Voice of God, revisited
  • To sing or not to sing in the Voice of God

    Comments, questions, and critiques welcome.

    Additional primary-source citations would be great, too.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    Link fail.
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    David's right. The link is not working. :(
  • Sorry … minus sign != equals sign.
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    Aristotle,

    You may be aware of Thomas Day's view of Voice of God texts in Why Catholics Can't Sing.

    There is another precedent to take into consideration, the distinction between proper and ordinary. In the tradition, the texts of the Ordinary are sung by the whole congregation, and they do not include any "Voice of God" texts; the texts of the Proper are sung by the choir, and thus present the words of God to the congregation, rather than asking them to sing them.
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,206
    I would also add that not all of the Propers are constructed with "Voice of God" texts.

    In my presentation on "Full, Active and Conscious Participation" I use the entrance antiphon from the Requiem as an example of how the replacing of the Proper text with a contemporary hymn or song (that may or may not include "Voice of God" lyrics) actually derails the participation of the people by drawing their prayer (and participation) away from the action of praying for the repose of the soul of the person who died and toward the people themselves. Compare "Eternal rest grant unto him/her, O Lord . . . " with the refrain, "Be not afraid, I go before you always . . . " The problems are obvious; one is made to ask who the "I" and "you" are in this text, and where is the prayer for the soul of the deceased.

    It has long baffled me that not one music resource in the pew (save for "By Flowing Waters" which is sadly not commonly found in the pew) for use at funerals includes an English language translation of the beautiful and profoundly prayerful texts of the Requiem, and that the purpose of the antiphons in the post conciliar funeral Mass have been so grossly ignored. Of all the opportunities for the whole congregation to sing the Propers, the Requiem is certainly one of the more important, and yet has never been employed.
  • rob
    Posts: 148
    While appreciating the distinction between the propers and the ordinary, there's nothing I know of which prohibits the congregration from singing the propers. And, while not all the propers employ the "Voice of God," there are enough of them which do ("Ego sum vitis vera", "Pater cum essem," "Dominus Jesus", "Dicit Dominus," "Domus mea" all come to mind), that I find it difficult to believe that it is the convention itself which should be proscribed, so much as it is the particular uses or contexts beyond what Scripture or Tradition would support. Personally, for example, I would have hard time understanding why any of the propers above could be sung by the choir at Mass, but a hymn with the same texts could not sung by the congregation.
  • The choir has become part of the congregation in many minds, but the choir has always been raised above the congregation and given a special voice in the liturgy and this has been the tradition since earliest times. That's why we hear the phrase, choir of angels.

    It might help to think of it like the cantors who sing the psalm. They are entrusted to study the psalms and to proclaim them singing. There is no rule against the people saying them or singing them, but it isn't done because they have been set aside for the psalmist to proclaim.

    Most cantors don't have a clue about the psalms, but that's really not their fault.
  • Having done a Latin OF funeral using the traditional Latin texts - with translations in the hands of the people, I think that they were buried (no pun intended) to permit them to be replaced by CELEBRATIONS OF LIFE. Seems to have worked out that way.

    Let's all be friends and gather round the altar priests may have been a bit shy about bringing up hell at a funeral.
  • Great synopsis of the dynamic tension between approaching the Paradigm of a fully reformed liturgical praxis as envisioned by Pius X, and the political realities, couched often in seemingly apparent legislative ambiguity, of recovering just the basics of a truly Catholic culture, Rob.
    But there is a point of departure in our respective understandings. You rightly wonder if it lies solely in the texts, and say "Why not?" Others say that you can't divorce the text, either in Latin or the vernacular from its DNA integrity wedded to the musical form dubbed "chant," and therefore it's untenable to place that burden upon the congregation, who would more benefit by an engaged, active participation of observance. And still others are forging passed these polarities by advancing new and culturally consistent strains that, as Mark Searle coined the term, remember into the future.
    These are not philosophical, esoteric problems. If one parish in Kenya can worship in a fully realized "Roman" EF while another down the highway manifests every authentic attribute of a fully realized OF, proper and ordinary texts, to the letter, but in the vernacular and indigenous musical forms, is there really a question to be called as to whether one or the other was a truer, superior worship expression?
    I fully understand and appreciate the human inclination towards uniformity through conformity. I'm personally comfortable with the desire that I could conduct my business with others of like mind. But, for the umpteenth time, all politics are local. To believe that, short of blasts of the trumpets of the parousia and the vision of the Pantocrator filling the skies around the blue marble (speaking of "voice of God" stuff, fo' real), the Paradigm can simply be mandated even from the Petrine cathedra and everything will turn on a dime and be just fine, is wishful thinking at best....
  • I'll put it in writing, notarize it, and bring it to you in Duquesne, if I last, my dear friend. I'm having huge trouble accepting me as sixty.
  • Sorry, that was a "whisper" for Noel.