Jim's recent post The trouble with Catholic church music claims that Catholic musicians were given an extremely difficult if not impossible task by Vatican II:
What the liturgical music powers-that-be have taken away from passages such as this might be enumerated as the following principles of Catholic worship music:
Everyone should sing everything
People's music traditions should be incorporated into the liturgy.
What musicians did was to try to incorporate popular music traditions into the Four Hymn Mass: Entrance Hymn, Preparation Hymn, Communion Hymn, and Recession Hymn.
Many liturgists who are usually labeled as traditionalists would say that they ignored the Propers. The Propers are a set of chants called the Introit, Gradual, Offertory, and Communion that go back to the pre-Vatican II Mass. Those Chants still exist in updated forms in the Novus Ordo Latin Mass. They all consist of psalms with an antiphon which is usually a verse from the psalm.
The Responsorial Psalm as Model
What happened to the Gradual was that it became our familiar Responsorial Psalm which consists of simple response (usually a verse from the psalm) sung by the people repeated between several verses of psalm which are sung by the cantor. The Latin Gradual on the other hand is a complex antiphon that can only be sung by a cantor or trained choir between simple chant verses of the psalm which could be sung by the people in simple Gregorian chant.
Historically I would claim that the Psalms of the Propers were more important than the Proper Antiphons because they accompanied extended liturgical actions. In Rome the practice was to assemble at a different location just like we now do for the Palm Sunday procession. The antiphon accompanied the singing of the whole Entrance Psalm, perhaps even more than once. The people could learn the psalm verses since they were in simple chant. Likewise, the whole Offertory psalm would have been sung during the procession of the many gifts the people were donating to the poor. Similarly, the whole Communion Psalm was sung in the early Church when most people still received communion.
For a whole year I listened to these Sunday chants when doing my treadmill exercise. What I discovered is that they covered most of the psalms and rarely repeated any. We think of the Gradual Psalm as "song" but it can also be thought of as a reading since the psalms have long been considered wisdom for leading a Christian life. Simply most of the psalter was read/sung to the people in a year's time through the Propers. Since it was simple chant they could easily remember the words of the psalms. We know that at the same time this was being done in cathedrals, the monks who were going to the desert were praying the psalms or if they were in community were having the psalter read to them!
What might our Sunday Liturgy look like if we had psalms instead of hymns. Let me give you the example of the Introit/Entrance Psalms for this Week, the Third Sunday of Advent
The Latin Introit with Psalm 25 verse
An English Adaption of the Latin Introit with Verse
While I could not find an extended version of Psalm 25 with the proper antiphon for the Third Sunday of Lent, the same psalm is used for the Introit of the First Sunday of Advent with the Antiphon being the beginning words of the psalm "To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul" Most but not all the verses are sung with the Antiphon repeated between parts of the psalm.
Psalm 25 - To You, O Lord, I Lift My Soul - Francesca LaRosa (Official Lyric Video)
9,647 views / Nov 22, 2021
Evangelical Examples of Psalms
What would the Entrance Psalm be like if we followed the example of the Evangelicals. Here are three examples of videos of Psalm 25 sung by Evangelicals. Sometimes they choose a verse as a refrain. Other times the melody is simple enough that it could be picked up after listening a couple of times, or even partway through the psalm.
Psalm 25 Lyric Video | Exodus Road Band
46,904 views / Feb 14, 2017
Psalm 25, To You I Lift Up My Soul (a new musical setting)
Karl Kohlhase
18,736 views / Nov 15, 2014
As Jim reports, some parishes now have display screens which I assume could play these videos. For example, one could start one of these about fifteen minutes before Mass and play it again and again, perhaps with announcements in between.
The advantage of video is that they have enormous opportunities to celebrate the psalms with visual as well as auditory effects.
Anglican Examples of Psalms
Of course we could have followed the Anglican tradition. The following is Psalm 25 done by a choir in polyphonic Anglican Chant. I would be very interested to experience what the Mass would be like if the whole Mass (Entrance, Gradual/Responsorial, Offertory, and Communion) were done this way. It would not be very participatory, but it would likely be very impressive for people who like a very contemplative experience. Saint Thomas in New York does Vespers in a way that demands very little participation. They find it means the needs of their many visitors.
Psalm 25 "Unto Thee, O Lord, Will I Lift Up My Soul"
The Choir of Salisbury Cathedral -
2,724 views / May 7, 2021
This is an example of Anglican Chant that comes closer to plain chant. They sometimes use simple monophonic chant during Advent and Latin.
Psalm 25
David Jernigan conducts the Choirs of St. Thomas's Episcopal Church singing Psalm 25 to tone 1 with his own fauxbourdon setting
3,030 views / Jun 12, 2012
Bottom Line
My liturgy professor was fond of saying that liturgy is ritual, you do the same thing again and again. People have the right not to be surprised or confused. I think we should follow the early Church and get back to praying the psalms both in Church at Mass, and in our homes in the Divine Office. Many different types of music can help us pray the psalms. There is room for the people to sing both refrains and chant text, and there is room for cantors and choirs to both sing refrains and sing verses. When psalms are chanted in monastic choirs the verses are usually sung alternatively between two choirs, or between a cantor and the choir. I think it is less exhausting to sing that way than to be singing all the time.
The videos are lovely. We are familiar with that style of Psalm singing from having a lot of deacon events with Benedictine monks and nuns. I also have a CD set with the Anglican style.
ReplyDeleteSomehow i don't see the Psalm chanting really catching on at the parish level, at least not here.
I came across an interesting video of traditional unaccompanied Scots Gaelic psalm singing on the Isle of Lewis. This would be the Church of Scotland style of singing of the "Paraphrases", which are the psalms set to a rhyming meter. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k3MzZgPBL3Q
There are four ways Anglicans might do the Psalms, according to the BCP. I have never seen them sung except for at "fancy" services like weddings and funerals of VIPs. My notes are in brackets:
ReplyDeleteDirect recitation denotes the reading or chanting of a whole psalm, or
portion of a psalm, in unison. It is particularly appropriate for the psalm
verses suggested in the lectionary for use between the Lessons at the
Eucharist, when the verses are recited rather than sung, and may often be
found a satisfactory method of chanting them. [Once in awhile the Psalms would be read in unison like this.]
Antiphonal recitation is the verse-by-verse alternation between groups of
singers or readers; e.g., between choir and congregation, or between one
side of the congregation and the other. The alternate recitation concludes
either with the Gloria Patri, or with a refrain (called the antiphon) recited
in unison. This is probably the most satisfying method for reciting the
psalms in the Daily Office. [This was the method used for Tenebrae services, sometimes men and women on opposite sides of the Church or chapel.]
Responsorial recitation is the name given to a method of psalmody in
which the verses of a psalm are sung by a solo voice, with the choir and
congregation singing a refrain after each verse or group of verses. This
was the traditional method of singing the Venite, and the restoration of
Invitatory Antiphons for the Venite makes possible a recovery of this
form of sacred song in the Daily Office. It was also a traditional manner
of chanting the psalms between the Lessons at the Eucharist, and it is
increasingly favored by modern composers. [This has always been the custom in the local RCC parish. Because of bad acoustics and weak singing, you cannot hear the words of the Psalm clearly.]
Responsive recitation is the method which has been most frequently used
in Episcopal churches, the minister alternating with the congregation,
verse by verse. [This was pretty much the norm on Sundays in our EC parish. The Psalms have been rendered into poetry along Old English poetical lines. As in Old English poetry, each verse is made up of two alliterative half lines, read back and forth between lector/priest and congregation.]
Thus is a subject about which I know nothing. So … you all carry on and I will read and learn.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Jack. I could say many things. I don't have much time, so here are couple of thoughts in random order:
ReplyDelete* The four hymn mass (sometimes referred to as the "four hymn sandwich" is an important predecessor for what we do in Catholic worship today, even if there are now parishes (like ours) which don't sing many traditional hymns. It's worth noting that, for Catholic worship, the "four hymn sandwich" is a pre-Vatican II development that nevertheless grew out of the same liturgical movement which, later in the century, birthed the reforms of Vatican II. Jack, you make a great point that the four hymns more or less replaced the traditional use of psalmody in the Catholic worship books (I say "in the books" rather than "in worship" because, in practice, I don't think the psalms actually were sung in Catholic parishes, save perhaps at High Mass?).
Really, it's fair to say that the use of music in many/most Catholic parishes for weekend masses consists of three main components, which I think were successively layered into the "low mass" model which was dominant then:
* First came the four hymns (entrance hymn, offertory hymn, communion hymn and recessional hymn)
* Then we added sung mass prayers (Lord Have Mercy, Glory to God, Holy Holy, Eucharistic Acclamation, Amen, Our Father, Lamb of God)
* Finally, we started singing responsorial psalm and Gospel Acclamations
In the 1960s, we sang actual hymns, like "Praise to the Lord the Almighty", for the four hymns For the mass prayers, we sang Jan Vermulst's People's Mass, which was well-suited for organ.
As I recall, we didn't sing the Responsorial Psalm or Alleluia at first; we recited them. When they began to be sung (which required the introduction of a cantor, which was novelty in the places where I worshiped), they were sung to pointed/chanted English texts by composers like Richard Proulx and Lucien Deiss.
(Cont.)
(Cont.)
DeleteWhat was left out of this development was the actual chant literature of the church, not to mention more exalted forms like polyphony. In my view, there were a lot of reasons for this:
* The chants were in Latin, and the people left Latin behind, faster and more completely than the Council Fathers seemed to have anticipated
* Apart from the Latin/vernacular issue, the chants were not well-suited for people to sing, even the antiphons. Jack's first video link above is a good example why. Even for people who have learned instruments or sung in choirs, chant with its square notes, its odd-sounding modes, its melismatic flourishes - it's beautiful to listen to when it's done well, but it's just *different*. Western music has gone in a different direction. It would take a very stable, very committed group of worshipers to commit to singing traditional chant. Such communities do exist (e.g. Latin Mass parishes), but I don't think it's realistic for a typical parish to tackle it.
* The Catholic church is a very big, very broad organization. The "rules" for using music are flexible enough to allow for many different situations. There are Catholic faith communities (e.g. some monasteries) which do the traditional chant; there are some (e.g. college Newman Centers) which do very contemporary music; there are many parishes that do music which immigrants have brought from other countries; and so on. There are parishes where the people sing almost nothing (and the rules permit this); and there are place where the people sing just about everything which they're permitted to sing. (And then there are places like ours where, on a good day, about half the people sing anything at all.)
"i don't think the psalms actually were sung in Catholic parishes, save perhaps at High Mass" Jim, at least in my experience , that is correct. When I was growing up we occasionally had a high Mass, on feast days. But no Psalm singing, and (!maybe) four hymns. It's weird that some traditionalists disdain the 'four hymn sandwich" because it actually was pretty traditional.
DeleteI suppose daily Masses are "low", because we rarely have music for those. But now we always sing the responsorial Psalm and the Mass prayers for the weekend.
I guess a question to be answered is, "Why don't parishes sing the appointed psalms for the entrance, the offertory and the communion?" As Jack's post wonderfully illustrates, there are many options to do so. I don't think there is a good answer to that question, except: sometime in the 1950s and 1960s, Catholic parishes moved away from the psalms; we started consuming the "four hymn sandwich" instead. And then inertia kicked in. Don't underestimate inertia. Parishes hired music directors who played organ or guitar, and so those parishes learned songs that were accompanied by organ or guitar. When, 20-25 years later, that music director left or retired, the current pastor looked around and said, "I don't want to change the music program; I have too many other battles on my hands at the moment". So then he hires someone with a similar philosophy as the previous director. And we continue on along the same vector we've been on for decades.
DeleteI shouldn't say chant isn't used. It's just not used by the people (except for Our Father and Agnus Dei - a lot of parishes know how to chant those). But some priests seem to chant their parts, such as the preface to the Eucharistic Prayer, or the Opening Prayer. And many chant, "The mystery of faith".
DeleteI was looking in my old missal; it appears that the gradual and the tract were between the Epistle reading and the Gospel, and that they were taken from the Psalms. So they occupied the same space that the responsorial Psalm does now. It's been a long time and I'm not remembering if they were chanted on Sunday. They probably were in places that were a little less remote than where we were.
DeleteKatherine, I am older than you and was in college when the mass changed to English, the only thing most of us ( the students) noticed because liturgy was not of great interest to most of us. But I am quite sure that no psalms were chanted in either my small, rural parish, or in the big city parish of my first ten years of life. (Very little music at all.) Nor were they chanted in my Catholic college at the Sunday mass. The nuns did chant something ( the psalms I assume) at the 6 am weekday mass that I went to a few times.
DeleteIn my parish before Vatican II, there were four Masses. Only the last one was a High Mass, sung very poorly by a men's choir. During the week the Masses were High Masses (for which you paid $5 rather than $1) and were sung by a woman organist again very poorly. On every day which was not a feast day (there were more feasts then) the Mass would be a Requiem Mass.
ReplyDeleteOnly on several occasions did I experience a Solemn High Mass with deacon and subdeacon. Neither people nor choirs had much experience with chant. There were in various places some heroic attempts before Vatican II to do chant well, e.g., the occasional grade or high school that had a good music teacher.
The reality is the before Vatican II, although there was some training in Latin and chant in seminaries, we never did would the Orthodox do, i.e., their seminaries are total daily immersion in the liturgy since their priests are expected to be able to sing the entire Mass, i.e., to train choir members in the parish! The Divine Liturgy requires at least several choir members.
Jack, m a bit confused. High masses were a very rare event at my pre- Vatican II parishes. Maybe twice/ year. Never at weekday masses as far as I know. What do you mean that you paid $5 for them and $1 for not high masses? Requiem masses were only for funerals. Music was minimal at all but high masses, when someone sang, but I don’t remember if it was an individual or a choir.
DeleteI have not attended Orthodox liturgies regularly as you have. But I have attended several over the years because of my Greek Orthodox friend. The only people who sang were the cantors and the priests. The congregation didn’t sing, and I don’t think there was ever a choir either.
DeleteEverything depends upon access to musical talent. We had a woman organist who knew how to sing who lived a block from the church. The stipend (donation) for a Low Mass was $1. There were little envelopes. I guess the large stipend included money for the organist.
DeleteOne could have any (Sunday, feast day) Mass said for the intention of the deceased. However when there was not an obligatory celebration, the Mass for the Dead could be said and usually was. Since you were not an altar boy, you probably did not go to many weekday Masses.
The Greek tradition is strongly oriented toward cantors. Not so the Russian tradition which has mostly polyphony and is oriented toward choirs. The Russian tradition was more influenced by Western music, especially at the Imperial Count at Saint Petersburg. Most of the music sung in English in Russian Orthodox parishes derives from there.
So, the stipends at your parish were for the organist? They were volunteers at my parishes - both childhood and adult parishes. As were the cantors and choir members. All volunteers. Only the Director of the Music Ministry was paid - and only at the big suburban parishes I belonged to in DC. The small, mountain parish didn’t have a paid choir director. Another volunteer. The choir only sang at Christmas and Easter as I recall. People did give a large stipend for weddings and funerals to the organist/vocalist. I went to daily mass frequently as an adult. There was no music at all - which I prefer - one reason I went to mass on weekdays instead of Sundays.
DeleteLiving in the DC suburbs, we have lots of access to music - professionals, junior college, and university. But I think that most of the future volunteer choir members get their training in high school choirs. If the schools don’t have band, orchestra and choir programs then most kids aren’t really exposed. Private music lessons are expensive for families and so most kids don’t get music training if it’s not available at school. As Jean notes, few average parishioners can read music, so if the congregation is to sing, they need easy to learn music that doesn’t require a big range, and it must be repeated frequently enough that they memorize it.
Yeah their are still Mass stipends (suggested but not mandated) if you have a Mass said for someone's intention (usually deceased). In our parish the slots fill up fast. I wanted to have a Mass said for my dad on his birthday , but that day was already taken so I chose a different day. Those Masses for the dead are really not requiem Masses, which are nowadays called the Mass of Christian burial.
DeleteIn my experience the organists or cantors do not get a cut of the Mass stipends, which are pretty low anyway, ten dollars or less.
My choir group has sung for funerals a few times, and we did get a fee from the funeral home. I suppose that is bundled into their cost.
Jim says:
ReplyDeleteI guess a question to be answered is, "Why don't parishes sing the appointed psalms for the entrance, the offertory and the communion?"
I think the answer is that the bishops decided to stay out of the music business and let the marketplace of music publishers and musicians do its work. There is more money to be made in hymns than in psalms for starters for both publishers and musicians.
For a while it appears the church in many places used a combination of a cantor and an organist/pianist to lead the music. Betty was a part of that. She took all the NPM training, did several Masses each weekend in different parishes. The money she made enabled her to travel regularly to the NPM meetings and trainings. Our diocese changed its policy deciding to require only the paying of the accompanist, and not cantors or choir members. Betty and others were left at mercy of music directors and accompanists who often have very little voice training.
Betty has a very good voice (at one NPM Mass, Joncas was standing next to her, and told her she could sing in his choir any time). However. she has had a lot of poor musical directors, e.g., one had her sing alto because she could, when she is a soprano.
We get what the music market at all levels gives us and a lot of that is mediocre. We would probably need a lot of cantors who can both sing well and lead a congregation in singing to implement the psalms. They would probably sing more than one Mass and would need to be paid. In a large parish, coordinating them and the accompanists would require a choir director with special training. In many parishes that person has invested a lot of time in choir of volunteers.
Just a sidetrack, but given the degraded state of music instruction in public schools (and it was even worse at The Boy's Catholic school), isn't it awfully hard to find music directors or even choir members who can read music?
ReplyDeleteLarge numbers of people just don't have a lot of musical training anymore. I'd say most people cannot read music unless they learn it at school or took music lessons. And given the dispirited if not grudging way people sing at Mass, I'd say there isn't much interest in it.
One of my beefs with CCD was that it never, at any time, gave the kids any info on the Church's art, music, or language. It was all just joyless workbooks. We filled in info about the saints, the art and iconography, and some medieval music at home.
But we were not cradle Catholics, so The Boy may not have gotten a very orthodox slant on things.
Music instruction varies from school district to school district depending upon the affluence of the district.
DeleteMusic instruction is available at our local community college. They do that in conjunction with a local private fine arts school. For example, I took a group singing class there, and then contracted with the instructor for private music lessons which were held there on campus. I also took a music theory class. There is an associate degree major in music. Our community college has many courses about many things, I have taken courses in computers, photography, art, etc.. Seniors can audit them for mainly the price of books which sometimes are not cheap.
Our parish grade school has some music instruction. I think the local Catholic high school also has music instruction.
Parishes have very different traditions about singing. Once a parish gets a tradition of singing it tends to maintain it with people who want to sing going there, and joining the choir there, and the parish recruiting talented music ministers.
There are both upward and downward spirals. Parishes are very parochial, they have their own cultures. I have gone to parishes where no one but the choir seems to sing.
A new priest can change the culture but only slowly. Commonly priests are told to change nothing in the first year. However young priests often ignore those warnings. What happens is that the parish changes with some people leaving and other people arriving, especially from the priest's last parish. A lot of parish hopping here in suburbia.
There is some difficulty in getting music talent. There is often not a lot of local talent but here in Cleveland there is a lot of professional talent from abroad. Our parish for the last several years employed a young woman from Taiwan who is a graduate of the Cleveland music school. Very find pianist and organist. Not Catholic but very eager to learn and please. The area has fine music resources, the Cleveland Orchestra, Oberlin College, etc.
In the public high school I attended, our music groups did a lot of sacred music, mostly classical and Renaissance. Of course those classes were elective. But they were always filled up.
DeleteBoth the public and Catholic high schools here have good music programs. There is no shortage of people who can read vocal music. What there is, is a shortage of keyboardists. A lot of kids don't take piano lessons anymore. But band is very popular in the schools.
Professional talent in urban areas is great. But if the issue is enhancing depth of worship with music at the parish level across the board, that type of talent isn't going to do it.
DeleteI can listen to nice church music on YouTube, and it just makes me more dissatisfied with the music at my own parish.
But maybe that's not your point, though?
Band is often a good niche for kids who aren't jocks. My older son played trombone in high school and made some good friends in band. It's okay to be a little nerdy there!
DeleteI guess my question for Jack is that the info about Psalm singing is interesting. But, in light of what seems to be viewed by this group as a decline in the quality and enthusiasm for liturgical music, how does a parish with limited resources and talent reinvigorate that?
DeleteThe local parish has two guys who play guitar at Mass in the same kind of hootenanny style they play country down at the local bar. A few women join in the choruses (at Mass and the bar). And that's the "choir."
I'd like to see CCD or whatever it's called now include some appreciation for Church aesthetics. My guess is that kids might enjoy this, and you might eventually build support for better music.
Jean One of my beefs with CCD was that it never, at any time, gave the kids any info on the Church's art, music, or language.
DeleteWell, I am a cradle Catholic who went to CCD from 5th through high school graduation. We were never given info on anything to do with aesthetics or language. CCD was a total waste of time as I recall. Mass was still in Latin then.
My kids went to CCD for varying times in elementary school. There was no attempt to teach them anything about religious art, music or language. I’m actually not sure what you mean by the church’s “language”. Nor did they receive instruction in Catholic religious aesthetics in the Catholic schools they attended in middle school and high school. The youngest didn’t go to a Catholic high school but to an Episcopal school. Religion was a requirement, but they also did not provide instruction in liturgical music or art. They had chapel every week, but it wasn’t a full liturgy. I’m guessing that only 20% or so of the students were Episcopalians.
There certainly wasn't any emphasis on the arts, ecclesial or secular, in the Catholic grade school I attended. Keep in mind that parish schools then were different than "prep" schools, or private svhools run by a religious order. They ran on a shoestring, most charging minimal tuition. The one in my hometown didn't charge any tuition, just a fifty dollar "book fee". Russia had just launched Sputnik, and the emphasis was on serious academics, math, reading, grammar, and, did I mention math? And of course religion. There wasn't any money or time for frills. Except, some parents thought there ought to be space for the arts. My Mom taught music on Friday as a volunteer. She didn't have a teaching certificate, but she was well qualified to do so. Another mom, who had an art degree, taught art, also on Friday, also as a volunteer. I liked Fridays.
DeleteAnd of course one can't forget the women religious who taught in the school for the princely stipend of $75 a month.
So, I gather that, in the past, there was no special appreciation taught for art or music or the language of the liturgy in Catholic schools or CCD.
DeleteIs it true that this appreciation did exist anyhow and resulted in good music programs with lots of participation and parish support?
If so, what is going on now that has changed among Catholics? Jim, in his previous post, noted that the family gathered to sing around the piano, is a thing of the past.
Do we need to look at a new way of teaching the kids about art, music, and the language of the liturgy? Always with an eye on the mission of the Church, which is to bring people closer to Christ, not entertain them.
I don’t remember any particular “appreciation “ of art, music or the language of the liturgy (especially when it was still in Latin) at any time in my years of Catholic parish life. Plus, it’s hard to respond because defining “good” music programs in the Catholic liturgy has been a heated area of disagreement in the liturgy wars for decades now. There is no universally accepted definition of “good music” in parishes in the Catholic Church. My memories of music in my parishes are fuzzy. Before Vatican II, there was little music - especially not much congregational singing, except Christmas carols before mass at Christmas. . The hymns I remember from my childhood are a couple of Marian hymns, which I hated, and Holy God We Praise Thy Name. Not fond of that one either. I only remember those I hated. If there were “ good” hymns, they weren’t good enough to stay in my memory. After VII, the easy to sing music (mostly based on the psalms) of St Louis Jesuits and a couple of other composers seemed to get more of the congregation singing. I much preferred those to Oh Mary We Crown Thee with Blaaahsoms Today.
DeleteBut those who want classical music performances during mass hate the St Louis Jesuits and their contemporaries.
Art? Never heard a word about it during my decades of being Catholic. But I think most “art” in Catholic parish Churches, especially the statues, is pretty awful. Better to minimize it and use only a few, well- done, pieces, not the stuff that looks like it came from a cheap tourist trap gift shop near famous religious sites that the tour bus pulled into while traveling from shrine to shrine in Europe.
I guess Bishop Barron has a series on sacred art and the importance of beauty in religion. Maybe I'll check it out sometime. Maybe not, too.
DeleteI had to laugh when my younger son and daughter in law were getting married ( in 2005). They said they wanted "traditional" music. Turned out what they were thinking of was St. Louis Jesuits, and songs like "On Eagle's Wings".
The plaster statues of the past may not have been the greatest, but I'll take them over some of the ones from the 60s and 70s that were stylized and cranky looking and could have used a little color.
The St Louis Jesuits' music has certainly enhanced the faith by giving us crosses to bear.
DeleteIn the defense of St. Louis Jesuit songs, they are all Scripture based. They gave a generation of Catholics an acquaintance with the Psalms and OT readings.. They may not be be musically particularly sophisticated, but they work as a teaching tool, sometimes without people realizing that they are being taught.
DeleteWell, I guess their songs were a cross I was happy to bear. Singable, easily understood, they don’t sound drone-y. But I came of age during the folk music era, and I have very happy memories of sitting around with friends in college, and during summers on the beach on the lake where I grew up, singing folk songs for hours. There were always two or three people who could play acoustic or folk guitar, so we would sing, and talk, and have a beer or two, and then sing some more. Those few years were a happy interlude in my life, and I guess I associate folk style music with that happy time. So I liked the STL Jesuits and friends hymns so much better than the few hymns I remember from my 1950s and 1960s childhood parishes. A far cry from Mozart or Gregorian chant (which I never heard in my parishes anyway), but those hymns were quite meaningful for me. Robert Barron probably hates them. Too lowbrow for him. But he wasn’t a 60s kid.
DeleteMany of the folk songs of the late 60s were addressing serious subjects, especially war, because of Viêt Nam. They were a simple and successful way to convey some important messages that got through to people more effectively than most speeches or lectures about the war.
DeleteAs Katherine notes, the STL Jesuit era songs did much the same, and millions of people have always remembered certain passages of scripture or the psalms because of those hymns. Including me.
I don't know who Robert Barron is. I miss the hymns in the Episcopal Church. Many are in the RCC hymnal, but they are very rarely sung. I suppose that the music with which we have happy associations or were played at weddings and funerals are the ones we become attached to. Dad was very proud of being Welsh, and I find Tom Jones's version of "Danny Boy" hard to get through, though for most people it is unwatchable because it is really godawful. Screws up the words and doesn't sing the last verse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i_W2q843_0
DeleteHallelujah! There is at least one Catholic in America who has been spared the acquaintance of Bishop Robert Barron! Lucky you. But you actually might like him - he’s really big on the art, music etc - the “aesthetics” - of Catholicism through the ages. If he were EC he would be High Church for sure. He fancies himself as the 21st century Bishop Sheen.
DeleteThe American Congregations Study researched a random sample of congregations of all denomination. They discovered that the principle weekly service of about 95% of them included congregational singing and a sermon. These included many small “store front” churches with congregations of less than fifty people. There are a lot of them!
ReplyDeleteSince congregation singing and a sermon are the standard for American worship, it is interesting how little resources Catholicism has put into either music or homilies. No wonder we are failing to attract people or keep the ones we have now. They can generally find something better elsewhere.
The general strategy for the American Church has been to invest in church schools and religious education. That may have worked to a certain degree when there were a lot of nuns. They did more to keep Catholics than the priests. Most of the discussion in the decades since Vatican II has NOT been about how can we have better homilies and music but rather how can we provide religious education programs for youth and more recently for adults.
With Andrew Greeley I think religion is more about better poetry (good music, homilies, and art) than about better prose.
Greeley's book, The Catholic Imagination, resonated with me. His studies indicated, to the extent you can quantify these things, that Catholics value the fine arts more than other denominations.
DeleteWhether his insights are still true, I doubt.
Catholicism now seems to be more about "preserving" Church teaching from "modernity" (which = liberals, progressives, homosexuals, pro-abortion politicians, Democrats, and fellow travellers) and maintaining the purity of the faithful by withholding communion from the ever dwindling number of True Believers.
This leaves very little energy for contemplation of the beauties of the Church's art and music, or even the poetry in the old Latin liturgy.
As for trying to woo converts by competing with the storefront preachers with their Jumpin Jesus hymns and extempore sermons, that strikes me as cheapening Catholic traditions. Bad enough they encouraged the charismatic.
I think Catholics get good press and inspire people when they feed the poor, visit the sick, comfort the dying, and generally look for ways to reach out in love to others. It's easy to pound a pulpit and condemn.
Jean, I agree with you that we can't compete by imitating the storefront churches, because that's not who we are. They have a place, and reach some people who otherwise would not be reached. But maybe "compete" isn't even the right word. We need to reach out in the ways we can, that you mentioned.
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