Is there no higher reason to sing chant?

Everyone, before responding to this thread, you MUST read this article...thank you, Arlene and Jeffrey, for all you have done for us and the Church.

“Gregorian chant is not music . . . it is a way of praying and a way of proclamation.” (related by Dr. Franz Karl Praßl)

I have been able to sell chant in Latin and in the vernacular at my seminary when I emphasize that the texts of the chants and the melodies arising from these texts put us in contact with the spiritual experience of our ancestors in the faith. Unlike fossils in which living tissue is replaced by minerals and is therefore dead, in just a minute we can sing anew texts and tunes that our fellow Catholics sang in the first millennium of the Christian experience. Chant is musical lectio divina, a spiritual exercise/discipline that enables us to taste the word of God, to savor it, to chew it over, to digest it and to allow it to transform us.

Blessings,
Paul

I have been able to sell chant in Latin and in the vernacular at my seminary when I emphasize that the texts of the chants and the melodies arising from these texts put us in contact with the spiritual experience of our ancestors in the faith.

You know, I find that that works wonderfully with young to middle-aged adults, and especially children, (for whom the idea of singing something that they heard on a broadcast from the Vatican, or that their great-great-great-great-great grandparents and medieval saints also sang, is wondrous and exciting,) but is actually a point against Gregorian chant for many people in their 50s and 60s.
As Ed Schafer put it, this music has the power to take people back to other times and other places, and for some of them, to a time and a place they DO NOT WANT TO GO.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

Arlene says that the job of getting sacred music in the parish is 40% intellectual, 40% strategic, and 20% musical talent.

By the way, she was the major contributor to that article, which I like very much, now having re-read it. Makes me think I should blog less and co-author more.

Isn't there a theological basis of some sort for the use of propers rather than generic hymns?

Yes, theology and ecclesiology should be the first place by which we should begin this conversation. Please note that I said theology and ecclesiology because I think they are pieces of the same pie being dished up these days in Catholic parishes.

Competing theologies of God are being placed in our hands these days in the texts we sing. A quick and dirty reading of the current hymnal fare places God very much in an immanent manner. That, in and of itself is not bad. But often, there are no balances in the question. One of the cornerstones of our theology of God is a balance between immanence and transcendence. Emphases on the personal relationship of God are at play, with no concern for the communal. With no balance, I contend that we focus on what our relationship to each other because surely God is sitting on our shoulder. This plays itself out in a horizontalist sense (mass is for who we are) and the loss of God is the byproduct. The parish where I am weekly lives this out as the liturgy becomes a social occasion, rather than contact with the eternal.

Ecclesiology is the other question in play. On another part of this forum, there are examinations of Elaine Rendler-McQueeney's writing. At the heart of her stuff is an unstated vision of church that is rather flat. Flat in sofar as there is no hierarchy, a willing disregard for any vision of church that does not place the reins of power except in the pewsitters and understated contempt for clergy. Now admittedly, we all have had that experience in our vocation, but the fact of the matter is that our church has bishops, priests and deacons and lay folk. We all have our part to play, but note, our part. All these pieces of our church need each other. Chaos occurs when competing visions of church play out in conflict. Again ,I return to our hymnals for examples and I am sure you can find them there.

So, I believe it necessary to begin conversations about reform not on a musical level, but on a theological level. In the words of the great rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, "Words create worlds". Does that put us at a disadvantage as musicians? Absolutely, if we do not "do" the theology necessary to move beyond the current state of things.

my .02

Kevin (Thanks Noel)

The study of the church, what it is, how it functions and the models of behavior.

If we stipulate that most of what we sing at Liturgy should be sung prayer, (although a case can be made for song that, while not prayer itself, exhorts others to pray,) the hymns we insert into the Liturgy should primarily express either thanksgiving, adoration, petition or reparation.
If it is difficult to figure out to whom the words of a 'hymn' are addressed, or how if it fits into one of these form of prayer, I think we would have to question its use.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

I just went to a prospective church yesterday, and it turned out to be mostly mainstream fare with a bit of chant and choral music thrown in. But the interesting thing was the priest. He sang with an overly theatrical voice, changed many of the words to the Mass (most amusing was "People of God, the Mass is now ended, let us all go forth into the world to spread the mission of the Church!") went out in the pews to shake every hand, had an army of Eucharistic ministers, etc. But at the sermon, he was 100% orthodox and even called for people to attend confession. He inserted a petition at the Prayers of the Faithful for "respect of life from conception to natural death" and even flatly told the congregation (as in "you must vote no...") how to vote on our state's stem cell proposal. So here you have a priest who doesn't get the connection between orthodoxy and orthopraxis - although I give him LOTS of credit, as he was ordained in '79.

Although Kevin is likely correct that it stems from a faulty ecclesiology: when he (likely) sees the Mass as about "celebrating the community", that's a breach of ecclesiology, which ascribes higher motives to the Mass. Maybe he doesn't see the Vatican's directives as important? Maybe he doesn't care? I don't know, I didn't chat with the priest. But still, that disconnect is so very strange to me - he doesn't get that his actions go against the orthodoxy he preaches.