Sounds like your pastor is weaseling out on you to back the "contemporary" crowd. It doesn't sound good.

It sounds to me like he wants different music at each Mass. This might be in terms of amount of music, genre, ensembles, or whatever. I don't know your parish or pastor.

What kind of music do you do now?

I'm on my phone and can't respond to Gavin in depth right now, but wanted to say @RTDscout, if that was truly your first post, thank you for making it such a wonderful and useful one. AND welcome to the forum!

"But don't say that you will comply while secretly moving in a different direction."

Excellent advice.

Better reply on the way.

I agree. Subtle variation must truly be subtle, though, otherwise you could end up with vying camps instead of one unified congregation.

I said unified, not united, and I don't get it... [edit: oh, other Richard!... for the record I'm a Richard also...]

Okay, here we go:

Sounds like your pastor is weaseling out on you to back the "contemporary" crowd. It doesn't sound good.

My thoughts exactly.

What kind of music do you do now?

Here's the problem. I have only been at this Parish for two years. And the previous DM had only been here for ...you guessed it... two years. (I'm hoping this doesn't mean my time is up, but that's another matter entirely. :P) In rummaging through files from past lituriges, I can't find a TRACE of chant or good traditional hymnody. And, I'm talking all the way back to the 80s.
So then I come in and try to wean them away from Haugen, Haas, etc. Currently, we're in between the Haugen/Haas genre and hymns. For instance, for the 16th Sunday in OT, we used the following:

Entrance: All Creatures of Our God and King
Offertory: O God, You Search Me (Farrell)
Communion: We Remember (Haugen)
Recessional: Praise the Lord, Ye Heavens (Hymn to Joy)

And I tend to follow this model where the Entrance and Recessional are solid hymns and the Offertory and Communion are where I "give them what they want to hear," more or less. That is, unless there is a hymn that will provide some of the text of the Propers.

We use the Heritage Mass by Alstott at the 4PM, 8AM, and 10AM Masses and "Mass of Renewal" at the 5PM "Contemporary" Mass. The 4 and 8 are strictly organ, the 10 (Sept-May) is a piano/organ blend, and the 5PM is strictly piano except during Christmastide, Lent, and Solemnities.

To help expose them to more traditional music, I have taken the idea of "Progressive Solemnity" to heart and have begun distinguishing the seasons in different ways. For instance, Lent looked something like this this year:

Introit: Graduale Simplex (unaccompanied)
Kyrie: ICEL (Greek)
Offertory: Parce Domine or Attende Domine (in English, accompanied)
Sanctus: ICEL (English)
Mystery of Faith: ICEL
Amen: ICEL
Agnus Dei: Mass XVIII (Latin)
Communion: Simple English Propers (one of three chosen from the six weeks of Lent)
Recessional: Lenten hymn such as "Lord Who Throughout These Forty Days" or "Led By the Spirit".

All the above, if accompanied, is done strictly with 8' stopped diapason or melodia. Sometimes, the Open Diapason. The above is done at ALL Masses (except the with the children's choir where the practice of using standard or modern hymns continues for the offertory and communion only) including the 5PM Mass.

For Advent this year, I would like to use an Entrance Hymn followed by the Introit from the Graduale Romanum during the incensation. I would also like to switch to Proulx's "Missa Simplex" to further set Advent apart, but in a different way.


It all sounds rather convoluted and overthought, but my thinking is that this provides all Masses with some degree of tradition while still "catering" to those who'd prefer sacropop.

One would think that spirituality of the Roman Rite has enough "personality" on its own to suffice for every mass. Indeed, if what is said and done in the Mass is actual truth, then every demographic will be able to find meaning in it, no matter how diverse.

I think you PHYSICALLY took the words straight out of my mouth.

If it's possible to have a more in depth conversation without upsetting him, do so.

Thankfully, he is very open to discussion, so I do have that opportunity. Problem is, he's very well-educated (terminal degree in theology) and is the Vicar Forane so, though we have an excellent working relationship, it is still a little uncomfortable for me to express views that differ from his own.

So if you were to designate the Saturday evening Mass as the place where you let a little sacropop stay on, it wouldn't be a total loss. You can still work to improve the liturgical values of that Mass in other ways: singing a good setting of the Mass ordinary, for example. Or, if you and the pastor can really agree on a long-term plan to improve the liturgical life of the parish, he'd probably be willing to add sung dialogues, say.

THIS is a magnificent observation. I think trying to balance out the liturgy in other ways is an excellent "bargaining" strategy.

I agree. Subtle variation must truly be subtle, though, otherwise you could end up with vying camps instead of one unified congregation.

YES. I told him that I would consider using something as a "meditation" which has less liturgical significance. Period. Also, as I mentioned above, I use a more contemporary Ordinary at one Mass. The rest is just normal hymnody played on the piano.

For the record, I DID use some of that P&W stuff last year when I was trying out different styles for the Parish and before I found my real niche in sacred music. At the 5PM we used things like "Sweet Redeemer" and "Come to the Lord." We used them OVER and OVER and OVER and still no one sang. So I reverted to my current model and now they are singing, much to everyone's surprise. For those that constantly insist on the misconstrued meaning of "Full, conscious, and active participation," you can't argue with THAT finding.

There's a little context. :) Please feel free to comment on my methods in addition to the topic at hand, but I do want to avoid getting TOO far of topic so I can utilize the advice here in my next meeting with the Pastor.

As a professional disclaimer: I quite like my Pastor. I love the church. While I find his sudden concern for contemporary music concerning, he does well in holding up much of the tradition of the church as well. He chants nicely, and our Parish, overall, I would say is still ahead of many others I have experienced with regard to restoring the Liturgy.

I'm curious where your musicians are on this journey. I've been at my current parish for going on 6 years. The first year I spent trying to find the niche of where everyone was - the pastor, the musicians, the congregation, and yes - each individual Mass. There is indeed, based on my experience, unique demographics for each Mass. I do believe it is worth thought and discernment. There was also a deep and troubled history with the music ministry at my parish. I needed that first year to earn trust from fellow musicians and it meant bending a great deal - especially with our 'contemporary' choir - in order to earn their trust and respect. The next couple years we had to work to build community within the ministry itself. Each group was so segregated and referred to the Mass at which there particular choir sang for as 'their Mass' and if people don't like one kind of music they can go to Mass at a different time and hear the kind of music they liked. Needless to say I choked a great deal on my own tongue trying not to say at that time - this is not 'our' Mass and Mass is not about hearing the kind of music you like. That was then. Things are much different now, but it took a great deal of dying to one's self - me and my choir members.

I had to nearly break in order to meet them where they were. The years since have been spent educating the musicians first, congregation second. My thought is if the musicians are on the same page, learning and growing, moving forward, letting go of what was and embracing what is and looking forward to what is to come, they can be strength for the congregation. The musicians have had to grieve the loss of 'their kind of music'. It isn't all gone from the liturgies yet, but nearly so. By greiving, that's exactly what I mean. It is easy to become attached to things that have some kind of meaning to us and/or things that play with our emotions, which most of the 'contemporary' music does. It teases and tickles the emotions but never brings us to a fuller spiritual level than emotion. It doesn't challenge our intellect nor does it bring peace to it. It doesn't draw us out of ourselves. We all know that so I'm preaching to the choir:) We won't even go into the truth or heresy of the texts. That's another topic.

Anyway, back to the topic. The musicians now are nearly past the grieving and digging the heels in stage and have been embracing a greater reality. Because of this, they are stronger for the congregation. They have become teachers themselves when people confront them with the whys and so on. I need to be ahead of the musicians, and they need to be a step ahead of the congregation and then we can help one another from the muck to the glorious.

I've been lucky with pastors here. When I first came, we had a pastor who was hoping to retire soon. That tells you his age. Generally that can be a rough generation of priests to work with in liturgical matters. Every generation has its own psychology based on personal experiences and beliefs based on those personal experiences; however, this priest was very open. He was cautious - which was good because that kept me slow which is what the musicians needed in order to prepare for the journey. By cautious I mean he wasn't against use of Latin or some simple chants but he didn't want the people overwhelmed and flooded by it. He personally didn't care for it all but he knew that what he personally felt wasn't what decisions should be based on. Praise God! I got to work with young associates who taught me so much and mentored me with ideas, resources, suggestions, and so on. This pastor permitted all of that. He finally did get to retire and now we have a 40 yr old pastor who is on fire for the liturgy to be as it is meant to be - pure, holy, reverent. I had to kind of pull the reigns on him a bit - unfortunately - because he came in like a tornado and was so demanding to change everything now. He didn't take time to see exactly where we really were because he assumed nothing had been taking place in the right direction. He came across as abrasive toward our 'contemporary' choir and had initially caused some hard feelings. That's water under the bridge but proof that we still have a ways to go.

In this parish, I do 'baby' the contemporary choir more than any other musical group. They were formed as rejects of other groups before I ever came. Literally. They found a group of like minded people, desperate to share their measure of gifts with the Church and found security and sense of belonging. I don't even know if it was necessarily for that type of music more than it was for the ownership they felt in the group as a whole. They've had to sacrifice the most since they're farthest from the goal liturgically speaking. I hope that makes sense. They had to give up PW songs for hymns and 'contemporary' choral music. Now they are doing hymns and chanted propers, still some contemporary choral music but also some simple motets and combine with our other adult choirs for some Masses at which we use polyphony, Latin ordinary, etc. It has been a beautiful journey to witness and I have a feeling the future will be even more beautiful as we continue to move forward.

I don't know if any of this babble helps. I find it useful to hear how things have gone for others. I think it is encouraging. I think understanding the personalities and demographics of each group of people is very important. It has been for us. It has taken this long so far, which really isn't that long considering the decades behind us that have infected our sense of what liturgy is supposed to be. Perhaps it might mean bending a little to find different options for the same thing. Maybe 'contemporary' propers until the idea of propers is norm. When we first started I used the Psallite collection by Liturgical Press. The antiphons are very watered down, but the melodies are simple, catchy, sometimes rhythmic, guitars could play if they felt they had to, the congregation wasn't too removed from a 'contemporary' sound, there is a graphics cd that you can use to print the congregation antiphon. It went over well. Now we don't use that because we've moved on, I guess you could say. Then mix in the SEP, Romanum, Simplex, etc for other 'special' Masses - like Holy Days, secular holidays like Thanksgiving, Masses like All Souls, etc so people get accustomed to it more. Even using the Simple Choral Gradual might be nice. Kind of like getting one's taste buds accustomed to a different taste until it starts to taste good and one wants more and more of the flavor. Eventually your other instrumentalists will start to accept that guitars don't play those things, forward to where they may as well leave them at home since they might only play one song for Mass and they should just sing with the choir because it's a pain to lug the instrument for one song...


Good luck!

Don't forget that a piece of music doesn't, by itself, dictate the style of performance. It is perfectly possible to use the same Ordinary (for example) and play it a more traditional way at one Mass and a more contemporary way at another. Some "traditional" selections (chant and hymnody) can be made to "rock," and some "contemporary" pieces can be made more and more worthy.

I'm not saying this is always the best thing to do, or that it applies in your situation- but it's a good thing to remember when you are trying to find a way to highlight (or create) some differentiation between the music at different scheduled Masses, but you want a unified program.

I "stumbled into" a practice at my parish that I highly recommend when and where appropriate: We have a handful of Praise & Worship songs (Greatest Commands, All in All, Hide Me Away, etc) which we sing congregationally, unaccompanied, after Communion. That "slot" (the "Post-Communion Meditation," we call it) is always congregational and always unaccompanied. Sometimes a Taize piece, sometimes a Gregorian hymn, sometimes one of those P&W songs. It works really well in the rhythm of the liturgy, and singing it unaccompanied holds the different genres together very well. (Whenever possible, we sing the last verse or two of the Communion Hymn unaccompanied also, so we can go straight from one to the other.) -- It's not exactly the Proper Communio and Polyphonic motet, but it's works very very well for us, and keeps the different "preference camps" happy.

Well, nothing wrong with contemporary in the sense that there are now a few good examples of composers writing with an eye to ancient traditions.

Like RTD said, it is helpful to reflect on the question: What is lacking in the Roman rite that it needs this extra layer of "personality"? The answer of course is nothing, but I think you get the picture.

This intrigues me. How does this work with a P&W song that relies on interludes or accompaniment period? I like the idea, though.

It doesn't. So, of course- of all the P&W-styled pieces in the world, we have a limited selection- which is fine, since we're not trying to specifically do P&W music as such.

Most of the pieces come from the Church of Christ "devo music" (youth group devotional) culture- adaptations of mega-church/pop-christian stuff for a capella congregational singing. I'll post a list and links if people promise not to laugh and tell me how much the music I'm doing is trite and awful.

That would be helpful. Thanks!

I am by no means closing this discussion, but would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to offer insight, suggestions, and prayer over the matter! Very much appreciated.

Of course, there's always the possibility of not trying to do everything in one hour on Sunday mornings! What I mean is this: a healthy parish doesn't merely gather for 6 Sunday Masses (including two which are on Saturday). Do the various "enclaves" have a chance for devotions outside of Mass? Perhaps the Mexican contingent could lead a Posada, but invite the whole parish? What about a Corpus Christi procession? Or a Marian procession? The Poles have a custom of giving out blessed bread -- so the Poles in the parish could collaborate on organizing this, without having it take over the Mass. The examples could be multiplied ad utilitatem parochiam, so don't give up if your parish has no Mexicans or Poles! All the cultural music does have a place, but that place doesn't have to be Mass. If the request is for "contemporary" music, a hootenanny Mass isn't the solution. This request, however, could occasion a serious parish-wide discussion on the importance of music. Science and Church teaching could be brought to bear, so that music with a throbbing beat or that which was conceived for the dance hall or........ . Maybe you could even persuade Father to preach a series of sermons.

Resurrecting this.
I just had another conversation with my pastor about this. He said some very encouraging things, and other things that simply deflated my hope. :) On the whole, though, it sounds like he and I are mostly on the same page.

He referred to the Funeral "Top 10" hymns and how he would like to see some of those be NOT the Top 10 and asked me to collaborate with other like-minded musicians about how we might begin to change the culture in a positive way... rather than saying "NO You can't sing that," how to we simply encourage others to see the beauty in more traditional music or, even, the texts of the Mass thereby minimizing the requests for On Eagle's Wings, etc....

On that same tune, he has also asked me to put together a list of what I THINK the "Top 10" traditional hymns and "Top 10" contemporary songs should be so we can more easily incorporate both thereby relieving some of the tension that could be caused by my having to nix a particular song. What would you consider GOOD contemporary music? (Think in the style of Haugen/Haas, but more liturgically grounded.) Contemporary, as we all know, has a broad meaning and could even incorporate the SEP considering it is a "contemporary" work, but the boss is looking for more of a balance... when necessary.

The funeral propers in By Flowing Waters are quite good.

The problem, though, isn't really that people want some specific style (Haas/Haugen, as opposed to Anglican Hymns or whatever). The people who agitate for the Habitual Music of the Roman Rite (especially at the parish-complainers level) aren't usually interested in better choices within a style they like. They want THAT. SONG. THEY. LIKE.

So no 'The King of Love My Shepherd Is'?
No 'O Bless the Lord My Soul'?
No 'All People That On Earth Do Dwell'?

True. Which is why I particularly specified

not-responsorial-psalm-substitute Psalm settings and paraphrases

I always use RA or Chabanel for the psalm and I don't think he cares as much about that. I think he would be happy with one "contemporary song" at one Mass every other week. Right now I'm throwing in "Shepherd Me O God" and "Now We Remain" because those are familiar. But I'm looking for something more grounded in scripture or, specifically, the propers if possible. If someone had a gun to your head, what contemporary music would you program for Mass? It's a pretty difficult question because as far as I can tell, there really isn't much worthy contemporary music out there.

I'll take a look at WLP! I should mention I inherited Breaking Bread at this parish....

If someone had a gun to your head, what contemporary music would you program for Mass?

Well, looking at the coming issue of Seasonal Missalette, what is relatively tolerable among the pieces composed in recent decades?

206 - Come to Me (Norbet) - but only v. 1, 3.
215 - Memorare (Mather) - though the leap of a 6th may be not so singable
229 - Taste and See (Moore) - nah, it's too soloistic
231 - Angels, Saints, and Holy Ones (Marchionda)
239 - Gift of Finest Wheat
293 - I Received the Living God (Jacob)
313 - Eye Has Not Seen (Haugen) - though the verses are too much for a congregation
314 - Festival Canticle (Hillert)
320 - All the Earth (Deiss)
327 - Seek Ye First (Lafferty) - yes, I know it was a Christian pop song

Thanks! That list is helpful.
The funeral directors work with the family, I think. But they work off of a sheet I have given them which, regrettably, has some of the "Top 10" on there. I thought it better the suggest them in appropriate places rather than not suggest them and have the family request it in an odd (inappropriate) place anyway. My sheet is set up so that they check off (from a list) a hymn for each part of the Mass so there are fewer requests for "On Eagle's Wings" as the responsorial psalm that I have to nix.

I revise the sheet with each liturgical year and this year, am removing many of the "Top 10" and including options for the propers.

The problem, though, isn't really that people want some specific style (Haas/Haugen, as opposed to Anglican Hymns or whatever). The people who agitate for the Habitual Music of the Roman Rite (especially at the parish-complainers level) aren't usually interested in better choices within a style they like. They want THAT. SONG. THEY. LIKE.

@Adam, this is pure genius. Period. The next time I get asked if we can do more "contemporary music," I will ask "Which song do you want to hear?" and I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that they will have a specific, immediate answer.

I'd be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that they will have a specific, immediate answer.

They ALWAYS will.

The following has happened to me more than once:

PIP: When are we ever going to do some Praise and Worship music?
ME: Well, we just did [TITLE OF SONG] this morning.
PIP: I mean, like- "Shine Jesus Shine."

They don't care if it's contemporary or traditional; they want BE NOT AFRAID!

Bkenney27, do "Whistle a Happy Tune" instead. The theology is probably better.

I've been waiting for you to post that spreadsheet for years.

Your notes are hilarious.