Singing the Liturgy
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    Does anyone like this? Singing the Liturgy: A Practical Means of Christian Living by Sister Marietta. It is newly scanned and online. It needs bookmarking. There is also the possibility of print, if anyone is interested.

    Can someone give me an evaluation? I like the book and have some old attachment to it. Pretty clear. But is it something we should run with or forget?
  • AOZ
    Posts: 369
    Quick review - I read this a few years back, so it is not that fresh in my memory. Contains lots of good basic information. Some history (of course scholarship has certainly progressed since it was written), solid presentation of the modes, the cleffs, the propers, the ordinary, etc. But there is a bent to it, and I would therefore hesitate to reprint and push too hard: it is of that fifties mindset - and we all know where that headed - really worried about repetition in texts (functionalism!!!). etc. The author is with the time and senses the need for renewal. But one would hope its reader would be savvy enough to see this work within its historical context. Take the good from it, and forget the rest.
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 431
    AOZ: Do you think that the Roman liturgy of the 1950s was NOT in need of renewal?
  • Jeffrey TuckerJeffrey Tucker
    Posts: 3,624
    clearly renewal of some sort was necessary. But few knew what kind of rationalism would be unleashed by the critico-liturgical methodology of the times. But note that the CMAA seems to have a culture of mutual tolerance viz old/new, along B16's lines, so there is not need for arguments over this issue.
  • AOZ
    Posts: 369
    Bruce: I do think it was need of reform. But the tone of the book, there's just something about the tone of the book. Again, haven't read it in a couple of years. But it struck me as dangerous - taken at face value, might cause one to ere too far in the other direction.
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