Medium is the message and Gregorian Chant
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 493
    These quotes by Marshal Mcluham are a good mix of 20th century marketing pop poetry and Catholic Thomistic philosophy. Though these quotes are not suited for your church bulletin, they may be unpacked in a way to formulate your ideas about the efficacy of chant and Latin in the Liturgy.

    "The Medium is the message"
    The "medium" being the liturgy as the formal cause;
    the "faithful" are the material cause;
    and the "Mystical Body of Christ" is the final cause.




    "Societies have always been shaped more by the nature of the media by which men communicate than by the content of the communication."

    "Everybody experiences far more than he understands. Yet it is experience, rather than understanding, that influences behavior."

    McCuluh's environmentalism: He states that a medium creates a new environment ( where the message is realized) which is even more important than the content of the message!
  • RobertRobert
    Posts: 343
    Interesting - McLuhan was himself an observant Catholic, and if I'm not mistaken even wrote about liturgy.

    We need to be careful here, I think. Gregorian Chant does seek to communicate a sacred text. The Word matters - it is of the essence. Treating Gregorian Chant as "sonic wallpaper" or "mood music" with indifference to the text is a mistake in my opinion. This matters for interpretation.
  • Ralph BednarzRalph Bednarz
    Posts: 493
    "The Word matters."- I absolutely agree!
    But I do think we accept a de facto "indifference" to the sung text when it is often not understood - even in the vernacular,- but still deemed necessary.
    I think McLuhan views language as a medium that generates writing, that generates books, and and then printing presses, web pages. It can create its own noisy environment and seems to loose site of its message. Is this the "Mad Men" view of the "word becoming flesh"?
    This statement by JPII shows a similar awareness: and is refreshing after trying to sort through Mcluhan's work.
    “The use of the vernacular has certainly opened up the treasures of the liturgy to all who take part, but this does not mean that the Latin language, and especially the chants which are so superbly adapted to the genius of the Roman Rite, should be wholly abandoned. If subconscious experience is ignored in worship, an affective and devotional vacuum is created and the liturgy can become not only too verbal but also too cerebral.” [4]
    [4] in Ad Limina Address of Pope John Paul II to Bishops of the United States 7-
    November 1998
  • Mark M.Mark M.
    Posts: 632
    That's a fantastic quote, Ralph. A quick correction, though, on the date: It's from October 9, 1998. Vatican source here (see section 3).
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