No Difference In Church Attendence Based on Worship Style - LCMS Data
  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,782
    @jclangfo
    Same as what happened after Trent.
    What happened after the Trent, please can you cite the Missals that were replaced? Can you cite where it says that everybody must use the Missal used by the Canons of Rome (Tridentine Missal)?

    There is no similarity between the promulgation of the Missale of Paul VI, and the Trent Missal.
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  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Try this experiment: take a parish which knows only the most "progressive" form of the Missal of Paul VI, and emerse it, without warning, in the Missal of Pius V. Then try a group of TLMers and put them in the most progressive situation you can possibly imagine (i.e., make Cardinal Kaspar look like an ultramontaine traditionalist). If the liturgical/worship style makes no difference, see how quickly each group dissolves


    The proposal that the "style" of worship make no difference, seems, on the face of it, to be disconnected from reality.

    Now, as to the substance of the worship, with which the "style" ( or, more properly, form) is connected, it seems that the reason the "style" matters so much is that it clothes the object of that worship.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    The aftermath of councils generally creates some chaos for 50+ years before things settle down.
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  • francis
    Posts: 10,825
    The problem with the TLM, according to Sacrosanctum Concilium, is not that is it has suddently become no longer true, but that it was not nearly as effective as it could be in promoting "fully conscious, and active participation" in the liturgy.

    Hence, the intention of Sacrosanctum Concilium is not to label the old Mass as false and replace it, the intention is to upgrade the Mass and replace it with a new and improved version developed form what came before.
    laughing really hard out loud

    The rite as we knew it was destroyed. Gelineau was quite accurate and honest about the entirety of the truth. There is no downgrading it with excuses or whitewashes.

    "...not nearly as effective as it could be..." REALLY!? REALLY??????

    It seems that the wisdom of 1500 years or more of the Church's careful guarding of, and organic development of the VO was all a mistake or oversight I suppose... and all of the Saints of Old were not really actively participating in the true worship... this is nonsense.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    How many popes, including Pius X and Pius XII stated they wanted more congregational participation? It didn't happen and those popes were ignored. So disobedience is OK when it suits your purpose and ideology? I suspect that if those requested reforms had been made, the more extreme changes after Vatican II might not have ever happened.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    "...not nearly as effective as it could be..."


    Don'cha just love measurable goals like that? Apparently the number of saints living between ~1600 and ~1965 was insufficient or something.

    Actuosa participatio is conforming oneself completely to Christ. Makes little difference whether in Latin or the vulgar. Reading the hand-missal eliminates all the silly objections to "understanding".
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  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    The desire and need for more participation by the assembly most likely arose in response to increases in population literacy rates following the Industrial Revolution and government-mandated compulsory education for children. The TLM was fine in a culture that was mostly illiterate and didn't know Latin besides, which was the case from the 16th through the 19th centuries, and the TLM is okay today for literate people who like it or who take the time to study the Latin texts and the ritual movements and understand them, but the Church through the council fathers decided that an exclusively Latin liturgy is not going to be as effective for full, conscious and active worship nor as an instrument for evangelization as would be a liturgy that incorporated the vernacular of a literate culture.

    That's an organic development that reads the signs of the times and adapts accordingly, exactly what Vatican II called the Church to do.

    You can watch a movie in a foreign language and understand the plot by reading the subtitles or intuiting from context what is happening, but it's a much more immediate and effective and enjoyable and "fully conscious and active" experience if you understand the language yourself. And it helps if the movie's actors don't always face away from you and speak inaudibly while they are acting. Same with the Mass.
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  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    Sadly, the behavior of some priests really does make one wonder if they think they are actors in a movie. Perhaps actually facing Ad Orientem would help them (and the congregation) realize that there's something more to Mass than a stage play.
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  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    If the Mass is a stage play, which maybe it kinda sorta is, then: God is the audience, the clergy are the main characters, the faithful are the chorus and crowd parts, and the Church is the producer.

    God is the audience. Not the faithful, who must play their part, actively, in order for it to be a good show.

    God is the audience.
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  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    Sadly, the behavior of some priests really does make one wonder if they think they are actors in a movie. Perhaps actually facing Ad Orientem would help them (and the congregation) realize that there's something more to Mass than a stage play.

    Don't cast aspersions on Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, Tom Hanks or Denzel Washington because of what Arnold Schwarzenegger or Macaulay Culkin do. There are priests who celebrate the new Mass reverently and those who celebrate it poorly. Just as there were/are priests who celebrate the TLM well and poorly.

    God is the audience.

    Actually, Christ, who is God, is the principal actor in the liturgy. The Church is clear that the liturgy is primarily the action of Christ.
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  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    You are right, to be sure.
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,048
    but the Church through the council fathers decided that an exclusively Latin liturgy is not going to be as effective for full, conscious and active worship nor as an instrument for evangelization as would be a liturgy that incorporated the vernacular of a literate culture.

    This is the common narrative, but in fact the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy never connected the vernacular with fuller participation, nor did it mandate any vernacular in the liturgy.

    Besides this, it is simply not the case that a intellectual understanding of what the priest is saying at any given moment leads to better participation - at least not for everyone; in fact, I would contend that it can inhibit participation. The basic reason is that the Mass is not a set of words.

    For many people, going to a Mass in Latin works very well for them, even though they do not know Latin, and the priest never speaks to them in the vernacular (except in the homily). In fact, it sometimes happens - even for modern literate people! - that they discover for the first time that the Mass is not the priest talking, but the action of Christ, which action can be obscured with all the talking going on. I find that a constant stream of words for 60 minutes (and amplified at that) is simply too much to take in. I have to turn off my literate brain before it gets overloaded. After playing for 3 Masses on Sunday morning, I find that the Mass in Latin, with the priest saying many prayers in silence (or under music) is a blessed relief for the soul.

    At any rate, it seem strange to me that the new rite was mandated and the TLM was prohibited. Why not allow the old to continue for those who wanted it? This is the first time a rite that was universally celebrated for many centuries was replaced by another, with the former rite being forbidden.

    The Church is clear that the liturgy is primarily the action of Christ.

    Of course this has never been denied, but I would contend that it isn't as clear in the reformed rite as in the older rite.
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  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    they wanted more congregational participation


    Okay, I know every parish is different, but most of the time, it is the person who chooses whether to be visibly and vocally, in-your-face participatory.

    We were in Florida during Pentecost, and we drove up to St. Stephen in Pensacola for Mass.
    It was a morning Mass. Much of the congregation was already there, praying the Rosary, 30+ minutes prior. The server guild prayed audibly before Mass.

    Everybody there prayed along, aloud, with with prayers at the foot of the altar, and every piece of dialogue belonging to them... including singing "laus tibi, Christe" and "Deo gratias," and without requiring a constant bombardment of organ intonations.

    The prayers and readings were chanted at a pace that was easy to follow and to which one could respond.

    There was more active participation in this one parish's morning TLM Mass than even in the guitar Masses with their crappy, responsory-styled Gloria that we got stuck attending back in the 90s if we were unable to make it to our regular Mass.

    There is SO much room for participation in the Latin Mass, and to claim otherwise is beyond ignorant.
    And I don't mean that as an insult... even though some keep insinuating that's what "trads" are so prone to do. Ignorance has an actual, non-insulting definition, and isn't just used as a polite term for idiocy.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    While they can participate, in too many places they don't - never did, and probably never will.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    The problem, Chalres and others, is what the word participation means. His Holiness Pope Pius XII noted that it would be going down the wrong path to seek uniformity of participation from everyone. Remember that a full stadium of heretics can't participate in the Mass, regardless of how vocal or kinesthetic they may be.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Are you calling our local TLM folks heretics? Is outrage!!!
    The local crowd seems more like zombies. Maybe they are lost in thought, but who knows?
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Glad to see the purple.
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  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    I have said this before
    Council of Trent. Session XXII.
    CHAPTER VIII. title:
    The Mass shall not he celebrated everywhere in the Vulgar Tongue. Its Mysteries shall be explained to the People.
    ... the holy synod charges pastors, ''', that they frequently, during the celebration of mass, expound, ..., some portion of those things which are read at the mass
    Maybe some think Trent was mistaken, we know its demand was largely ignored. VII saw vernacular (but not everywhere) as part of the means for raising awareness, along with an insistence on a homily at least on Sundays.
    Heenan thought a Mass 'embellished with music' would repel many men, particularly if their vocal participation was called for.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    As I have said before, the church began at Pentecost, not at Trent. Councils can be dangerous things. What one institutes, another can take away. Heenan may have had a point.
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,890
    Well one council explicitly billed itself as dogmatic and binding and another specifically billed itself as pastoral and non-binding so....
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    Any council can be reinterpreted, rewritten, and on and on. As a Byzantine, like most easterners I have always found it funny that every time the Latins have a council they think it is ecumenical. It is not no matter what they call it. Beating one's own drum is probably older than recorded history.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    Oh, please. Vatican II did not "specifically bill itself as non-binding."

    The liturgy was revised with the explicit approval of the highest Church authority. And if Summorum Pontificum is rescinded in whole or in part, that will similarly be done by the highest Church authority.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Vatican II also includes two dogmatic constitutions.
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  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    The two dogmatic constitutions (on the church, and on divine revelation) are valuable documents too, but the fathers of V2 chose not to pronounce any dogmas in them. In that particular sense they refrained from exercising the fullest authority available to a council.

    Regarding "active participation", it's about participation in the mystery celebrated. This is something more complex than mere external activity. The term is used first in "Tra le sollecitudini" (1903}, so that may tell us something about what it includes.
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  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    " . . . but the fathers of V2 chose not to pronounce any dogmas in them."

    Maybe not the way you imagine they must be pronounced, but they are self-defined as dogmatic.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I find it amusing that many who seem to adore every word from Trent don't even practice what was called for at Nicea. Now there was a dogmatic council if there ever was one. one can always "quote" a council to justify doing as one pleases.

    Maybe not the way you imagine they must be pronounced, but they are self-defined as dogmatic.


    There is truth in this. In reality, Vatican II also came closer to being ecumenical than Trent ever was.
  • KARU27
    Posts: 184
    I think this was an interesting and fair essay from Adam Wood:

    http://progressivesolemnity.org/2015/01/28/liturgy-and-context/


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  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,890
    Oh, please. Vatican II did not "specifically bill itself as non-binding."


    Paul VI specifically stated during a general audience on January 12, 1966:
    There are those who ask what authority, what theological qualification the Council intended to give to its teachings, knowing that it avoided issuing solemn dogmatic definitions engaging the infallibility of the ecclesiastical Magisterium. The answer is known by whoever remembers the conciliar declaration of March 6, 1964, repeated on November 16, 1964: given the Council’s pastoral character, it avoided pronouncing, in an extraordinary manner, dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility.

    That's a damning quote if e're there was one.


    There's also his address to the council itself on the last day:
    But one thing must be noted here, namely, that the teaching authority of the Church, even though not wishing to issue extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements, has made thoroughly known its authoritative teaching on a number of questions which today weigh upon man's conscience and activity, descending, so to speak, into a dialogue with him, but ever preserving its own authority and force; it has spoken with the accommodating friendly voice of pastoral charity

    Yes, he says his voice "preserved its own authority and force" but in the same sentence where he says it was not exercised dogmatically by the council. Color me a skeptic.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    [Off Topic: How can one be accused of refusing to accept Vatican II, if it (by its own admission) made no doctrinally binding statements?]

    Back on Topic: I recognize that the study which started this thread appears to have data behind it, but philosophically speaking, its conclusions don't pass the smell test. Ask any person who says that "worship style" doesn't matter, or that we should not bother our head with little details or any such similar thing, if he will gladly, or at least without discomfort, give up the way he's doing things now so as to follow the traditional rites of the Church.
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  • pfreese
    Posts: 147
    We as Catholics are bound by the Church’s collective doctrine not just her dogmas. The Church’s Ordinary Magestseium does not grant one license to dissent from it on their own whim. Progressives occasionally use your exact same argument when promoting same-sex marriage or denouncing Humanae Vitae, and the argument is just as ridiculous then. Cafeteria Catholicism cuts both ways.
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  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    This is the game that some trads (of late) and a lot of progressive dissenters (going way back) like to play: claiming that only dogmatic definitions that meet the strict requirements of infallible pronouncements are all that matter. Such dogmatic definitions are extremely rare in Church history.

    Vatican II taught no new dogmatic definitions. That doesn't mean what it taught isn't binding. You have to understand that the phrases "extraordinary dogmatic pronouncements" and "dogmas endowed with the note of infallibility" are technical theological expressions that refer to only a small subset of Catholic doctrine.

    There is a whole body of doctrine, the majority of Catholic teaching, that has not been infallibly defined, to which Catholics owe religious submission of intellect and will. Such doctrine is binding on Catholics.

    Liturgical rubrics and norms are something different from doctrines or dogmas, and it's not accurate to conflate dogma, doctrine and liturgical norms as being binding in the same way as if they are the same sorts of things or issued in the same manner.

    The decisions and teachings about reforming the liturgy made in Sacrosanctum Concilium are binding on Catholics even though they are not dogmatic nor doctrinal pronouncements, nor could liturgical norms be dogmas or doctrines since liturgy and doctrine are two distinct realms of ecclesial life. Liturgical norms are prescriptive and proscriptive regarding how the Church's ritual worship must be celebrated; dogmas and doctrines are propositional statements regarding which objective truths pertaining to faith or morals Catholics must affirm. They are very different types of things.

    Sacrosanctum Concilium is binding. The Novus Ordo Missae, the current GIRM, the authorized vernacular translations, instructions such as Redemptionis Sacramentum are all binding. The Church has issued liturgical norms in those sources and others that bind how Catholics must worship. If a Catholic priest or community doesn't adhere to those norms they are not worshipping as faithful Catholics even if they assent to all the Church's doctrines and dogmas.

    If -- looking like when -- Pope Francis revises the norms currently in place that govern the celebration of the Extraordinary Form, those too will be binding norms for Catholic worship.

    None of those liturgical norms are dogmatic, infallible definitions, but they are binding nonetheless.

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  • contemporaryworship92
    Posts: 259
    To add to MarkB, the Church has the authority to make changes on non-infallible and even non-doctrinale subjects to which we owe the Church obedience even if we don't personally agree with the changes. With the example of Trent banning the use of the vernacular, that was a binding decision of the Church then, until it decided to change that decision and allow the vernacular.

    Another example - we're bound by obedience to use whatever the current translation of the GIRM is, even though differences in translation and judgement calls between formal and dynamic equivalence largely have nothing to do with doctrine.
  • KARU27
    Posts: 184
    What bothers me about Vatican II is that it led to changing so many areas of everyday lived Catholicism.
    There were so many strict rules, and then seemingly 5-10 years later, all the rules went out the window. So did they matter in the first place, or not?
    For instance, does it matter if only ordained people touch the Eucharist, or not? Does it matter if people kneel to receive the Eucharist, or not? Does it matter if women are allowed in the sanctuary, or not?
    The Church made a grave error in changing all these practices, I believe, because it makes many people say "okay, so what? You've done a 180 in so many areas, why should I believe you in anything?"
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    I think you have to realize that liturgical practices, which largely came from Pius V after Trent had ended, were themselves changes in many instances. Ordained people touching the Eucharist? Lay people took some of it home and kept it during the week in early times. Kneeling to receive communion? Again, not done in the early centuries. Women in the sanctuary? That has never been resolved and to my knowledge wasn't done in ancient times. Of course, so many men have thrown in the towel and left, dependence on women has had to increase. Whether I like them or not, these are chiefly rubrical changes, not doctrinal changes. Those are not on the same level.
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  • contemporaryworship92
    Posts: 259
    I think that the pre-Vatican II Church dug themselves in a hole by making strict rules out of non-doctrinal matters and then not explaining to people the differences between norms that we follow out of obedience and the doctrinal teachings of the Church that are fixed and permanent.

    Because people didn't understand this distinction, changing the Mass led to people believing that pretty much anything in the Church including infallibly defined dogmas could also be subject to change.

    For instance, does it matter if only ordained people touch the Eucharist, or not? Does it matter if people kneel to receive the Eucharist, or not? Does it matter if women are allowed in the sanctuary, or not?


    I don't see any matters of doctrine in here. These issues matter in the sense that they effect people's subjective experience of the Mass. These issues primarly effect how people subjectively construct reverence and a sense of the sacred. That kind of thing changes over time and place, and the Church needs to be responsive to that. Did we make too many changes too fast? It seems so. Were some of the changes stupid? Also seems to be the case...I also note that none of the changes listed here are called for by Vatican II, or by the Novus Ordo Missal, these are all issues that have come up afterwards.
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  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    KARU27,

    That's why bishops, priests, catechists and professional lay ministers need to do a better job in catechesis.

    All the changes you mentioned were in the realm of practice or discipline, not in the realm of belief or doctrine.

    Although in the popular mind changes in practice could be construed as implying changes in doctrine, it's not the case at all.

    Whether changes in practice are wise is a prudential judgment, not a matter of doctrinal truth.

    And changes in practice could have an unintended derivative consequence of altering uneducated lay Catholics' perception of doctrine without altering official doctrine at all. An example of that is how changes in the practice of receiving Holy Communion, some of which you mentioned, might have had the unintended consequence of diminishing lay Catholics' reverence for the Eucharist and leading Catholics to form the mistaken belief that the Eucharist is merely a symbol instead of the substance of Christ in sacrament under the appearances of bread and wine. Some Catholics' perception of Catholic doctrine might have changed, but the doctrine itself has not changed.

    Whether the changed liturgical practices contributed to that changed perception or not, the Church's Eucharistic doctrine is unaltered.

    The Church must have the freedom to alter practices that have become outdated or a hindrance, and it must have the freedom to adopt new practices that will better serve the faithful. It's up to the Church's shepherds to use their judgment about which practices to retain, dispose or adopt anew.

    What we are seeing in the aftermath of Vatican II is that some practices from Tradition were jettisoned, even though the council itself didn't mandate disposing of them, that probably should not have been. Hence the "Reform of the Reform" movement, which seems to have lost a bit of momentum over the past ten years.

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  • KARU27
    Posts: 184
    I think you have to realize that liturgical practices, which largely came from Pius V after Trent had ended, were themselves changes in many instances. Ordained people touching the Eucharist? Lay people took some of it home and kept it during the week in early times. Kneeling to receive communion? Again, not done in the early centuries

    I understand this, but in people's lived experience, there appears to have been a 180-degree turn. No one who was alive in 1970 had lived experience from Pius V's time, of course. However, the Catholics alive in 1970 had been taught for all of their lives that it was very important to do this, not do that, and then within a few years, many of these rules were thrown out.
    The Church must have the freedom to alter practices that have become outdated or a hindrance, and it must have the freedom to adopt new practices that will better serve the faithful. It's up to the Church's shepherds to use their judgment about which practices to retain, dispose or adopt anew.

    The question is, who's deciding what is "outdated" or a "hindrance"? The most progressive clerics on Earth?
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    To all those who would accuse "trads" of Cafeteria Catholicism, I urge a reconsideration of this position, at least in regard to Vatican II. What is clear can be binding, and I happily accept this. What is intentionally ambiguous by that very fact can't be binding. When Pius XII defined the Assumption of Mary, he illustrated this point by requiring us to believe that Mary was assumed into heaven, but leaving entirely unsettled (and therefore not binding) the question of whether Mary died and was then assumed into heaven, or was assumed into heaven without the death of her body first. Someone who claims that the Church teaches that she endured the pains of death and then was assumed into heaven, and that to believe otherwise is to hold a heretical position is, himself, not requiring what the Church requires.

    When His Holiness Benedict XVI was still merely Cardinal Ratzinger, he explained the difference in kinds or degrees of truth.

    Trying valiantly to return to the original topic of this thread: it seems self evident that, "data" or no data, the study is mistaken.

  • contemporaryworship92
    Posts: 259
    Trying valiantly to return to the original topic of this thread, it seems self evident that, "data" or no data, the study is mistaken.


    Do you have high quality data that doesn't fit the report?

    If not, there are lots of confounding variables and stuff that can make personal experience a poor metric for evaluating these questions.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    The decisions and teachings about reforming the liturgy made in Sacrosanctum Concilium are binding on Catholics


    Yes. But it would have been nice if the reforms were the ones specifically suggested by the Council--such as the retention of Latin. Or maybe even maintaining the distinction between sung and spoken Masses. The 3-year cycle is nice, granted, but the experts (I use the word while gritting my teeth) did not update the Propers to reflect them. One suspects that that particular omission was deliberate rather than 'forgetfulness.'

    You are defending actions taken by a small group of revolutionaries, not actions nor instructions given "by the Council." Are you also arguing that 'decisions and teachings' of those people are 'binding on Catholics'? Mgr. Schuler may differ with your interpretation, especially regarding the 'decisions and teachings' of the Bishops' Committee on the Hootenanny Liturgy.
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  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    Hence the "Reform of the Reform" movement, which seems to have lost a bit of momentum over the past ten years.


    Don't let me be the first to tell you, but that movement died about 5 years ago, unless you've heard serious discussion of its principles lately from authoritative places.
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  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    The study is of LCMS, of which I know only a little to be found on the WWW. Depending on how much variation in worship style and in theology is allowed to their churches (in actual practice) it may or may not be relevant for the range to be found in Catholic church worship. If the actual variation in Catholic practice is greater than in LCMS then we are extrapolating beyond the available data, otherwise it seems as though it should be a good guide.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,187
    We are talking about style versus growth here, right?

    And we are talking repeatedly about high quality data...

    Now the paper references quite a bit of data, some of which is public and for those, the paper mentioned the resource identifiers, which is good.

    However, just about half the 30 diagrams in the paper indicate that they're based on the author’s estimates and interpretations -- which is fine, standard practice, but he doesn't provide those data nor the algorithms he used.

    The relevant data for this thread, now: it's on pages 48-51 only, as mentioned above; the graph is his figure 29 with its lovely descending lines.

    Here's how good the data are. They are all LCMS congregations. There might be 6000 observations, since there are about that many LCMS congregations. The "attendees" variable is from somewhere, we know not where. The "style" variable is, at best, a binary classifier based on the self-reported data at lutheranliturgy.org : perhaps 329 observations are "liturgical". Unfortunately, the author hasn't released his data (at least, not by publishing links in this paper).

    The author’s discussion about these data are for some reason much more speculative, anecdotal, and unsupported, than in the better parts of the paper. Perhaps he's trying to make up for the lack of high quality data, which he admits (p 49) have not been available.

    I don't think the paper gives good statistical evidence for general claims for the independence of “worship style” and “church attendance”, even in LCMS alone. Still less, if you want Active Participation or Effectiveness or something else for which church attendance is to be a proxy

    I think he needs about 25 times as much data to draw his conclusions. For me, looking at that graph, the natural inference is "nothing could slow the decline of LCMS congregations over the last 10 years".
    .

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  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,471
    dad29 - The problems with the propers isinclude 1/ retaining the treasury of Latin chant, 2/ not confusing people hopelessly by dropping translations of the chant as an option in the vernacular, 3/ the provision of better matched alternative antiphons by ICEL has repeatedly been blocked by CDWDS. (yes I know clergy and DMs are confused as it is).
    The lectionary and the propers were not the responsibity of the same team, they had different priorities. Also note that Bouyer, who was involved reluctantly out of a sense of duty, described those who devised the calendar as a 'trio of maniacs', whose work was only accepted because time did not allow alternatives.
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  • contemporaryworship92
    Posts: 259
    my hot take is that when the propers don't match the lectionary, which is a lot, we should choose songs that are exact matches to the lectionary and supress the propers, as is allowed for in the GIRM
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    My hot take is...let the lections speak for themselves (or, more precisely, let the Word speak to us through them), and not assume they need direct reinforcement and echoing in the introit, offertory, and communion musical choices, any more than commentaries or asides about the lections should be given with them (as opposed to within the homily). Rather, their texts can be in a contrapuntal relationship with the lections.
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  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,980
    It didn't help that it took eight years after the change to English to translate the Propers. Most folks had filled in the slots with hymns by then.
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  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,084
    Yes, I've always thought it odd that music directors would program "Blest Are They" (oops, no more because... David Haas) when the Gospel was the Beatitudes. Redundant, unimaginative, and unidimensional.

    Same goes for the other current thread about singing "We Walk By Faith" this Sunday.
    Thanked by 2tomjaw ServiamScores
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    when the propers don't match the lectionary, which is a lot, we should choose songs that are exact matches to the lectionary and supress the propers


    Which supports the supposed need for more Biblical content in everyday life and Mass how, exactly?
    Thanked by 2Chris Garton-Zavesky tomjaw
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Corinne,

    You've made the (evidently) mistaken inference that "more Biblical content" was actually the goal, instead of the more accurate "removing uncomfortable Biblical content".

    Deprecatory Psalms, anyone?
    Thanked by 3tomjaw ServiamScores dad29
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