Liturgy and Music: June 2003 Archives

The Collect for the Solemnity today is an impressively inverted piece of Latin. Anybody want to help me parse it?

Deus, qui huius diei venerandam sanctamque laetitiam in apostolorum Petri et Pauli sollemnitate tribuisti, da Ecclesiae tuae eorum in omnibus sequi praeceptum, per quos religionis sumpsit exordium.

The petition is pretty straightforward:"grant to thy Church to follow their teaching in all things, by whom (She) took up the beginning (i.e., the introduction) of religion."

The tough part is the first long clause (up to tribuisti). I'm not really confident about venerandam -- does it modify laetitiam along with sanctam? What does venerandam laetitiam mean? And where does the genitive huius diei fit in?

Now, this liturgical dance I like!

Adoremus in aeternum Sacratissimum Sacramentum!

A blessed Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ to all our readers (in countries where feasts are celebrated on the days assigned to them by the universal Roman calendar)!

I received this from another Latinate counterrevolutionary yesterday. It is part of a sermon on Pentecost by Fr. Anthony Brankin of St. Thomas More parish in Chicago. Fr. Brankin has been pastor there for 14 years. Cardinal Bernardin gave them permission about 10 years ago for an indult Tridentine Mass. About 300 people attend it every week.

"It is my firm conviction that the Catholic beauty that has been part of all of our lives for so long has not been accomplished just to adorn our buildings or to fill up some empty spaces. I am convinced that a wordless communication takes place between God and us—through the medium of visuals and aurals.

And nowhere is this seen more clearly than in this so-called Latin Mass—the words of which are really secondary when you think about it. It may be in Latin, but that Latin is either whispered or chanted—and only sometimes clearly spoken in a language that very few of us understand well. And yet because of the movements, the vestments, the candles, the orientation, the Gregorian chant, the hymns, could anyone deny that God is speaking and that his people are understanding?

Or have our hearts grown so cold and stony that what we see and hear at Mass— unless it is in baby English—says nothing to us? Have we become so modern that unless it is written down in a brochure—with simple words and phrases—we can understand nothing? Have we become so obtuse that nothing can pepenetrate our hearts unless it looks like a newspaper or a magazine?

Think of all our ancestors over all these years who saw the Beauties of the Catholic Faith and came thereby to know the True God —who heard the sublimities of Catholic music and understood exactly what was being preached without needing a line-by-line translation."

To read the whole sermon click below.

At CWN's Off the Record, Fr. Wilson mentions that the Anglican-use Book of Divine Worship is going to appear in print Real Soon Now. If the sample files on the web are any indication, it's going to be an attractive volume coming in at over 700 pages. Since I'm in San Antonio this week, I'm going to deliver an advance order to the publisher in person.

Update: At Sunday Mass on the 15th, Fr. Phillips said that the book is going to be over 1000 pages, and the price will likely be around $25! Send him an e-mail to let him know, as he says, "how many copies" you'll want.

By the way, get a look at the sanctuary of Our Lady of the Atonement Church.

While some of the pieces on the Ancient Echoes album are arrangements of Hebrew melodies transcribed by researcher Abraham Idelsohn about 100 years ago, most are not Middle Eastern: they're original work by Christopher Moroney, the leader of the performing group SAVAE. Perhaps the centerpiece of the album is his presentation of the Our Father, or from the first word of the Aramaic text, Abwoon ("Father"). This rendition starts with a minute of creepy group-chanting -- it would take a heart of stone not to laugh at it -- and goes on to a male voice pronouncing the text.

Here's the "translation" presented in the album notes:

O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos,
focus your light within us. Create your reign of unity now.
Your one desire then acts with ours,
as in all light, so in all forms.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Loose the cords of mistakes binding us,
as we release the strands we hold of others' guilt.
Don't let surface things delude us,
but free us from what holds us back.
From You is born all ruling will, the power and the life to do,
the song that beautifies all, from age to age it renews.
Truly -- power to these statements -- may they be the ground
from which all our actions grow. Amen.

That's from the modern Sufi author and Creation Spirituality teacher Neil Douglas-Klotz, whose book Prayers of the Cosmos inspired the album. Isn't it nice that we can get some insight from Sufis about what Jesus really meant?

Let's stop for a moment and remember that this is coming from the top publisher of parish music and missalettes, and it's being pitched to the liturgy types in your parish and mine.

Anyway, the drummers come in for a minute or so with some movin' beats, and then Mrs. Moroney ad libs her solo version of the text. Groovy, and no doubt very spiritual.

Continuing with the Ancient Echoes album, here are samples from a couple of pleasant secular numbers: Song of Seikilos, whose Greek tune and text were inscribed on a burial stele; and Arabian Dance, another tune collected by the musicologist Idelsohn. OK, readers, help me out: which opera does this little tune remind you of?

My buddy Dave Alexander blogs some interesting comments about liturgical dancing. Just one quick comment; I thought the joke was suppose to go "Why don't young Baptist newlyweds consummate their marriage standing up?"

I'm in San Antonio this week attending the Usenix technical conference, so
this is a good time for me to give a listen to an album by the San Antonio
Vocal Arts Ensemble, an early-music group based in this city.

"Ancient Echoes" (from World Library Publications -- yes, the missalette publisher) is an attempt to present some very early music: Jewish music as it might have been heard in the time of our Lord. Some of it's good, and some of it's not quite as good. Let's start with a sample.

Virgin-born, we bow before thee Setting by R. Vaughan William - click to download MP3

1. Virgin-born, we bow before thee:
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.
Blessed was the breast that fed thee;
Blessed was the hand that led thee;
Blessed was the parent's eye
That watched thy slumbering infancy.

2. Blessed she by all creation,
Who brought forth the world's salvation,
And blessed they - for ever blest,
Who love thee most and serve thee best.
Virgin-born, we bow before thee;
Blessed was the womb that bore thee;
Mary, Mother meek and mild,
Blessed was she in her Child.