priest facing the people.

    Add to the list, please.
  • TheUbiquitous
    Posts: 70
    It might might help respondents here for you provide more context to "will be singing the propers".


    I'd be happy to oblige, but I don't know what context is needed.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    Add to the list, please.


    Watching the granny in front of me swaying to and fro while belting out "IggleSwings". Didn't leave, but almost barfed.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414


    One could point out that people participate whilst hearing and being aedified by propers, choral anthems, and such, the same way they do when hearing the lectionary, hearing the homily, hearing the collects and the universal prayers, and hearing the eucharistic prayer, and so on. 'Hearing', as used here, means inward assimilation through purposeful listening. An engaged mind is a participating person. Participation is far more than some form of bodily or vocal activity. In fact, it's possible to be singing rather passively and routinely in such manner that one really isn't 'participating' at all; one is merely mouthing a hymn or an amen but is not mentally engaged. Intellectual and spiritual engagement is what constitutes genuine participation. One might even offer the quite tenable suggestion that any form of participation is enhanced when varied with another. Participatory hearing, followed by participatory singing, etc., should have the effect of magnifying the spiritual experience of each - and prevent a tiresome constancy of one or the other, which can lead to a deadening ennui.

    Further, this maxim leads to the truism that if person 'a' is standing there mumble singing and paying scant comprehension to what he is singing, and person 'b' is 'not singing' but is engrossed deeply in following the text and the import of the hymn's meaning, then person 'a' is really neither singing nor participating, whilst person 'b' is actually doing both.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    In fact, it's possible to be singing rather passively and routinely in such manner that one really isn't 'participating' at all


    This. The OF crowds are in danger of being on autopilot at Mass if they aren't already. That is not participation, no matter how many outwards signs you see.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    And this doesn't apply to the EF because there are no crowds, right?
    Thanked by 3Liam M. Jackson Osborn sergeantedward
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    Yes, I knew some comment of that sort was inevitable. It was a commentary on the modern Catholic Church, saying nothing of what had happened before. The point is this: if the way of the OF was supposed to fix non-participation that existed in the EF before the Council, it failed in many ways, and one of them is that we are seeing the same type of thing that the pre-conciliar Mass was accused of: people not really paying attention.
    Thanked by 1M. Jackson Osborn
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Andrew,

    I'm not sure how to take your comment.

    My EF Sunday Mass is well-populated, but not packed, yet. All age ranges.

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