Liturgy and Music: August 2004 Archives

The communion song at St. Mary's took me back to college, and not in a good way. The song (not a "hymn," to be sure) was "We Are Called," one of the favorite campfire songs at our folk masses on campus.

Normally, since these songs can detract from basking in the presence of God, I steel myself to ignore them, but one lyric has stayed with me: "We are called to love tenderly."

Are we? I wondered. I've spent over three decades on earth and maybe I haven't loved tenderly enough. So I investigated the matter, and found that the phrase "love tenderly" is mostly found on Catholic Web sites, citing Micah 6:8 as the source text.

So the Bible tells us to love tenderly, eh. I immediately resolved to do so, and frequently. Yet I still had a nagging doubt. I went to the excellent (Protestant) English Bible Gateway to look at various translations of Micah 6:8, and after looking through most of them, I did not see "love tenderly."

I suspected that loving tenderly must be a Catholic thing -- you know, like translating Gabriel's words to Mary as "full of grace" instead of "most highly favored one." Yes, that must be it. I opened the New American Bible and found...

You have been told, O man, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.

Hmm. That was pretty much how the Protestant translators rendered the verse, too. Could it be that David Haas messed around with the words? That instead of the imperative "love mercy" or "love goodness," depending on the Bible version, he changed it to the less direct "We are called to love tenderly"?

This is a small example of lex orandi, lex credendi, that how one prays determines how one believes. Haas took a strong, masculine passage from Micah about man's obligations to the God of Israel and made it into a wimpy suburban anthem to the God of Nice. Today there are Catholic organizations -- including at least one archdiocese -- that quote the lyrics of "We Are Called" as if they are the words of the Prophet Micah himself.

Plato regarded bad music as the biggest threat to an ideal society, because it appeals directly to the passions and can override the intellect. In contemporary American Catholicism, traditionalists often treat folk music as a symptom of many parishes' mediocre spiritual life. I wonder if it isn't a primary cause.

Two excerpts from the Dvorak Stabat Mater concert I sang in a few weeks ago: first, the chorus alone on Tui nati vulnerati. Then tenor soloist Martin Kelly and the chorus on Fac me vere tecum flere.

I wrote something about this last Thursday, but the Prince of Darkness attacked my cable modem just as I submitted the post, and it was lost into the ether.

Continuing today's Latin theme (that's lingua Latina, not Enrique Iglesias), our parish had a majority-Latin Mass two Sundays ago. Father Poumade — parochial vicar, godfather to my younger son, and all-around sacerdotal superstar — was the celebrant. My wife was one of the four women making up the scola who sang most of the music, and they all sounded lovely.

I asked Father about the reaction from parishioners. "The response has been nothing but overwhelmingly positive so far," he said. "I received many compliments and not a single complaint after the Mass itself — except for those who complained that they wanted even more Latin and that we hadn't used enough of it.

"I was really surprised at the wide amount of enthusiasm — I expected some would be supportive, but [seeing] that there are so many people, both young and old, who are actually enthusiastic about it was a welcome surprise."

Someone asked me if I saw people walk out, and from my angle it was hard to tell, but I didn't see anyone leave. A large teenage girl standing behind me suddenly collapsed onto my back and then fell behind my pew, but I do not think it was a toxic reaction to the non-vernacular Eucharistic prayer. (She was fine by the end of Mass.)

Hopefully, St. Mary's will follow up with more Latin in the liturgy, because it does assist in giving a sacred atmosphere to the Mass. My older son Charlie described it as "holy language," which is a pretty good insight; I hope our fellow churchgoers share it.

For those of you first timers to CL or frequent visitors with short-term memory problems, my parish did a big ol' survey on our music program. I'll put up more complete results, but here's some nuggets for you.

We got 114 surveys back over two weeks. Our church building fits around 800 total. The good news is the average score for whether singing is latin "helps me pray" got a 3.5 out of a possible five. The distribution of answers is pretty telling: lots of 5's, lots of 1's. Still - 3.5 out of 5 is pretty significant.

We did have a section for narrative comments. Some are helpful, some are the rantings of people with... how do I put this diplomatically... significant psychological issues bordering on paranoia.

One gentlement said the music at our Mass was dreary, not good for his small children and why don't the choirs get switched around since there are so many children at our Mass. I guess hymns and chants are not suitable for a "family" liturgy - give them to the old geezers who are up for the early Mass or maybe for the midday hangover Mass. But right in the mid-morning: that's primetime for Barney, Haugen, Veggie Tales, Priestly puppet shows and kazoos. Ok, I was exaggerating about the puppet shows.

In any case, and this almost made me hurl, his last line included the words: "... and you should make these changes for the children."

Which reminds me of this post.

The respondent included his name and phone number. I will refrain from posting it here since our site is visited by the Society for the Harassment of People Who Think They Should Do It "For The Children."

Boston-area readers are invited to a performance of the Dvorak Stabat Mater Friday, August 6 at 8 pm. The Harvard Summer Chorus will perform the work under the direction of Beverly Taylor at Sanders Theatre on the Harvard University campus.

Admission is free, but having a pass in advance gets you in before 7:45. I have four to give away, so the first two local readers who send e-mail to chonak@yahoo.com will get a pair each.

I heard the orchestra and soloists for the first time tonight, so I can tell it will be an exciting and moving performance.