Richard Chonak: August 2008 Archives

(On the reception of doctrine)

Good Teacher

Place your yoke upon our shoulders, for this yoke is gentle. May your doctrine, all radiant from your goodness, penetrate deeply within us!

Make us carry your burden, for this burden is light. May your commandments, far from encumbering us, enter into our life as your gentle good will!

Make us fulfill your law, for this law frees us and lifts us up. May we never complain of being chained by your word or your will, for you have wanted no chains but only those of love!

Make us take up your cross, for this cross is lighter, when it is carried by your own shoulders, and embraced by your generosity!

Engrave in us your image, whatever it may cost us, for in your heart every fatigue is changed into rest, and every pain becomes blessedness.

--by Jean Galot, S.J. (1919-2008); translation: RC

One good thing we used to do at my old engineering job was to look for "Lessons Learned" when projects failed.

Today, a friend let me know that her efforts to put some really nice music into her father's funeral this week weren't going anywhere. The rest of her family overruled her. They didn't want the lovely Bainton motet or the Faure In paradisum. They didn't care about the plainchant Mass ordinary. They wanted "the Irish Blessing", "Be Not Afraid", and "Precious Lord, Take My Hand".

This effort reminds me about the value of a gradualist approach. People accustomed to OCP songs can't be expected to accept Latin plainchant and polyphony. We know that. I know that. I'm sorry I didn't say so up front. I could have told her, your suspicions are right, dear: this program is overreaching, so aim lower!

It reminds me of Dr. Mahrt's talk last year (mp3, 45 min.), in which he described turning his parish's music program around radically when they hired him; it took years, but he made many of the Church's musical ideals a reality, all without introducing Latin. Making the music of the Mass beautiful is more important than making the text Latin; and in fact, making it beautiful in the present is the pre-requisite to getting acceptance for Latin in the future. So beauty is what we need to focus on, and changes need to be introduced gradually.

For an average funeral, the best one can do may be just to steer the parish music staff to somewhat better, more beautiful choices than they would normally make; for example:
-- to use a dignified Mass setting (Proulx or Vermulst instead of Haugen)
-- to replace a bunch of musical-theater ditties with three or four sweet classic hymns (they can even be a bit cloying, but people will like them, and they're better than what they replace)
-- to sing a real responsorial psalm instead of a non-Scriptural song
-- putting the not-so-great songs that you're compelled to include before the Mass or after it

And when we're not making the final decisions, which is most of the time, we're forced to pray the famous prayer of AA and the other 12-step groups: "Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change...."

Dealing with a big family of siblings, my friend had nowhere near a free hand this week in her efforts. I had things easier when arranging for my mother's funeral a few years ago. Since she and I were both converts, there weren't any other Catholics in the family to interfere in the process! Even then, I couldn't get the parish music director to agree to all those items above. But some improvement was better than no improvement.

So when you have a chance to influence your parish in the direction of good music, be aware of what you really can't do yet; and do what you can!

Spreading the Church's teaching on sacred music has to start with the people who run music programs, and for evidence that this work is needed, see this ad from craigslist:

Singers needed at church in Downtown Crossing (Boston)
Reply to: music@stanthonyshrine.org
Date: 2008-08-22, 9:38AM EDT

Contemporary Catholic music ministry in Downtown Crossing needs cantors!

Looking for trained, professional singers familiar with the Catholic Mass who can sing in a variety of styles - especially theatre/gospel/pop.

Must be able to sight-read and have great rhythm. Ability to play a solo instrument (sax, horn, guitar, piano, etc.) is a huge plus.

Also seeking subs for piano, drums, bass, guitar and trumpet.

Contact music@stanthonyshrine.org to set up an audition. Thanks!

Let's see how many deviations from proper ideals of sacred music there are in this one ad. Secular styles such as theatre and pop certainly don't belong in the sacred liturgy. The ad doesn't mention music for the organ, the one instrument the Church prefers above all others except the human voice. It seeks players for solo instruments: are we to imagine that the music at St. Anthony's Shrine will include solo riffs, as if the Mass were a jam session?

Assumption Day, the day on which we observe our Lady's entrance, body and soul, into Heaven, is a day of celebrating the victory that God, the faithful one above all others, gives to humanity redeemed in Christ.

The victory that God has given to us in Christ Jesus is unlike any liberation conceived by the great Eastern religions, for in Mary's assumption we see that the individual human person is not an illusion to be transcended; and the body is not a mere vehicle for a passage from birth to death. The human person, each human person, is willed into existence by God, is unique and unrepeatable, and will live forever; and is destined to live forever as both body and soul.

1950, the year of the Marian dogma, was the midpoint of a harsh century. Mankind was reeling from the great slaughters of 1914-1919 and 1939-1945; and was despairing in the face of the mass killings of the Nazi regime; the crimes of Communism were far from over, and the tragedy of mass abortion was nowhere in sight. The twentieth century's offenses against divine hope were many, and its crimes against the human body were many.

How necessary it was -- what a gift to humanity it was -- that Pope Pius XII of blessed memory solemnly and definitively affirmed the Assumption in 1950! It was St. Peter strengthening his brethren with a word of divine hope and faithfulness, a word of the God who loves mankind.

Last Sunday morning, while the chant group was practicing in the Cathedral lower church, a parishioner approached us and asked for help in finding the Spanish Mass.

We fumbled with our Spanish and told him the Mass was already underway in the upper church, so he headed on up to find it. But I should have said: well, we are la comunidad latinissima, if that's what you're looking for... :-)

One more reason to beware of the Pill: apparently it makes women feel attracted to men who are immunologically similar to them. According to a piece on LiveScience.com, that's not a good idea, because complementarity in your immune system genes is good for your kids -- and somehow, for the stability of the marriage!

The US bishops' conference Committee on Divine Worship is offering study materials on the new English-language Roman Missal texts, including a PDF file with the partial Mass Ordinary texts recently approved by Rome.

These translations are not coming to a parish near you any time soon, so there will be plenty of time to become familiar with them.

(Any composers want to get to work on musical settings? Go to it, and please do keep the Church's ideals and binding norms for liturgical music in mind.)

First Friday arrived for August the other day, and with it a new blog here at stblogs.org: Sr. Cora Lombardo has started the site Caritas Christi to share the depths of the love of God which are to be found in the Heart of Christ. Sr. Cora is a member of the religious community The Apostles of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and serves as the DRE at St. Paul Parish in West Haven, CT.