I'm off
Later today I meet up with my wife in Charlotte, NC and then fly to Charleston, SC for a nice long weekend. Hopefully there won't be any liturgical abuses to report. Last time I was in Charleston, a presider changed the "Through Him, with Him, in Him" to "Through Christ, in Christ and with Christ."
As if we won't know to whom the Him is referring. Or is any use of "him" not good? Amazing.
Thrown Back is back, and this time he has a literary agent
And Fr. Bob Johansen promises it will be "more incisive, more in-depth, and more worth-reading!"
I need to get something off my chest. It's been a large burden to me for a long time, and I feel like I'd be better off "confessing" it to St. Blog's Parish rather than keep it inside.
I really love daily Masses with no music. Or very, very simple music. There's a couple of reasons, but first and foremost - parish musicians, who have responsibility for the quality of the music and for the music selections, tend to not be able to separate themselves from those duties, even at a Mass they are simply participating it. Heck, I was trained to have a critical ear about music and performance at all times. Any trained musician struggles with this at some point: you can't just sing, play or participate. There's always a critical ear, whether it's to style or execution. And if you are looking for communion with God, the last thing you want is to be wondering - why the heck are we singing this schlock? It's not even the right words for the memorial acclamation. (That very thing happened to me at a Monday evening Mass recently.)
So for those of you who feel like music must be done everywhere, at every Mass, somehow: sometimes music ministers need a break. Our training handicaps us in some ways: if I'm going to strive for quality on Sundays I can't just turn that off and listen to the congregation howl thru "Let There Be Peace on Earth" on the Monday of the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary time. Every Sunday we are responsible for the organ, the choir, the repertiore, the timing, the tempos: everything that allows Joe Congregant to engage in full and active participation in the liturgy. Sometimes we need a little quiet time where our minds are free from our normal ministry.
A related issue from a singing standpoint: based on my training, I have a very loud voice. I was trained to fill concert halls and opera houses - which means if I'm going to sing "Here I am Lord" during daily Mass and use my normal voice, the people directly in front of me will have their ear wax dislodged in no time. If I try to sing soft or like the folks around me, it can be very uncomfortable. After long periods, it can even hurt my throat. So - if I'm really going to sing in the congregation, I'm happy to have no one in front of me and a few people scattered around me. After all, I don't want to stick out in the same way that the person who does the Our Father slower than everyone else does...
I'd love to know your thoughts. In the mean time, please understand: daily Mass can be quiet, peaceful and without much music. And music ministers need a little quite time around the Eucharist as well.
Hydrogen-Powered Cars
And other things you've never thought a Republican would talk about are all part of the State of the Union address going on as I type.
Tonight I am proposing 1.2 billion dollars in research funding so that Americacan lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.
I'm actually all for alternative fuels considering how crazy oil makes the world, but it sure sounds like Ralph Nader is president... It's going to be really hard to out-flank a republican who makes proposals like this.
Yesterday's Gospel reading for Mass
If you found it a bit confusing, then Padre Tucker can help.
Cool Catholic Trivia
This is in the "who knew?" category:
JOHN PAUL II BLESSES BABY LAMBS ON FEAST OF ST. AGNES
VATICAN CITY, JAN 21, 2003 (VIS) - This morning in the Apostolic Palace,
following a centuries-old tradition, Pope John Paul blessed several lambs
whose wool will be used to make the palliums bestowed on new metropolitan
archbishops on the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles.
In a 1978 document, "Inter Eximina Episcopalis," Pope Paul VI restricted
use of the pallium to the Pope and to metropolitan archbishops. In 1984
John Paul II decreed that the pallium would be conferred on the
metropolitans on the June 29th solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.
The custom of blessing the lambs takes place every year on the January 21
liturgical memory of St. Agnes, a virgin who suffered martyrdom about 305
A.D. and whose symbol is a lamb. She is buried in the basilica named for
her in Rome on the Via Nomentana and after the papal blessing the lambs are
brought to this basilica.
The lambs are raised by the Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three
Fountains and the palliums are made by the Sisters of St. Cecelia from the
newly-shorn wool.
RC in DC
I met Richard Chonak in the flesh today! He came and sang with my choir. One of the ladies said "I hope he's staying around - he has a great voice!" Too bad he'll return to the snowy northeast later this week.
For you chant buffs out there - he said that my interpretation of the plainchant Gloria was downright spritely compared with my comments of late...
Deliver us, Lord, from all cheddar
Cantors - sometimes they take away more than the give. They key thing for a cantor to understand is that it's not about them or how they feel the music. They need to communicate words and invite the congregation to join in where appropriate. Extra movement, like the body sway just before you come in, just distracts people. The grandiose opening of the hand as a prepartory motion is just theatrical. I know a cantor that does a little bounce in her knees when people are supposed to come in. Again, it's just distracting and unnecessary.
The key mistake cantors make is thinking they have to "animate" the congregation. When the attitude is that you need to warm up the crowd rather than lead prayer, you'll always do things that take away from the prayer. Cantors are not the opening act for the priest.
Make a Joyful Chant Unto the Lord
Good comments below in the post about chant. I agree there are some chants that are exuberant. Lots are more subtle expressions of the sacred. And nearly all are much more subtle than whole chunks of music in today's repertiore: from the contemporary back to many english anthems written in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and even back to Beethoven and Bach.
It's the quietness of chant that many people have a problem with. Liturgists that measure participation in decibels are never happy with chant. People in the congregation, who by no fault of their own are totally ignorant of chant and have never sung it are often taken aback by it. It takes time to get used to simple melodies that are so different from the rest of the music sung in our parishes today. And still you'll have the "On Eagle's Wings" lovers say chant is boring.
Chant is quite liberating - it carries none of the cultural baggage that is part of today's repertiore. Little by little we do more chant at our parish, and people are getting more comfortable with it.
That's an interesting question...
The Accidental Choir Director has an interesting question on his blog:
why can't we sing chant as energetically as praise and worship music? Isn't chant joyful?
Well - no. Chant is not particularly joyful. Chant expressed with very subdued emotion the sacred from within us. In that respect it's counter-cultural, non-Romantic, utterly different from the mundane music that has made it's way into the liturgy. The energy of a chant is prayer expressed in a very different way than, for example, Evangelicals at a worship service. It's not as much a theological difference, simply a cultural difference in the type of expression.
Where people fail in the execution of chant is often around the tempo and style. Chant sung too slowly or not smoothly ceases to be an effective prayer just as hymns that are too slow or too fast do. Slow chant is a "dirge" or "no fun" or even worse "boring." Fast chant doesn't happen tool much since it's human nature to sing somewhat slower if you're not following an accompanist. The cantor becomes the leader in a chant and shouldn't be afraid to keep it moving.
Of course there's the crowd that thinks anything written before 1960 is boring. To address that point: Amy Welborn has a post today that states it very simply. It's not about boring, it's about prayer and encouraging prayer.
And that means there are times where one needs to get over their tastes and just pray.
Someone will have a field day with this...
Sharpton to Form Presidential Exploratory Committee
Headline from The Onion, or from Fox News? You'll have to click to find out.
More on Jazz in church
Lots of discussion on Sing of the Lord's Goodness below.
I don't think the piece is so hard to sing. The rhythm is catchy. It is a little high for your average person.
The catch is: the sound of it and its connotation. Close your eyes and sing the song - are you in church, or some smokey club, working on your 2nd G&T and smoking menthol cigarettes? Are you wearing a stupid hat and sunglasses even though it's 11pm? Do you have a bag of weed under the passenger seat?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you understand the cultural baggage of jazz and why it's non-liturgical, even anti-liturgical music.
Or it could just be extra-liturgical music. Maybe this town needs a group of Jazz musicians who are dedicated Christians.
Jazz for Jesus.
If I Was a Pastor
***begin tirade***
I would ban "Sing of the Lord's Goodness" from my parish. It's a crappy jazz knock-off and the pronouns in the "inclusive language" version change so often it doesn't even make sense. God help us if a tambourine player shows up to bang away at it.
***end tirade***
Watch out, Roma!
The Cranky Professor is in Rome. For those of you who would like to live vicariously through him he's posting updates from Internet Cafes.
Taize
Did you know that "Taize" rhymes with "Bichon Frise?" You get extra points if you know what a Bichon Frise is (hint: it is not served at French Restaurants.)
Amy Welborn has a post about the music of Taize:
I'm moved to observe that if We, the Church, dumped most of the liturgical music written since 1965, not to speak of about half of what was written the century or so before and is still sung, and replaced it all with Taize music, a huge bunch of our liturgical problems would be solved immediately, don't you think?
As of the evening of the 2nd, there's over 26 comments about it. Fundamentally, I disagree with her on replacing all the current music with Taize. Not because contemporary music isn't crappy, but rather because Taize is best used for processions vs. anytime during the Mass.
Good things about Taize:
It's repetitive. Sacred sounding by and large because of it's simplicity. Easy to learn. Doesn't have any cultural baggage attached to it.
Bad things about Taize:
It's repetitive. So simple it sometimes sounds like it belongs in a kindergarten class. So easy to learn it's frowned upon by groups of culturally educated folk. So "clean" from a cultural standpoint it lacks personality or passion.
Taize has it's place: it's best use is any long processions during a liturgy (communion, veneration of the cross, etc.) But there's all sorts of great stuff for that time as well. The other fun part about Taize is it can be absolutely nerve-wracking for the countless Americans who like to control their own destiny, or at least know when the hymn is going to end. 5 verses total - it's over after five (if you sing them all.) So you'll do at least one and no more than five. Much of the music of Taize is sung over and over again.
I'm with Amy on dumping lots of the stuff written since 1965. I just think there's other stuff out there that works just fine. And - the "dumping" process needs to be very gradual. More on that another time.
Prayers
During the weekend, please keep the Youth Apostles in your prayers as they are on retreat.
