Young Catholics and Sacred Music

Jehan_Boutte

25 here.

I think Abp Sample said it best when he said young people like what they grew up with. Therefore, the fact many young people like "Sacred pop music" (if I may allow myself this oxymoron) is easily explained by the fact that's all they know.
However, when they discover more traditional sacred music, they are easily amazed by it, whether it be Plainchant or Polyphony, Latin or vernacular, 8th Century or 21th Century.

sdtalley3

@Jehan_Boutte

I never had to endure, "Sacred Pop" as you put it, but I know what what it is in all its forms. I was more used to small chapels singing primarily 19th-early 20th century compositions which as stated somewhere earlier were "rife with sentimentality", some more so than others. Once we started getting introduced to chant, it was clearly understood that it was more the model to be followed because it provided that "sacredness" that couldn't be found in a majority of other musical genera's. There wasn't any pushback from the community (not that I'm aware of), because whatever was sung were to be found and followed in the missal.

a_f_hawkins

And a caution to set against our general enthusiasm for chant.
Cardinal Heenan has very good musical credentials. He fought hard and successfully to retain Westminster's choir school, contrary to the opinion of his clergy. Previously as Archbishop of Liverpool he founded a choir school, which still exists, to go with his newly completed Cathedral. I don't know what he did before that as Bishop of Leeds, but Leeds has the only other designated Catholic choir school in England (albeit on a different model). So there can be no doubt about his support for church music. He was also well read in sociology. He said the following at the 1967 Synod of Bishops, after a demonstration of the way in which the Consilium was intending Sunday Parish Mass to be celebrated. (at this time Mass was already generally in English translation of the 1962/65)

At home it is not only women and children but fathers of families and young men who come regularly to Mass. If we were to offer them the kind of ceremony we saw yesterday .. we would soon be left with a congregation of mostly women and children. Our people love the Mass, but it is a Low Mass without psalm singing and other musical embellishments to which they are chiefly attached.

Unfortunately his prophecy proved accurate. If you have a number of Masses on a Sunday, consider providing little or no music at some of them. You can then ask people about their judgement between them.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Hawkins,

Heenan's quotation is variously used as a condemnation of the Ordo of Paul VI or as an argument for the Low Mass (as opposed to the "frilly" Mass). Given that he, in his cathedral, promoted choir schools, it seems unlikely that he opposed to "musical embellishments", if by that we mean sung chanted propers and sung ordinary, or even sacred polyphony.

On this side of the pond, Archbishop Weakland also had excellent musical credentials, but still promoted utter nonsense in music and liturgical practice (if not exclusively).

Having excellent credentials doesn't necessarily transfer seamlessly to excellent judgment or holiness.

As to providing at least one Low Mass, I'm partly sympathetic to this notion: it gives the musicians a chance to attend Mass without having to sing (or play) and rush their thanksgivings.

CatholicPriest

going back to a comment from jclangfo:

To make more Catholic young adults attend Mass, you need to fundamentally change the culture of your parish. You need to equip the member of your parish to extend invitations to people they've never invited before, equip them to be on mission, and inspire them to live out their faith day in and day out in a way that an unbelieving world finds compelling.

I have to say that you are right on in this. Thanks for the reminder! Good stuff. I don't think that creating a culture of Sacred Music in a parish (here I'm implying primarily chant based) is at all opposed to this approach but that the two can work together. We need to avoid the impression that chant is somehow stuffy while P&W is evangelistic (Again, what could be more evangelistic than having more Scripture?!). A well rounded parish will develop strong liturgy and strong community/evangelism. However, can I emphasize again the importance of making sure that our music is in fact part of the liturgy rather than something we try to conform the liturgy to? (example of the latter would be the liturgical approach of the Rebuilt parish).

a_f_hawkins

CGZ my point in giving Heenan's musical "credentials" was to show that his comment to the Synod was sociological, not musical. He was sure that many people preferred a Low Mass, and that the Consilium were intent on imposing a Sung Mass on everybody, he said that no one with (English) pastoral experience would think that was a good idea. If you impose unwelcome liturgical change, the people could and would vote with their feet, you have to find some way of making your changes welcome or at least indifferent.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Hawkins,
I first encountered Cardinal Heenan's much quoted comment courtesy of Michael Davies (may he rest in peace). Based on that, I understand the Cardinal not to be opposed to Sung Mass (that's an American Irish thing) but to the contorting of the Mass for the sake of getting people to sing. Some will sing, some will bathe in the singing of others, some will endure the singing (especially if it's badly done), but no one likes to be prodded into singing at Mass.

Reverend Father,

At first I thought I misread your comment (underlined). You don't want to conform the liturgy to the music... because that's like conforming the elbow to the place in the body where it belongs? Music is integral to the liturgy, surely, not an optional add on. (Hence, Cardinal Heenan's comment about "embelishments"). Music where it doesn't belong, or music sung badly, or bad music sung well .... all of these are deformations.

Could you explain what you mean about "something we conform the liturgy to?", since I think I have horridly misunderstood.

contemporaryworship92

I wanted to make some points about an issue that has been addressed only indirectly so far:

Since implementing musical changes in the parish we have seen an increase of young adult Catholics

I'm in the 20-30 age group. I'm in college and plan a lot of the music for my Newman Center. Myself and the other musicians (mostly other students with a couple others mixed in) overwhelmingly prefer traditional music. The other students seem to be fairly supportive of traditional music.

I think young people are sick of being force fed bad music.

Described as a trope above, I squarely fit into the category of someone who grew up on a 100% GIA diet, at a rather large parish with multiple choirs, trained cantors, and two organists. The program was, and is, very good. That said, I still felt like I had been robbed of my inheritance the first time I attended a traditional liturgy. I was quite angry, in fact. I was blown away the first time I attended a Christmas Eve mass that was adorned with a Palestrina mass setting. I was honestly dumbfounded; I didn't even know parishes did this type of music anymore.

I grew up in a contemporary parish with Breaking Bread as the main music resource. When I started college and began going to mass at the Newman Center where I am now, I was introduced to chant. I love the feeling of transcendence that comes with singing chant. It is so unlike anything else we hear. I feel immediately connected to the divine when I either sing or hear chant sung at mass (either in English or Latin).

Not until I got into my teens did I experience more ecclesiastical music on a grand scale. Since then I've been hooked in the industry and do what I can.

We have a number of young people on this board who have developed a strong preference for traditional liturgical music after having grown up on GIA/OCP. We also have a number of people with the following experience:

A new, traditionally-minded pastor was assigned...the entire choir program was alienated, most quit, the MD was driven away, families left for other neighboring parishes, registrations in the catechetical programs plummeted, the parish has to beg for volunteers, the offertory collapsed, and the pastor was removed by the bishop less than two years after he started because the parish registrations dropped to a little over 1,000 families in that short time and the parish began to run a severe deficit budget. That was before Covid-19.

those who demand that the mass be accompanied by half-'sacred' texts set to music derived from entertainment genres to keep them entertained. We live in a 'what most people want, do, etc.' society.

They will never believe that the church asks for chant above all

I have lived with these types for decades... even when they KNOW what the church sanctions, they reject it wholesale and argue for what THEY PREFER just the same.

What to make of all these experiences? My opinion is that while there is a population of people who will like Gregorian chant even when they grew up with the opposite, this is not anywhere near the majority of the population. Maybe on the order of 10% of the population.

The part of the population that likes Gregorian chant immediately upon hearing it leans heavily towards people who already have some training in classical music, broadly defined. Tragically, this is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the population. Education in classical music needs much more investment at a societal level, but on the ground as choir directors, this is the hand we are dealt.

We face the issue that music is a language, and that people who do not know the language will not be able to understand the transcendence and sacredness we hope to communicate with our music. Contemporary musical genres have the advantage of being able to communicate these things in a language people already understand. Teaching people how to understand a new musical language is a worthy endeavor, I simply encourage people to realize that this education needs to happen, and can be hard and long, before a lot of people are going to appreciate chant. Forcing chant on people who have not learned to speak the language is probably not going to end well.

Some of the population finds the music they are already used to beautiful, transcendent, and sacred.

However, unfortunately a massive segment of the population is not even looking for the music at Mass to sound sacred. They want to fulfill their Sunday obligation while being entertained, to put it bluntly. The weaker in faith might decide whether they are going to come to Mass at all based on whether they are entertained while they are there.

As the director of a choir that ministers primarily to college students, you would be amazed how often the students request OCP/GIA material of the folk genre, or list such songs as their favorites when I ask them what they like, or express particular enthusiasm for said songs when they appear on the program. Some of them even think that this is traditional Catholic music. I had one particular singer say that they wanted our choir to be more traditional, and then many of the songs that this individual requested were in fact recently published OCP songs that appear in Journeysongs.

Thus for a variety of factors, including liking the music from their upbringing, finding contemporary styles sacred, or not wanting sacred and finding contemporary styles entertaining, we have a large majority of the population whose tastes are not going to favor chant. There are some in this population who might not come to Mass if we took away the songs they are familiar with. This is a serious pastoral problem, and I think this problem is made worse when music directors have false beliefs that everyone loves chant, all young people love chant, or that everyone will like chant once they've heard it enough times. I don't know what the pastoral solution is to this problem, but I don't think that a cold turkey switch to chant is going to result in anything positive happening.

Particularly, I don't think this is a pastoral response:

You just have to shake your shoes and move on.

The sort of person who has a strong attachment to forms of music that are not chant is not going to happily give that music up by having the rules read to them. That's just not human nature. It's been said in this thread that Jesus didn't just give people what they wanted, but Jesus met people where they were at. He touched lepers and ate and drank with tax collectors and prostitutes. And critically, Jesus broke the letter of the law when a literalistic reading of it was contrary to what God intended to command. Somehow, someway, we need to have a pastoral response to the people who are not accustomed to chant and provide a liturgy that they want to attend. I'm curious what people who have really grappled with this issue think is the way forward.

contemporaryworship92

FWIW, here's my personal experience with chant. I grew up in a very GIA heavy parish. I liked much of the music as music but something seemed missing in terms of sacredness. It felt like something special was happening the times they threw in an old hymn. As a kid, I probably would have said we should mostly play old hymns. I encountered praise and worship when I had my first adult personal encounter with God on a Lifeteen retreat. As a late teen, I would have said that we should ditch all the OCP/GIA songs and do praise and worship with some old hymns thrown in. As I've gotten older (late 20s currently) I've grown to see the beauty in all these forms of music while being judicious as to what is good and bad within each genre. I'm more aware of what is my own taste vs what is something universal.

Early in college, I heard Jeffrey Tucker on Catholic Answers saying that we should sing the propers rather than replacing them with hymns. This spurred my curiosity and I spent countless hours reading the documents of the Church about sacred music, and learning about chant. I discovered this forum in the process. Try as I might, I've never been able to have the sort of personal experiences with chant that the others have alluded to above. To be frank, I find it boring. I can only guess that the sort of experience that I have with praise and worship must be like what some others experience with chant.

As a particular example, the policy of my current university campus ministry is to use the chant Pslam settings from Illuminare Publications. I very much appreciate having an easy to use resource with Pslam exact texts. From a music theory perspective, much of it I find intellectually appealing. Some of them are quite beautiful. However, on the whole I am not blown away by the beauty or sacredness of this product and don't understand why people say that there is an imperative to be moving towards this sort of thing elsewhere in the Mass. I find this product, like other exact text Psalm resources in other styles, to be a functional and utilitarian tool to sing exact Psalm texts.

I will say that I like chant in a very specific context: I enjoy chanting the dialogue of the Mass. "The Lord Be With You/And With Your Spirit" sort of stuff. I enjoy the rare occasion when the priest chants the Gospel, and the slightly less rare occasion where the priest chants the Eucharistic prayer. However, I simply can't imagine a scenario where my experience of the Mass would be improved by taking all the places my choir currently performs contemporary music and putting chants in instead.

By this point in my life, I've been exposed to a lot of chant and have just never acquired the taste for it. It's rather like how I feel about much modern classical music, like Schoenberg - it's intellectually stimulating, interesting to think about the ideas, but not something that I can actually aesthetically enjoy.

I've also heard numerous second hand accounts of people that tried replacing everywhere they had contemporary music with chant, and it ending very badly. I'm told that at my current parish, within the past decade one of the choir directors decided to switch his choir to all chant, and the congregation size ended up being halved due to people not liking it. Eventually, they gave up, and now that Mass and most of the others at my campus ministry sing traditional hymnody from the St. Michael Hymnal. Interestingly, all the books from that chant experiment are still sitting in the choir room and we are in possession of every book that the CMAA would recommend.

sdtalley3

I've also heard numerous second hand accounts of people that tried replacing everywhere they had contemporary music with chant, and it ending very badly.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I grew up in a "Rad-Trad" community where our MD and pastor were of the same mind in this regard. This was one of the driving factors of my dabbling in composition. Little did I know I was like a couple hundred years too late to the game because sacred polyphony is directly related to plainchant.

tomjaw

@jclangfo

We have a number of young people on this board who have developed a strong preference for traditional liturgical music after having grown up on GIA/OCP. We also have a number of people with the following experience:

A quick search will find the first statement to be true of this Forum and in many other places. As for the second this is more difficult, there are not many people on this forum that dislike chant. There are of course many people on this Forum that can't programme chant, but this can be for many reasons...

1. Musical taste is wide and varied, but our musical taste like our taste for food needs to be educated. If we eat the same food, and listen to a small selection of musical styles, how can we have an informed preference?
With the destruction of school music programmes we are not educating our young people in music, and we can see the result, just as we can see the result in not educating children in different foods.

2. This Forum is full of accounts of traditional music programmes that have been destroyed by a new pastor that did not like the style of the music (perhaps due as J Bevan suggests due to seminary deformation). But these music programmes have not been destroyed because they were unpopular with a majority they have been destroyed by an idealogical focused minority. Either a badly educated priest or a inward looking clique with an idealogical hatred of all Tradition.

3. You mention new priests that have failed to bring a Traditionally focused music programme to a 'progressive' parish. But is this just about the music? No, we find it is not just the about the music, it is about the Sermon, it is a resistance to change, it is a resistance to challenge. Now this brings me to this,

Particularly, I don't think this is a pastoral response:
"You just have to shake your shoes and move on."

I hope you realise that this is pastoral... These are our instructions in how to evangelise from Our Blessed Lord himself, see also Matthew 10:14,15 & Luke 10:10-12,16.
and this,

but Jesus met people where they were at. He touched lepers and ate and drank with tax collectors and prostitutes. And critically, Jesus broke the letter of the law when a literalistic reading of it was contrary to what God intended to command.

This is also an inadvertent misrepresentation of Our Lord and Saviour, yes he did touch the lepers, and ate and drank with sinners, but he did not leave them in darkness, he gave instruction, he educated, and then he admonished them to change their lives "Go sin no more". This is a twofold instruction to us to go out and evangelise and not to sit with an inward focus (not that we are all called to outward participation in evangelisation), but also to lift the sinner from the darkness and bring them to the light.

The other problem we have is too many people view music as a option that can be added or subtracted from the Liturgy at the whim of the priest, liturgy committee or director of music. But the Liturgy has its own music and that is chant. Our Liturgical books of the last 1000 years were full of music, music and the Liturgy are inseparable. It is sad that when the Liturgy was reformed to give us the N.O. so little thought was put to the musical parts of our Liturgy, just because some people have got used to not singing the sung parts of the Liturgy does not mean we should leave people in ignorance.

If people like singing more modern Liturgical styles that is fine, the Church is big enough to contain different musical expressions. But if those styles are not using the liturgical texts that are Proper to the Liturgy what are they? Is it really good practise to sing songs at certain times during the Mass just to create a short term emotional response, to get the people to feel good, but then let them down and not take them deeper into the mysteries of our Faith? We can all sing Carols around a fire with mulled wine and sweet foods, this can bring an emotional response, but the Mass should really be something more than this.

a_f_hawkins

Absolutely, tomjaw's last paragraph is spot on. The words used in worship are, as Aquinas said for our benefit, God does not need our words. Or as Prosper of Aquitaine said:
"Let us consider the sacraments of priestly prayers, which having been handed down by the apostles are celebrated uniformly throughout the whole world and in every Catholic Church so that the law of praying might establish the law of believing [ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi]".

Nathan_the_Organist

For me, the most convincing argument in favor of chant is that it is what the Church says we should do. (Maybe this is the accountant in me (I'm studying accounting in college, church music is something I do for fun) since accounting is about following the rules closely). If the rules given by the church say chant had pride of place, then chant is what we should do. To me that should be the end of the discussion. I do understand that is not the most pastoral approach to implementing chant, but the problem was caused by people not following the rules in the first place.

bhcordova

I must say that the first time I heard chant, I didn't like it because I couldn't make out the words and it sounded mushy, although the melody was great.Admittedly this was on a car radio and the chant was in Latin, but it wasn't until I found the CMAA and learned the words to the chant did I start to love chant. I think I have a higher level of musical experience than most PIPs. We still had a music program when I was in elementary school, was in band in high school, was in the choir at my parish (until the MD and I had a falling out), have dozens of recordings of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music, and have always liked Renaissance-style music. It is definitely a learning process.

davido

Controversial statements?:

- chant is not there to be liked or disliked

- the music at mass is for God, not us

- church music is about purity and devotion, not likes or dislikes

MarkB

I think we also need to distinguish forms of chant.

If people hear psalm-toned propers in mode 6 at introit, responsorial psalm, offertory and Communion every week (I'm thinking of the collection titled "Psalm Tone Propers"), they will get sick of it after two weeks, and choirs will get tired of singing it. If that's the base-level of extremely boring chant, maybe a step up from that would be things like the chants in the Ignatius Pew Missal or Fr. Weber's options iii and iv in his Proper of the Mass.

Then a step above those would be things like the Illuminare/Source and Summit propers, Simple English Propers and similar collections of vernacular texts set to neumatic chant melodies with very simple psalm-toned verses. Maybe add the Graduale Simplex in this category, if you want to try some Latin chant.

Slightly above that would be Fr. Weber's option ii (medium difficulty) in his collection and similar.

Then you get to melismatic chants, such as Fr. Weber's option i (which imitates Gregorian melismatic chants), but most choirs and music directors can't sing those.

At the height of complexity and difficulty would be the full Gregorian propers in the Graduale Romanum, which are beyond the ability of probably 95% of existing parish choirs and music directors to provide.

Likewise, there are varying degrees of complexity and difficulty in chants of the Mass ordinary, in English or in Latin.

And chant can be accompanied or unaccompanied.

So there isn't one type of chant.

Also consider that people may think of their pastor ineptly bungling off-key through the Preface in a quasi-chant manner when they hear people talk about singing more chant at Mass. They might think of the operatic soprano cantor at their parish who vibratos like a Gatling gun into the mic when she leads chant.

Even though people are using the single word "chant", there are undoubtedly widely varying understandings of what that means, based on people's experiences hearing chant at Mass. And there are different styles of chant that can be used, some of which are admittedly boring.

Chant can mean different things due to a variety of chant styles, and chant can be implemented well or poorly. So just saying there should be more chant sung at Mass doesn't itself provide a meaningful answer.

If I were at a parish that psalm-toned all the propers and that was the extent of the music, I'd leave. I'd leave both because I would find such chant insufferably boring, not beautiful at all, and because I don't think it would help the community grow in holiness nor in numbers. At parishes I've been to that use the Ignatius Pew Missal, I think that also comes close to being too boring an approach to chant at Mass to win people over.

My advice to anyone considering bringing chant to Mass or to a parish where it hasn't been done much or at all is, first of all, make sure you and your choir are educated about how to sing chant beautifully. Then make sure that from the very beginning the chants sung at Mass are beautiful in themselves and sung well; choosing boring chants or singing them poorly would be counterproductive. Also, implement chant gradually without taking away the music the parish is already familiar with and loves. Win them over with little tastes of sweet honey and build from there.

jcr

I wanted to weigh in here because of my own background. I am not a teenager or boomer. I will be 78 in a week if the Lord gives me the next few days. My early experiences in music were in church. My grandmother was a church organist for 25 years and my dad was a professional singer who held a post in a large Hollywood church as a staff singer. the church hired a staff of 8 professionals to serve as leadership and soloists. When I was about 9 or 10 my folks converted to a Pentecostal denomination (a truly dramatic shift from "high church" protestantism). The music at that little storefront church was heavily slanted toward the "popular" gospel music of the time (early 50's). Apart from a couple of occasions I remember no experience with chant until college and the customary tour through Donald J. Grout (first edition BTW). Now the plainchant and an assignment to attend a High Mass at the LA Cathedral (St. Vibiana's at that time) struck me as very reverent and seriously prayerful.

As a young music graduate where was I to go for worship and musical employment? How was I to do it? Well that's a long story not pertinent here. But, my observations during well over 50 years of experience in music leadership in a wide variety of churches and educational settings along with a bit of professional performing has made some things clear and left many more in the fog.

People do not know what they like. Mostly, they like what they know.

Forced consumption and participation are predictably failures when it comes to changing minds.

Intellectual arguments and parading out the authority of the documents are equally feeble as agents of conversion to faith or to art.

Shallow, ill conceived music seems to have a weakness as regards longevity. Unfortunately this is not an absolute, but it is important to remember.

People want to belong to something good. As a matter of fact, in their minds it becomes better when they join.

Young people are not stupid. They will respect competence for the most part and will become quite interested in things that often surprise their elders.

The MD needs highly developed skills in two areas; Music and leadership. This last was mentioned above and I want to emphasize this strongly. I believe that the leadership skills of the choirmaster/MD are closely akin to those of the athletic coach. The leader/coach must know what is wanted, have the skills to teach it, and have the ability to get the people in the music program to "buy in" to the development of a high degree of excellence in performance and literature. This means maintaining a very high standard of ethics and performance personally and demanding this from the participants. Although the participants in the program don't owe the leader anything, the leader can develop a strong sense of loyalty in them, in part by being as loyal to them as possible. I recommend any of John Wooden's materials on leadership in this area.

Always remember that the arena in which all of this happens is the area of human relationships. When frustrated, discouraged, or even angry, remember this!

Merry Christmas everyone!

francis

At the height of complexity and difficulty would be the full Gregorian propers in the Graduale Romanum, which are beyond the ability of probably 95% of existing parish choirs and music directors to provide.

Baloney. You might not be able to do them every Sunday to start, but you could start doing them on major feast days, and then maybe one Sunday a month, or you could also use the Simplex. In my opinion, a statement like this discounts the need to approach or want to move toward incorporating the chant.

CatholicPriest

Commenting on the education comments above: sometimes the best education is simply experiencing! The chant done in the liturgy draws a person into the meaning of the liturgy itself.

Also, I can say that chanting the dialogues at Mass is a great way to introduce a parish to vernacular chant. It's amazing how quickly people pick up on it and even more amazing to see even those who refuse to sing hymns or are upset about certain musical changes, join in for this! There's generally no baggage like there are with hymns. I've heard little children chime in (off-key and with no sense of proper volume!) for the preface dialogue! Now that's education!

Blessings, and Merry Christmas all! (I'll say an extra prayer that all goes well for each of you)

NihilNominis

If people hear psalm-toned propers in mode 6 at introit, responsorial psalm, offertory and Communion every week (I'm thinking of the collection titled "Psalm Tone Propers"), they will get sick of it after two weeks, and choirs will get tired of singing it. If that's the base-level of extremely boring chant, maybe a step up from that would be things like the chants in the Ignatius Pew Missal or Fr. Weber's options iii and iv in his Proper of the Mass.

I don't know that pure musical interest is always the thing. If the psalm-toned proper is placed predictably within the liturgy in a self-disciplined way, if the tones are rotated, and executed beautiful, then it can serve as a very nice vehicle for the proper liturgical text. Sometimes "Englished" Gregorian full propers obscure the text from a congregation that is unaccustomed to receive the text through a Missal or other aid.

Moreover, I think we sometimes underestimate just how beautiful the psalm-tones actually are. Simplicity goes a long way in underscoring the accessibility of these ideas, and the utility of these texts in an "average" parish context. This is basically what Byzantine Catholics are told to do by their books, and it's gorgeous.

The predictability of psalm-toning, and the relative similarity of length that this achieves, can also expedite the process of integrating the Proper as a "natural" fit for the liturgy. E.g., during CoViD-tide, many Masses are entrances from the sacristy, straight to the altar, no incense. A psalm-tone proper fits neatly into that tiny space, so no one feels we are wasting their time.

I insist on pointing psalmtoned antiphons from a written-out text with my choirs, except when for a large feast day, we use a more elaborated setting. This has had an awesome side effect: for daily liturgies, we can "point and shoot" the Responsorial Psalm and Gospel Acclamation of the day, fluently and fluidly, with only a tune at the top and slash marks here and there.

Harmonized psalm-tones, too, can be exquisite vehicles for the Proper, in the classic SATB parish choir that will relish the opportunity to sound good, on a serious and rich text, at a liturgically suitable moment, unaccompanied & in parts.

People do not know what they like. Mostly, they like what they know.

Which is why I've always found it important to introduce what I wish them to like, in the context of what they already know and like. There's a lot of "familiar" music in average parish land that squidges nicely beside a piece of Gregorian. It's not an aesthetic setting fit for a museum, or something to, yaknow, brag about, but it can help real people with a seriously deficient formation in externals (but very often a strong, real, robust faith and devotional life) find deeper riches in their tradition. And as to aesthetic integrity, has American parish liturgy ever enjoyed such a blessing? Did it really fare much better than the days of Under the Greenwood Tree in Georgian Anglicanism? Was J.A. Korman's "Christmas Carol Mass" exactly... umm... tasteful (behold -- it was written for Catholic worship, tho these folks ain't Catholic)?

You can only go up, and sometimes climbing a mountain takes a while. But we're in the business of saving souls, not speeding to aesthetic perfection.

People want to belong to something good. As a matter of fact, in their minds it becomes better when they join.

Young people are not stupid. They will respect competence for the most part and will become quite interested in things that often surprise their elders.

Completely true.

MatthewRoth

Regarding settings that are too long… In Europe, they completely ignore the requirement to sing a congregational Sanctus-Benedictus; the priests in major churches start the eucharistic prayer aloud, but at a normal speaking voice, covered by the music, wait to actually consecrate the elements, and then they either wait or continue with the prayer. I can't remember exactly what happened with the Benedictus, but it's pretty sensible. Are we no longer supposed to sing entire Masses from Palestrina, Victoria, etc.? I know that this topic has been beaten to death on the forum and in the journal, but it's only a problem for Anglophones who feel like they have to follow the letter of the law…

m_r_taylor

I see it this way: a parish is a home and the musical decisions you make about Mass have to have the long term in mind. The music you provide each week is part of the furniture and decorations of the home you build for the parishioners, and will become part of their lives in some way. Imagine a child in the parish were to go from cradle to adulthood on the music you provide. What do you want that child to absorb? Don't you want to give them a familiarity with sheer beauty and wonder?

However you manage the short-term, be aware that usually the short-term becomes the long-term.

The other main way I see it - and this actually comes first - is that the parish is the house of the Lord, and the furniture and decorations have first to be fitting to adorn the Lord's house.

Fitting and beautiful music can help develop the virtue of piety in church. I would think that any shift in music or liturgy towards the sacral and transcendent ought ideally to be part of a larger programme of modelling and teaching adoration of the Lord.

a_f_hawkins

MatthewRoth could you clarify please. Are you describing EF or OF? and referring just to the principal Mass? and just to larger churches? And can I take it that you are excluding the Atlantic Archipelago from "Europe"?

kevinf

I sing a choral Sanctus/Benedictus at least once a month. US and NO.

contemporaryworship92

I've gotten behind on replying to this thread, but wanted to make some points:

I mean seriously, who can argue with replacing modern artistic expressions (which point to themselves and us) with singing the Scriptures in a pure and humble manner?

I think this is a false choice. There are many folk and praise and worship songs that beautifully set the texts of scripture. Yes, some of them paraphrase and interpret passages poetically, but hymns do this too, and folk and praise and worship do this much less than hymns do. Typical exemplars of folk and praise and worship are going to be much closer to verbatim scripture than a typical exemplar of hymnody. In fact, by using these genres I am usually able to select exact matches for the lectionary readings each Sunday.

Chant gives you the ability to match the exact texts of the antiphons. I grant you that. On the other hand, the GIRM allows the antiphon text to be replaced with "another apt song," so if this is a matter of compliance to the letter of the law, more contemporary styles are already in compliance in this regard.

In think that "in a pure and humble manner" is a very subjective song or style choice criteria. I would make the same claim about the songs that I select.

The belief that contemporary genres "point to themselves and us" is a common claim by traditionalists but I see no evidence that this is broadly true. There are some egregious outliers that are in fact worthy of this criticism such as "Gather Us In" and "All Are Welcome" but the lyrics of these songs are hardly representative of the totality of their genre. As noted above, there are lots of lots of songs in contemporary genres that set the text of scripture.

Perhaps you mean that something intrinsic to these styles "point to themselves and us." The claim has also been made previously in this chat that:

As for P&W music, it is all about P&W music. It's appeal is strictly emotional (there is nothing there, absolutely nothing, for the mind or the soul) and induces an adrenaline driven experience which should not be confused with a genuinely spiritual one. Those who go to mass to have an 'experience' or, like certain Protestants, to hear or sing their favourite songs, are there for the wrong reasons. Contrary to what those to whom music is music and it's all the same would have their people believe, all music is not equal in aesthetic or spiritual or moral value - and some of it, like P&W, can actually lead people astray.

On the contrary, praise and worship primarily appeals to me intellectually. There are lots of songs that have deep and complex lyrics, and lots of songs that have music theory that engages my mind. Praise and worship songs help take a text that I know to be true and elevate my heart and spirit to really know that truth with the totality of my person. Matt Maher likes to say that music helps shorten the distance between the head and the heart, and this has really matched my life experience.

There's an apparent subtext in the above quote that I really disagree with, and that subtext is that emotion in liturgy is bad. On the contrary, emotion is why we have music in the first place. If this was a purely intellectual endeavor, we could read the words and think about them and not need music at all. We use music because it unites the entire person, intellect and emotion, into a single act of worship. Good liturgical music should make you feel emotionally convicted by the text of the song.

There is, however, a legit problem here with praise and worship music that needs to be addressed. That problem is when the emotion created by the music itself becomes disconnected from the content of the lyrics. There are problematically many praise and worship songs (Hillsong is guilty of many examples) where the music creates a spiritual or sacred feeling while the words being sung are empty and meaningless. Such songs change the emphasis from directing the person towards God based on a sincere conviction from the text into making a false idol out of emotional experience. There's an easy solution to this problem - don't program songs with vacuous lyrics.

As to adrenaline - that's a very specific and rare emotion that can be experienced from praise and worship, considering the totality of the genre. There are some songs, particularly of the sending forth variety, that make me feel very convicted in a specific way that could possibly be described as adrenaline. However, I don't think this is any different than what people experience from a rousing sending forth old hymn played on the organ such as "Jesus Christ Is Risen Today." I think, as mentioned in the above paragraph, that what is important is that the emotion be connected to a genuine engagement with the text of the song and not be an artifact of the musical alone.

We need to avoid the impression that chant is somehow stuffy while P&W is evangelistic (Again, what could be more evangelistic than having more Scripture?!).

As noted above, I don't believe the style choice meaningfully influences the amount of scripture being sung.

If people like singing more modern Liturgical styles that is fine, the Church is big enough to contain different musical expressions. But if those styles are not using the liturgical texts that are Proper to the Liturgy what are they? Is it really good practise to sing songs at certain times during the Mass just to create a short term emotional response, to get the people to feel good, but then let them down and not take them deeper into the mysteries of our Faith? We can all sing Carols around a fire with mulled wine and sweet foods, this can bring an emotional response, but the Mass should really be something more than this.

I agree with this paragraph. I don't believe that liturgical music of any genre should primarily be about creating an emotional experience - this makes an idol out of what ought to naturally occur from the unity of meaningful lyrics and good music. With modern liturgical styles, it is eminently possible to sing songs that set the texts from the lectionary that day. It is much harder to find modern songs that fit the antiphons, and that does require going to option 4 in the GIRM, and I sense that we aren't likely to agree about the suitability of doing this. That said, the texts of the songs I play are the primary consideration I make while programming music and it is very important to me that the texts that are sung are worthy of the liturgy.

Nathan_the_Organist

jclangfo, you are correct that another song may replace the introit. The liturgical laws permit this, however they see it as the last resort. It is the fourth of four options. The GIRM gives the chant antiphon is the preferred option (the first three options are different forms of chant). Other document of the church also give preference to chant. So while using another song may follow the letter of the law, the spirit of the law provides chant as the best option.

M. Jackson Osborn

Nathan has well pointed this out. I am rather certain that in by far most cases the least of these options is chosen not because the people 'want' them, but because that is what their musicians decide upon for them because the musicians simply do not know, or do not at all like 'option' number one - so because whatever these 'musicians' are competent to perform is ipso facto said by them to be 'what the people want'.

contemporaryworship92

I am rather certain that in by far most cases the least of these options is chosen not because the people 'want' them, but because that is what their musicians decide upon for them because the musicians simply do not know, or do not at all like 'option' number one

It seems rather impossible to me for the above analysis to be correct. If we were to survey a representative sample of Catholics who attend Mass on Sunday, I would be certain that 90% or more of them want hymns and/or contemporary songs that replace the propers, and do not want the songs they are familiar with replaced with chanted propers.

If it is in fact the case that the chanted propers are what the people want, it seems to me that an implausibly massive market failure has occurred. We have, to a first approximation, a liturgical free market. The bishops mandate very little as to the music, so each parish is free to choose whatever music they want. Generally speaking, parishes will choose the music that maximizes the number of people that come on Sunday. Some parishes may make choices that are against their best interest at least as measured by attendance, but in a free market, there are lots of competitors eager to take advantage of this. If chanted propers are what the market wants, it would seem that the market would ascertain this relatively quickly. The most plausible explanation for the paucity of parishes doing chanted propers is that chanted propers are currently a niche interest and the market can only bear a small number of Masses in each city doing chanted propers.

To anyone who is in a parish that does not currently do chanted propers - how often do people come to you asking for chanted propers? My guess is that more often people come to you asking for the music to be more upbeat and entertaining, or else more traditional in the folk sense of the word "traditional", meaning hymns in the style of Charles Wesley. My intuition is that very few parish music directors are imposing by force the music that they would prefer onto a congregation that would prefer chanted propers.

In regards to non-traditional music being forced upon traditional congregations by ideologically driven pastors and music directors, the fact that this has occurred is a tragedy and should be condemned in the strongest of terms. I'm so sorry to anyone who has experienced this and I want to be clear that I am not trying to minimize the hurt that you have experienced. I also want to make sure that we do not universalize an experience that occurred all too often but is probably the statistical minority. My experience in interacting with people who were common laypeople (not priests, not music directors, not involved with music ministry) at the turn of Vatican II is that these lean heavily towards being Susan From Parish Council types who were bringing these changes from the ground up by popular demand (bless amem). I would venture that most of the change in liturgical music that occurred post-Vatican II occurred due to market forces.

Generally speaking, in a free market, supply meets demand. Liturgical music is a mostly free market, so supply of each genre of liturgical music is probably fairly close to demand for each genre of liturgical music. My experience has been that most priests/DoMs will allow at least one Mass to be in a genre different from the regular music program provided that there is clear demand for it (and supply of competent musicians who know the genre). The absence of chanted propers is largely due to absence of demand for chanted propers.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Jclangfo,

The claim isn't about what the people want, surely, but how the decision of what to sing is achieved.

If the question were ever posed, "Do you want music which has inspired saints to be holy and worship God well, or do you want whatever's on the top forty hit parade ?" most people would say that they wanted the former, but that's because of how the question is phrased.

If the question is posed, "Which sounds more Churchy to you, chant or sacro-pop-schmaltz-trash?" again, the result would be that chant sounds more churchy, assuming anyone could identify what "sacro-pop-schmaltz-trash" is.

If the question is posed, "Should we do what the Church expresses a preference for, or should we do our own thing?", this might be a much harder question to answer -- because so many people are used to doing their own thing, anyway, but also because the premise, that the Church actually expresses a preference for chanted propers, is nearly universally denied.

But the people were never asked in the first place.

The absence of chanted propers is largely due to absence of demand for chanted propers

sounds inadvertently like "There's no dissenting opinion on (fill in the blank) not because Google and Facebook censor opinion, but because no one ever expresses dissenting opinion on our platforms."

contemporaryworship92

The claim isn't about what the people want, surely, but how the decision of what to sing is achieved.

So, I think that music programs ultimately play what the preference of the congregation is. At least, 90% of the time, perhaps 10% of the time pastors or music directors with very strong preferences stick to their guns despite what the congregation has to say.

Yeah, on any given Sunday, it's the DoM selecting the song choices, but I think that almost everyone discerns what the needs and desires of their congregation are while doing so.

tomjaw

So, I think that music programs ultimately play what the preference of the congregation is. At least, 90% of the time, perhaps 10% of the time pastors or music directors with very strong preferences stick to their guns despite what the congregation has to say.

Yeah, on any given Sunday, it's the DoM selecting the song choices, but I think that almost everyone discerns what the needs and desires of their congregation are while doing so.

I find it amazing how many people will ask a random collection of people their options on say brain surgery, and take that as good medical advice. It is all very well asking people what they think but is their opinion valuable? I am sure 90% of the people that go to McDonalds like the food, but this does not tell you anything about what is good food (say healthy) and what is bad food (say unhealthy) or even savoury or unsavoury.

We all know who chooses the music it is either the Priest and/or the DOM. All the PIPs can do is moan to get it changed (and only a few of them will do this but they can be very vocal), the others will either put in ear plugs, or vote with their feet and find a place that has music (or Sermon etc.) they like.

We don't live in a vacuum, if people don't like a parish they will either find a place they like or stop going. We can't solely test our music programmes on popularity, just as the reviews in newspapers will not be able to tell us if we will like a movie or a Broadway show.

We need to be able to test our music programmes against what the Church wants, church musicians are not just entertainers, we have a Liturgical role and this also involves an educational responsibility.

M. Jackson Osborn

M. Jackson Osborn

..."Which sounds more churchy to you..."

Actually, one says with deep sadness, quite a large number of people, musicians, and priests do not at all want anything that sounds remotely 'churchy'. Churchy, for some bizarre irrationality, is for them a pejorative and makes them uncomfortable; nor is it, to them, entertaining - and they insist on music inspired by entertainment genres with half baked 'sacred' texts whose sacredness is as threadbare as the emperor's new clothes to keep them entertained. They could not care less what the Church commands or even recommends - indeed, they will admit shamelessly that they don't care what Vatican II and its documents said. They just want their music to be entertaining - something not unlike what they would hear on the radio or television in their living rooms or cars, or even at rock concerts, except with a very theologically shallow, preferably highly subjective text.

It is astonishing to me that when I joined this forum some number of years ago all one heard was a zeal for restoring the propers and Gregorian chant. That concern is still present but has lost a bit of its enthusiasm. Ditto the Church's repertory of orthodox hymnody, and historic and truly modern choral music - not to mention the use of the organ, the SOLE instrument mentioned and exalted by the second Vatican council.

It is bewildering beyond comprehension that we are now actually discussing seriously with those who insist that there is no music that is objectively superior to any other - that it's all the same and that the desideratum is at best a pot pourri that, you know, 'has something for everybody' - everybody, that is, except the Church's preferred ideals and those who share a love for them. It's all about 'the people' (except, be it noted, those people who love our ongoing heritage of ecclesiastical music) and the rubbish with which they have been inoculated and addicted to by unscrupulous and ill tutored musicians and clergy.

HF Benedict warned about the swamps and quick sands of relativism. This relativism is a threat not only to Truth in theology and philosophy, but to the Church's music as well. ALL MUSIC IS NOT EQUAL - AESTHETICALLY, SPIRITUALLY, OR MORALLY. Why are we even discussing this??? It is not negotiable.

davido

Along with Jackson, I too am amazed at the amount of time expended here in arguing against the principles of CMAA on its own forum.

Schönbergian

So, I think that music programs ultimately play what the preference of the congregation is. At least, 90% of the time, perhaps 10% of the time pastors or music directors with very strong preferences stick to their guns despite what the congregation has to say.

Yeah, on any given Sunday, it's the DoM selecting the song choices, but I think that almost everyone discerns what the needs and desires of their congregation are while doing so.

And herein lies the issue with your thinking. Mass isn't a radio station tailored to the whims of the congregation.

60% of Catholics don't believe in the Real Presence, so we should just excise the consecration and words of institution since the majority doesn't even see a need for it. Congregation X thinks the Old Testament is too much "fire and brimstone" for today's world, so they can make do without the OT lesson.

This thinking would never be permitted in other aspects of the liturgy and it shouldn't be permitted here, especially when we have a monumental catechetical crisis on our hands.

RPBurke

I’d like to echo the comments left here about musicianship. Back in the old days, we were lucky to have a competent organist and an actual trained music teacher from the order that taught at our school. These were uncommon in most other parishes in my city. Many people learned to hate chant because it was a slow moving dirge whenever it was done. I found working with a campus ministry that contemporary music — which normally leaves me colder than cold — was effective for worship in direct proportion to the ability of the musicians, including the realization that they are to lead everyone and not just do their thing.

ServiamScores

I’d just like to posit this question, which I have once published in a bulletin column:

How does GOD want to be worshipped? Not what do I want, but what does He want for Himself and for me?

We can know the answer to this question. Holy Mother Church has shown us through Her long standing traditions and Her legislation.

Both unanimously agree that it’s plainchant and/or polyphony based upon it. (Here we should mention the propers too, regardless of their presentation.) I have often discussed with my choir how interesting the texts of the propers are, and how much they teach us (vs. even excellent hymns). Rorate Cæli Desuper is a perfect example of this.

This is what I meant when I said a few days ago in this thread that there is objectively better music. I’m less interested in quibbling about the artistic nature of praise and worship vs. polyphony (although I think the latter testifies in its own defense better than I ever could). That said, it is OBJECTIVELY superior for the liturgy. This fact is literally enshrined in church law. There’s simply no arguing it; I’m sorry, but there isn’t.

MarkB

Also add into the mix that between 75%-90% of Catholic parish music directors and choirs don't really know what they're doing. They just follow a standard, loose process for choosing music for Mass: 1) skim the day's readings, 2) see what familiar songs come to mind that have an explicit or at least a vague relation to those readings, 3) check the OCP or GIA song recommendation list for that Sunday, 4) plug mostly familiar songs into the "four Mass song slots", 5) maybe do a new song if I think it's cool. Most P&W bands have their own different process, which is pretty much: "What songs do we love to perform? Let's do that one again!" But neither process has much of anything to do with preparing ritual worship according to the mind of the Church.

I take advantage of the fact that almost every parish is video streaming Masses now to eavesdrop on other parishes' Mass music. It's a train wreck. It's so bad out there. People in the pews put up with a lot of crappy music and crappy singing and playing.

But I suspect that independent young people are less likely to put up with crappy performance in any style of liturgical Music. They'll go somewhere else where the music is at least tolerable or just stop going to Mass. For the life of me, I don't know why so many pastors and parishioners tolerate objectively awful music performance at Mass, irrespective of the musical selections or style of music.

The general level of quality is so far below mediocre that striving for excellence is a secondary objective to simply striving for competence at this time.

I recommend watching some of Brian Holdsworth's videos about liturgy and music:
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brian+holdsworth+music

Holdsworth is a Millennial Catholic and attempts to reach his generation with short video presentations. I think he delivers his messages in convincing ways, and he would largely agree with the majority of posters on this forum about musical priorities in Catholic worship, such as restoring chant and sacred music to liturgy.

a_f_hawkins

Can I point out again 1/ that liturgy is not just Mass
2/ a true community should have para-liturgies and other devotions
3/ that a student center is a social group quite different from an average parish.
jclangfo has an untypical job much of which does not neccessarily require typical music. There should be plenty of scope for music for development of students individual and collective spirituality. BUT at Mass the focus is worship of God by offering The Holy Sacrifice, texts and the music should conform.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Hawkins,

Thank you for raising the properly intelligent idea that "Liturgy" isn't exhausted by "Mass". I make a distinction between (on the one hand) the Public Worship of the Church and (on the other) Private Devotions.

Mass is an act of Public Worship, as is the Divine Office. These have set texts and set music and encouragement to develop music consistent with the approved stuff. Accordingly, one can sing Sicut Cervus as a chant or as a polyphonic setting at the Easter Vigil. In places which permit the use of vernacular polyphony, we can add Like as the hart desireth the waterbrooks (Howells' is the one I know, but there may be good others, too) to this same place in the same ceremony. Singing the text which is prescribed with a suitable music is a good thing. Replacing the text or singing the text to an utterly unworthy musical form -- these are bad things.

On the other hand, just as one can pray while lying on a stretcher in an ambulance, one can sing using other music in the non-public worship, always keeping in mind that it is the same God whom we worship, and so the music should always be fitting.

Nathan_the_Organist

I second Mark's suggestion on Brian Holdsworth. He is very insightful and we'll spoken.

rich_enough

@jclangfo

As I've grown to appreciate what makes each genre of music great and how each genre of music goes about communicating a sense of the sacred, I've come to appreciate how they all reveal God to me in different ways.

The experience of transcendence I experience from contemporary music draws me closer to God and is an experience that I personally feel much more strongly from a particularly genre of contemporary music than I do from chant. The genre that speaks to me the most is praise and worship.

May I suggest that these opinions reveal a skewed approach to liturgical music? Or rather, they're missing the point.

The question isn't what primarily appeals or "speaks" to me (or to the congregation) - this is a wild goose chase that simply perpetuates the confusion and incoherence we've seen in church music the past 50 years (or more). This has been the predominant model for a couple of generations now, and the result is the very balkanization that jclangfo laments.

Other commenters have ably critiqued P&W music, so I won't go into that here. What I'm more concerned about is the seemingly total disregard (intended or not) of what the Church has taught about her own liturgy and the place of music in it.

We're all aware (I hope) of the role and place of Gregorian chant as the music proper to the Roman rite. If this is not the basis of what we are trying to do, we are simply ignoring what the Church has said about her own worship, and (to put it bluntly) judging that our approach is superior to what the Church wants. (I'm not claiming any malice or fault here, just pointing out the objective situation.)

Music is to serve the ends of the liturgy, the first of which is the glory of God. It is also meant help sanctify the people, but it does this by serving its first purpose first. Of course these go hand in hand, but first of all we need to trust in the formational power of chant to do its job.

The liturgy is not a vehicle for our own style of prayer, let alone our favored emotional reactions to the transcendent or "sense of the sacred." Precisely the opposite is the case: it is meant to form us in prayer and teach us what the sacred really is.

Young people desperately need this sense that the Mass is not about them and what they "need" - it's primarily about giving to God what we owe to him as his loving children. (God will take care of the other part.) It's not something that can be to molded to "speak to them" but should get them out of themselves and their comfort zone. I suspect this is the source of the exhilaration of going to a Mass where the music speaks for itself and doesn't need to cater to my personal feelings or ways of thinking. We are confronted with something beyond ourselves - which really can be an experience of the transcendent.

a_f_hawkins

In the OF and the vernacular there is little advice on musical style for the Office AFAIK. The original inspiration of the St Louis Jesuits was to get their students to appreciate that the Psalms were written as songs. The chant in LU was developed for monks, with an obligation to participate, whatever their current mood. From that develops an emotionally neutral style. I don't see it as compulsory to impose that attitude on a voluntary gathering and I would draw a distinction between communal and public worship.
[ADDED]That communal/public distinction is why campfire music (or Taize chant) is suitable in context, but not for parish Mass.

ServiamScores

Music is to serve the ends of the liturgy, the first of which is the glory of God. It is also meant help sanctify the people, but it does this by serving its first purpose first. Of course these go hand in hand, but first of all we need to trust in the formational power of chant to do its job.

The liturgy is not a vehicle for our own style of prayer, let alone our favored emotional reactions to the transcendent or "sense of the sacred." Precisely the opposite is the case: it is meant to form us in prayer and teach us what the sacred really is.

Bingo.

Jehan_Boutte

I think jclangfo is right about something: most Catholics want music they are familiar with. For the most part, it is "P&W" music, simply because they grew up with it, and could not imagine how the Mass could be different.

However, as @ServiamScores wisely said, this is not about what people in the pews want, this is about how God is to be prayed. And I think most people would grow and like plainsong and polyphony if this is presented to them in a good and reasonable way (this includes a wider use of the vernacular than what Vatican II actually intended).

It should also be noticed that for better or worse, most Catholics won't go mad if the music does not fit their tastes. They will simply cope with it, or go to another Catholic church whose music they like more. This means most people will not go mad if their music is "Sacred Pop" or Plainsong.

Chris Garton-Zavesky

Jehan,

May I add the caveat that whatever vernacular text is sung must be, in itself, beautiful?

MarkB

From that develops an emotionally neutral style. I don't see it as compulsory to impose that attitude on a voluntary gathering and I would draw a distinction between communal and public worship.

The emotionally neutral character of liturgical music as an ideal is something more music directors should observe. One anecdote will suffice to explain why:

When I was teaching in a Catholic high school, at a school Mass in the gymnasium filled with 1,500 students the music was all P&W, and students were encouraged to use hand gestures during some songs to show their "enthusiasm." The class I brought to Mass included a freshman girl whose father was gravely ill in the hospital, near death (although he lived). The praise band and student leaders were singing "Lord, I Lift Your Name on High" and encouraging all the students to make the "enthusiastic" hand gestures. All I could do was notice the contrast between the forcibly contrived enthusiasm generated by the music and the gestures and my grieving student sitting next to me. If I were her, I would have wanted to run out of the gymnasium and cry and ask God why he hated me so much that everyone else was so happy but my dad was dying.

We don't know what's going on in people's lives who are in the pews. We must not attempt to force an emotional nor spiritual experience upon anyone through musical manipulation. That's one reason why singing the propers is better, because they are the words of Scripture (usually), chosen by the Church, instead of lyrics written by someone often trying to create an emotional effect through the words and music.

But getting there takes time in a parish that is only accustomed to "or another suitable song."

Chris Garton-Zavesky

We don't know what's going on in people's lives who are in the pews. We must not attempt to force an emotional nor spiritual experience upon anyone through musical manipulation.

Excellent point.

a_f_hawkins

My first opportunity to sing at Mass was in 1949, the Ordinary in Latin as part of the school congregation. In the interim I have heard and sung, and often enjoyed, a variety of settings. But 70 years later the Latin Ordinaries remain my preference. Familiarity is a key aspect of liturgical participation.

Jehan_Boutte

Jehan,

May I add the caveat that whatever vernacular text is sung must be, in itself, beautiful?

You may. It is an excellent point.

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