Songs/Hymns substitute Mass parts???
  • Jeffrey CogginsJeffrey Coggins
    Posts: 360
    I recently witnessed a Mass at a parish in my home town area, and was astonished at several things - one in particular was at the moment of the Memorial Acclamation. Instead of doing any of the 4 current permissible options, what was done instead was Eat This Bread by Jacques Berthier.

    Is this sort of thing even allowed? When looking through GIRM about this, the closest thing I can find is:
    366. It is not permitted to substitute other chants for those found in the Order of Mass, such as at the Agnus Dei.


    Another astonishment was the use of a CD-accompaniment for the "chorus number" during the Communion meditation. I suppose that's a different discussion, though.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,510
    This is routine in Cologne, or was in 2005. Songs substitute for both the Gloria and the Sanctus.

    A couple of decades ago, a (Lucien Deiss?) refrain, Keep in Mind, was often substituted for the Memorial Acclamation, in my neck of the woods.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Eat this bread was also sung at a parish near me, as well as the recorded accompaniment to something else. Both practices are not allowed.
    'Eat this bread' is not one of the four options for the Mem. Acc, as you note.
    Recorded music is expressly forbidden in the GIRM.
    The organist I heard doing this is an organist of very low skill (we have lots in these parts) who records things so she can sing along better. Alas, the quality of her singing is even worse. And she uses a mic. Painful.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    This is not so different from the Schubert "Deutsche Messe," which was not unique for its time. Vernacular songs or hymns were sung during Low Mass while the priest spoke the actual texts quietly.

    I seem to recall a fascinating article in Sacred Music a few years ago about Kaiser Joseph II. and his desire to create a German-language Mass for Austria and other German-speaking countries. I don't know whether the Choralmesse (as the Lutherans called it) was an outgrowth of that impulse, or merely borrowed from the Lutheran practice. To this day there is in the Lutheran (ELCA) service book an option for using metrical paraphrases of the liturgical texts sung to hymn tunes -- the current book has the Gloria paraphrase sung to HYMN TO JOY.

    All that said, the practice as you describe it, no matter how often it happens, is not licit (as you pointed out in your original post).
  • Jeffrey CogginsJeffrey Coggins
    Posts: 360
    It's just yet another example of the free-for-all, camp-fire-song, hymn-roulette type of thing that goes on in many parishes. This parish, in question, is your typical CCCM parish, with normally scheduled hymns played à la musical theater.

    I even went to the 4th of July Mass and witnessed fireworks sound effects during the recessional hymn. It's always a "look at me!" type of moment for this particular music ministry.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,983
    Wow! Now I have never seen or heard anything that extreme in my neck of the woods. I guess I am blessed and don't realize it. :-)
  • Maureen
    Posts: 678
    Re: Deutsche Singmesse, the point was that the priest was in fact saying the parts. Whatever else went on was lagniappe, no more significant in the mystical liturgical scheme of things than private devotional prayers murmured or thought by people in the pews to help them follow along in devotion. It was a sort of underline or counter-melody (so to speak) of the real Mass parts. It was perfectly normal at a Missa Cantata for the choir's singing of prayers not to synchronize perfectly with the main prayers going on up at the altar. Singing entirely different stuff was turning the congregation into a sort of aural wall decoration; but they were assumed to still be joining in the priest's prayers of the Mass just by being present and willing. It certainly assumed that the priest's prayers were the super-important part of the event (whether or not the Singmesse was a good idea).

    Now, if the priest was saying the parts these days while this crazy stuff went on, it would be (obviously) not a good plan and probably deprecated strongly, but not Big Huge Abuse.

    If nothing else is being said by anybody at any time, that's different. I suppose the correct response would be to say the actual parts yourself, so as to make sure that at least one "people" was saying what should be said.

    If you wanted to be pointed about it, you'd say them REAL LOUD, as soon as it got quiet. But of course, such a practice is to be deprecated. :)

    Re: "Keep in Mind", I think most people thought it was a real alternate Memorial Acclamation. I know I did. I mean, it was in the Missalette and everything, and they would never lie to us in the Missalette, right? Or Worship. Or the Gather Hymnal. Let's face it, composers are constantly making junk up for Memorial Acclamations, just like the American bishops' insisted on making up "Christ has died".

    Sigh. Lies, dang lies, and lyrics. It's very difficult to extricate one's childhood faith from such a background. (C'mon, corrected translation, and get here.)
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,092
    "To this day there is in the Lutheran (ELCA) service book an option for using metrical paraphrases of the liturgical texts sung to hymn tunes"
    That practice goes all the way back to Martin Luther's Deutsche Sanctus, so you can't say it's a devolution. It wasn't anything I encountered growing up in the MIsery Synod though.
    Citing past abuses is interesting from a historical viewpoint, but irrelevant to "by the book" (GIRM) practice. Somebody's bishop needs a polite letter.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,482
    This reminds me of...
    I was just looking in my trusty Gather Comp. Second Edition, at the Mass of Creation (which takes the hallowed place as the setting used for "The Order of Mass," a spot soon to be filled with the ICEL chants). I was looking specifically at the Gospel Acclamation and I notice... all these extra words in the refrain (anything that isn't "Alleluia") and random verses (which seem to come neither from the Lectionary nor the Graduale).
    This sort of thing is all over the place- that's just one example.

    Oi.
  • GavinGavin
    Posts: 2,799
    Jeff Quick: the Luther Mass is still used in the LCMS. It was in Lutheran Worship, with the original hymns (allein gott, etc.). The new Hymnal has both that as well as new paraphrased texts for singing the liturgy. I've found the new texts (set to common Protestant tunes) to be rather widely in use.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    Whatever haugensong it is that concludes, "we remember, we celebrate, we believe..." (can't recall the rest of the words,) was commonly used in its entirety as the memorial acclamation at my parish in the midwest when I arrived, and I often heard it used in various parts of Florida.
    I was told that it had happened because its use was sanctioned in a diocesan music workshop liturgy, (those were usually NPM affairs, but I don't know this one was for certain.)

    It is also common for various songs, of various eras, containing the word "shepherd," to be used in place of the responsorial psalm at funerals in this area.
    I have done otherwise when subbing, and offered copies of easy, licit, FREE chanted psalms, and been rebuffed in no uncertain terms.

    Until pastors care, and hire and support competent, liturgically-aware musical leadership, it's not going to change.

    "That's the way we do it here" is the only rationale some involved in parish "ministry" need.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    What is worse is when you have one of the parochial vicars at your own Cathedral engage in this nonsense. He "invited" the faithful to sing his own made-up acclamation called "Tan Cerca De Ti" (How Close Am I to You). I glared at him and then tried to charitably reason with him. After telling me that he had a doctorate in theology, I respectfully told him that he needed to follow the GIRM and Redemptionis Sacramentum. It matters not to me if a priest has more degrees than a thermometer; he is not above the rubrics.

    What was just as bad was when, during the regularly broadcast Cathedral Sunday Mass, the same priest had the people renew their baptismal promises and then had the people repeat his part (This is the faith of the Church...) after him. Then the organist had the faithful sing the "Amen" from Lillies of the Field. It was really bad. Sadly, the Cathedral is supposed to set the standards for liturgy in the diocese. In my estimation, it is failing miserably, epsecially when the Mariachis come over and play.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,217
    Incidentally, in case anyone is not familiar with the German Singmesse custom (in which songs are sung in place of corresponding Mass parts), there is a Wikipedia article about it. Until a few days ago, the article was a bit of a shambles, so I gave it a refresh by translating the corresponding article from the German WP.
  • JDE
    Posts: 588
    Just for the record, I was not suggesting the practice of substituting metrical hymns for liturgical texts was licit or even okay -- only that it is not a new phenomenon.
  • dominusregitme
    Posts: 3
    chonak is quite correct. In the German Singmesse it was encouraged to sing corresponding Mass parts during Low Mass.
    Often clergy led these from the pulpit. There was a bit of a fray between the present Pope Benedict and those who wished to outlaw
    the use of the Singmesse in the German revision of the 3rd Missal. The pope is so enamoured of this German "tradition" that he
    wills not to outlaw it. Hence these approximate texts are not only acceptable, but encouraged. A little sponge cake and schnapps anyone?
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