Art. 1. The liturgical books promulgated by Saint Paul VI and Saint John Paul II, in conformity with the decrees of Vatican Council II, are the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.
Art. 8. Previous norms, instructions, permissions, and customs that do not conform to the provisions of the present Motu Proprio are abrogated.
61. We are called continually to rediscover the richness of the general principles exposed in the first numbers of Sacrosanctum Concilium, grasping the intimate bond between this first of the Council’s constitutions and all the others. For this reason we cannot go back to that ritual form which the Council fathers, cum Petro et sub Petro, felt the need to reform, approving, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and following their conscience as pastors, the principles from which was born the reform. The holy pontiffs St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II, approving the reformed liturgical books ex decreto Sacrosancti Œcumenici Concilii Vaticani II, have guaranteed the fidelity of the reform of the Council. For this reason I wrote Traditionis custodes, so that the Church may lift up, in the variety of so many languages, one and the same prayer capable of expressing her unity.
As I have already written, I intend that this unity be re-established in the whole Church of the Roman Rite.
First there was the bit about the views and predilections of many of The Former Gregorian Institute of America's staff.
The introduction of option 4 is a new concept in the construction of what music to use.
32. The custom legitimately in use in certain places and widely confirmed by indults, of substituting other songs for the songs given in the Graduale for the Entrance, Offertory and Communion, can be retained according to the judgment of the competent territorial authority, as long as songs of this sort are in keeping with the parts of the Mass, with the feast or with the liturgical season. It is for the same territorial authority to approve the texts of these songs.
28. The distinction between solemn, sung and read Mass, sanctioned by the Instruction of 1958 (n. 3), is retained, according to the traditional liturgical laws at present in force. However, for the sung Mass (Missa cantata), different degrees of participation are put forward here for reasons of pastoral usefulness, so that it may become easier to make the celebration of Mass more beautiful by singing, according to the capabilities of each congregation.
These degrees are so arranged that the first may be used even by itself, but the second and third, wholly or partially, may never be used without the first. In this way the faithful will be continually led towards an ever greater participation in the singing.
You seem to say that the Council has paved the way for new compositions by this statement. I could see that. However, I do not know the mind of the Council on this question and I suspect you do not either.
Fr Pierre Jounel, the French liturgist and teacher who was a member of a number of the working groups of the Consilium in the years following Sacrosanctum Concilium, said in the course of a lecture in 1977 that those responsible for the liturgical reforms seriously contemplated omitting the antiphons from the 1969/70 Missale Romanum altogether. He said the only reason they retained the antiphons was so that those who wanted to continue to use the Latin chants of the Graduale could do so. The phrase he used was “to placate the Gregorianists”.
Meanwhile, especially as use of the vernacular in the liturgy was extended, the situation changed completely. The principal role in choosing and adopting repertories of songs for celebrations in the vernacular had to be left to the episcopal conferences; a Roman group could only provide general criteria for passing judgment. The entrance and communion antiphons of the Missal were intended to be recited, not sung, and to inspire the creation of suitable songs in the vernacular.
Although the Sacramentary is a book of presidential prayers said by the priest, for the sake of completeness this edition does contain the brief sung antiphons for the entrance and communion processions. These are printed in smaller type in order to indicate that they are not ordinarily said by the priest and indeed are not parts of a Sacramentary.
The general instruction takes for granted that there will be singing at the entrance of the priest and other ministers (and at the communion rite; see nos. 26, 56, 83, 119), certainly in the Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. When the antiphons are set to music, they may be used for this purpose, i.e., as refrains to psalms. Ordinarily, however, it is expected that full use will be made of the decision to employ appropriate substitutes sung by the congregation with a cantor or choir. For the United States the National Conference of Catholic Bishops has given the criteria for texts to be sung as entrance songs. (See "Notes to the General Instruction," no. 26, below.)
Only in the absence of song is the entrance antiphon used as a spoken or recited text. Since these antiphons are too abrupt for communal recitation, it is preferable when there is no singing that the priest (or the deacon, other minister, or commentator) adapt the antiphon and incorporate it in the presentation of the Mass of the day. After the initial greeting, "the priest, deacon, or other minister may very briefly introduce the Mass of the day" (Order of Mass, no. 3). The adaptation of the text of the entrance antiphon for this purpose is suggested by the Congregation for Divine Worship (Instruction on Particular Calendars and Offices, June 24, 1970, no. 40a).
This is very important. Whatever you may want to claim about hierarchical preference elsewhere, if the "hermeneutic of continuity" is to be believed and honored, and the VERY CLEAR teaching of Sacrosanctum Concilium is to be followed, then there is simply no getting around the fact that chanting from the GR is the preferred option here. And if that cannot be done, then the next best thing is the Simplex, which was specifically formulated for those who had difficulty achieving the ideal of using the GR for everything. There is just no getting around it. Latin chant is to receive the "principem locum" (first place). And, coincidently, it is listed as the first option in the GIRM.
SC was careful to specify that Latin & chant were to be preserved in the Roman rite. They are to be normative. The fact that alternate antiphons which can be spoken when no music is provided exists, in no way negates the usage of the former antiphons which are perfectly serviceable in the new rite. As alluded to earlier, the Gregorian Missal arranges them in official fashion for the new calendar, for instance.
47. According to the Constitution on the Liturgy, "the use of the Latin language, with due respect to particular law, is to be preserved in the Latin rites."[30]
However, since "the use of the vernacular may frequently be of great advantage to the people"[31] "it is for the competent territorial ecclesiastical authority to decide whether, and to what extent, the vernacular language is to be used. Its decrees have to be approved, that is, confirmed by the Apostolic See."[32]
In observing these norms exactly, one will therefore employ that form of participation which best matches the capabilities of each congregation.
Pastors of souls should take care that besides the vernacular "the faithful may also be able to say or sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them."[33]
50. In sung liturgical services celebrated in Latin:
(a) Gregorian chant, as proper to the Roman liturgy, should be given pride of place, other things being equal.[34] Its melodies, contained in the "typical" editions, should be used, to the extent that this is possible.
(b) "It is also desirable that an edition be prepared containing simpler melodies, for use in smaller churches."[36]
(c) Other musical settings, written for one or more voices, be they taken from the traditional heritage or from new works, should be held in honor, encouraged and used as the occasion demands.[36]
My understanding based on this and other sources is that replacing the proper antiphons at a Low Mass with hymns is the longstanding practice of the church
based on some research I did on JSTOR pertaining to Trent and music reform, there were pockets, especially in Germany, where vernacular hymn singing was permitted on high holy days as a treat for the laity, but it was not normative week in and week out.My understanding based on this and other sources is that replacing the proper antiphons at a Low Mass with hymns is the longstanding practice of the church, and that those of you who are arguing against ever doing this are the ones who are arguing for rupture in our liturgical practice.
this is what I try to do with my psalmody, by using ancient chants as the basis for modern vernacular adaptations. Here are but two of a hundred such examples. I’ll leave you to decide their merits.)so that "new forms may in some way grow organically from forms that already exist,"
As for vernacular chant, plainchant can be adapted into the vernacular VERY successfully. Look at Fr. Weber’s collections, for instance.
The vast majority of Masses celebrated in the United States are spoken Masses with four or five songs added to the liturgy. The songs are often contemporary in style, which seems to be suitable because the songs loosely resemble the style of music that people are accustomed to hearing and enjoy listening to when they are not at Mass. The more that the dialogues and the ordinary of the Mass are sung as intended (i.e., chanted using the Missal’s tones) instead of spoken, the more contemporary songs will sound incongruous with the liturgy and seem out of place. The more that the Mass texts are chanted, the more chanting other music will seem and sound preferable to singing contemporary music at Mass.
The antiphons are provided as part of the Mass of the day. Although it is permissible to replace the antiphons with songs, doing so should be considered suboptimal because it means that a text of the Mass that the Church has given us to sing is being replaced with something not foreseen by the Church and subject to the whims and flawed judgment of the person making the substitution. The optimal choice is to sing the proper antiphons for the Mass of the day.
Given the development that Mass is celebrated almost entirely in the vernacular and that Catholics have little comprehension of Latin, antiphons sung in English utilizing Gregorian tones or adapted from the original Gregorian melodies of the traditional antiphons could be considered a legitimate development of the Gregorian chant tradition into languages beyond Latin.
In conclusion, the optimal celebration of the reformed Mass, with due consideration for all the Church’s norms and traditions, seems to me to be: 1) sung Mass dialogues and ordinary, chanted using the Missal’s tones in the vernacular and at least sometimes in Latin; and 2) sung antiphons, mostly in the vernacular, using Gregorian-inspired melodies, and sometimes including the Latin original of the antiphon.
We have become comfortable with a liturgy that is punctuated by a series of musical interludes, but which is itself not sung. Rather than respecting the ages-old tradition of a sung liturgy, this process of punctuating a spoken liturgy with numerous musical interludes has actually created the effect of stopping the liturgy frequently in order to sing something, which may or may not be intrinsic to the liturgy itself. (p. 166)
Thus, as the Church for her entire history has placed primacy on chant as “the music proper to the Roman liturgy,” we must trust in a deeper wisdom of this mandate and commit ourselves to rediscovering the sung Mass and to restoring chant to its rightful place in our liturgical prayer. We cannot overestimate the formative power of this music and this way of praying the liturgy. (p. 180)
Reestablishing the Missa cantata as the parochial norm will not be easy in a culture that has fully embraced the Missa lecta as the standard for its public worship. However, even if a full scale return to the Missa cantata as normative may be unrealistic as a first step, we must at least reestablish it as the preeminent means of liturgical prayer, the model, if you will, toward which we strive. (p. 181)
The formal argument against the use of hymns at Mass is that they are not truly a part of the Liturgy. As a result, they tend to inculcate the ideology of singing things at Mass rather than actually singing the Mass. In addition, their indiscriminate use carries with it a significant danger with regard to forming congregations in beliefs that are not actually part of the Catholic canon…. [M]ost of the musicians who select these hymns and songs for weekly Masses in most cases are not adequately equipped to make decisions about the orthodoxy of the texts in the music they select for their congregations to sing. (p. 193)
[T]he value of Gregorian chant is that its simplicity, when compared with polyphony, facilitates the assembly’s active participation in singing. Also, its role in enhancing the texts of the liturgy, as opposed to texts set to music from sources other than the Bible or the liturgy (for example, hymn texts), appropriately focuses attention on the texts of the liturgy themselves…. The singing of chant, or a similar musical idiom that is (comparatively) simple, matched to the texts of the liturgy is what is paramount in order to facilitate participation (not a particular musical style or even of the Latin language.) (p. 443)
[T]he deficiency of substituting hymns for these [proper antiphon] chants is that they replace the biblical text of the psalter. What ought to be a central source for the Christian’s liturgical and personal prayer – the psalter – is at least eclipsed if not ignored when hymns are sung. The Roman Catholic liturgical context in Eucharist does not countenance hymns at entrance, presentation, or communion. (p. 448)
One might legitimately argue, however, that the singing of hymns at the Roman Catholic Eucharist is an example of inculturation, since hymns continue to nurture the faith of many communities in an idiom that invites easy participation…. If hymns are sung, however, one would have to ask to what extent their texts are drawn from the antiphons printed in the present Graduale or Missale, lest additional and possibly quite unrelated theological themes are found in the hymns. We would argue that the entrance antiphons given in the Roman Missal should be understood as providing a model for the content of what is actually sung at the entrance rite of the liturgy. (p. 451)
[Antiphons] offer a juxtaposition of biblical images that offer multivalence in action. That is, rather than tell a story, reiterate the gospel, or explain a mystery (“O Most Holy Trinity”), the images embedded in antiphons offer at least a patchwork quilt, not to say a kaleidoscope of images, that the gathered assembly can rely on (because they are from the Scriptures). This variety can complement, not repeat, what the proclaimed Scriptures enact and what euchological prayers say, understanding that prayers, too, are thoroughly biblically inspired. Our argument is that, among the other books of the Bible, the Psalter is the church’s prayer book and deserves to be sung at every opportunity. (pp. 460-61)
[A]ntiphons and psalm verses more easily accompany processions and enable us to view what is occurring while we are singing the antiphon to accompany that action. I wonder whether our worship aids at this part of the Mass are not so filled with hymn texts that we find ourselves glued to them at the risk of not participating in the liturgical action by watching. This is to suggest that the number of psalm verses sung varies depending on the length of the entrance and communion processions. (p. 183)
If it took centuries for the Liber Usualis to be codified for use up until the reformed liturgy of Vatican II, I think it not improper to suggest that not everything we have sung at the liturgy after Vatican II deserves to be continued. (p. 187)
I would characterize the nature of the Gregorian chant Mass Propers as liturgical lectio divina by means of high art…. The spirituality of chant is none other than the spirituality of the Scriptures. Gregorian chant is lectio divina (sacred reading, praying with the Bible) in the sense of being a means of meditation upon Scripture. But it is lectio divina in common – liturgical. The Word of God resounds in the liturgical assembly. The message of salvation is not merely recalled, it is made present now in the highest act of the Church, the liturgy. (p. 495)
Given the scant knowledge of Latin among most modern-day worshippers and the scant use of Latin in Catholic worship, one should hardly think that sensitive interpretation of chant will guarantee that the listener will be better able to meditate on the Latin text as the composer(s) intended…. The issue of authenticity is not so much an issue of the rhythms sung by the singers as an issue of the cultural and spiritual context of the listeners…. [T]he original context of Gregorian chant is largely lost, and any account of the role of chant in the reformed liturgy must deal with this reality. (pp. 496-97)
Perhaps the most authentic vernacular chant would be entirely newly-composed chant that grows out of the nature of the vernacular text. Such newly-composed vernacular chant, to the extent that it is a successful synthesis of word and tone, could in a real sense be called “Gregorian” chant. Such vernacular chant could well foster a spirituality of artistic proclamation and contemplative reception. (pp. 498-99)
Very little of the inherited Gregorian chant repertoire is suited for congregational singing in parish settings. But it is desirable that Roman rite congregations in all cultures be able to sing a minimum repertoire of Latin chant. (p. 505)
It is virtually impossible to employ Gregorian chant in the modern liturgy in a way faithful to its original context. This is true for several reasons, above all the lack of familiarity with the Latin text on the part of listening worshippers. (p. 507)
As important as the music is, it is even more important to preserve the texts of the Mass
, and this is what is done when proper antiphons are sung in the vernacular
To omit them and replace them with texts invented by some poet is, as CDW put it in Notitiae, to rob the faithful.
Regardless of some of our disagreements, I sincerely appreciate CW92’s quotations and thoughtful commentary above.
If Fr. Ruff is a modernist, is not PK a schismatic?
The introduction of option 4 is a new concept in the construction of what music to use.
Oh, but is Peter Kwasniewski, who recently has gone full-throttle advocating the abrogation of the post-conciliar liturgy and the complete restoration of pre-1955 liturgical rites, okay to quote and read?
Ruff can trash 2000 years of Gregorian chant because of enculturation concerns, but Kwaskiewski is dissenting because he wants to be Catholic? …And now this lunacy is baked into the missal as a feature, not a bug.
@contemporaryworship92 Moral theology disputes or dissent are not germane. I push back on Peter when necessary, even publicly. I would sit this one out.
Well I would not have tagged him. But well here we are.
but no one may dare criticize traditionalists nor NLM contributors, even when they are outlandish
I do not have common Catholic ground with people who reject the reform as a matter of principle.
I have tried (to some degree of failure) to not have an opinion about Opinions About the Church Crisis. That's because nothing in the past quite looks like the present.
/I think it's a mistake to suggest that Pope Francis wants supporters of the old Mass to not be Catholic at all; please let's not attribute such motives to people.
The faculty… was above all motivated by the desire to foster the healing of the schism with the movement of Mons. Lefebvre
Afterwards, however, it soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood…
We all know that, in the movement led by Archbishop Lefebvre, fidelity to the old Missal became an external mark of identity; the reasons for the break which arose over this, however, were at a deeper level. Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them…
t in the meantime it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist, particularly suited to them…
It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church…
An opportunity offered by St. John Paul II and, with even greater magnanimity, by Benedict XVI, intended to recover the unity of an ecclesial body with diverse liturgical sensibilities, was exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.
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