Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 7:50am

Return of Gregorian Chant

This past Summer a conference took place on the shores of Lake Michigan on reinvigorating the use of Gregorian Chant in our liturgies.  The Reform of the Reform continues.

Deo gratias!

(Biretta Tip: New Liturgical Movement)

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Alan Phipps
Monday, December 15, AD 2008 8:24pm

FYI – There will be a Gregorian Chant workshop at St. Theresa’s in Sugar Land on Feb. 13th & 14th, 2009. It will be presented by Scott Turkington, who is on the board of directors for the Church Music Association of America. $75 for the weekend, beginners welcome!

http://www.musicasacra.com/sugarland/

Incidentally, there is also a (free) concert of William Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices at 7:30pm on Feb. 13th, put on by the St. Theresa Schola Cantorum. Come for the whole weekend!

Michael J. Iafrate
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 1:32pm

Chant is a nice option for liturgy. Too bad most of the folks pushing it as if life depended on it are simply “high culture” types who simply have an emotional attachment to one particular form of music and insist on imposing it on the rest of the church.

Darwin/Brendan
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 1:58pm

Before you make sweeping statements like that, you might want to have some basic familiarity with what the advocates of traditional sacred music (chant and polyphany) actually say about it — and more importantly what the Church herself has said about chant: namely that it should (according to Vatican II) given “pride of place” as a form “specially suited to the Roman Liturgy.”

If we take the universal understanding of our Church seriously, we should certainly be following her guidance in this regard rather than the sort of Americanist guitar strumming which is all too often inflicted on us.

Surely as someone so able to get outside the dominant cultural paradigm you agree?

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 2:11pm

“who simply have an emotional attachment to one particular form of music and insist on imposing it on the rest of the church.”

Yes. One does wonder when most music directors at masses in this country will wake up to the astounding fact that the year is 2008 and not 1978. The persistance of bad “worship” music from the sixties and the seventies of the last century is as much a wonder to behold as it is painful to hear.

Tito Edwards
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 2:36pm

Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum Concilium §116 (1963) says, “The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman Liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services”.

Amen.

jonathanjones02
jonathanjones02
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 3:11pm

[quote]If we take the universal understanding of our Church seriously, we should certainly be following her guidance in this regard rather than the sort of Americanist guitar strumming which is all too often inflicted on us.

Surely as someone so able to get outside the dominant cultural paradigm you agree?[/quote]

Yes, one would think so, but how could this fit into a pre-ordered worldview?

Michael J. Iafrate
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 8:05pm

Darwin – First, I am quite familiar with what “they” say about it, having been active in liturgical music for about 15 years. Second, despite your wishful thinking, the “universal church” is not teaching us to restore monocultural music universally. It’s not even asking us to ban guitars. Keep dreaming. And what is “Americanist” guitar strumming anyway?

Donald – The worst of liturgical music is from the late 80s and the 1990s. Most parishes are using music that sounds like its from the Weather Channel or Elton John “Circle of Life” crap and it’s horrid. A lot of the music from the 70s was actually quite good.

Surely as someone so able to get outside the dominant cultural paradigm you agree?

Yes, what better way to “get outside the dominant cultural paradigm” than by restoring the former dominant cultural paradigm, and not because the type of music is any “better” in any objective way, but because 1) of some emotional “mysterious” feeling it gives you and 2) because it suits your ecclesiological ideology.

Of course some types of music are better than others, and we can certainly say that some types of music are suitable for the eucharistic liturgy and others are not. And of course chant is fantastic. Sure, let’s even say it should have the “pride of place.” But it’s merely an option among many.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 10:11pm

Here is a thread from Catholic Answers on the worst Catholic hymns.

http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=197443

Note that it goes on for 50 pages.

My personal list of the bottom ten Catholic hymns that make my ears bleed:

1. Sing a new song-1972.

2. I am the bread of life-1971.

3. On eagles’ wings-1979

4. Here I am Lord-1979

5. Gift of finest wheat-1976

6. Be not afraid-1974

7. Glory and praise to our God-1976

8. Hosea-1972

9. Peace is flowing like a river-1975

10. Ashes -1978

Bad music is created in every decade, but the seventies abuse the privilege.

Hear is a good article that explains why this mouldy boomer music is foisted upon us so frequently at Mass.

John Henry
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 10:58pm

I am curious if there is overlap between Donald’s bottom 10 and Michael’s top 10 from the 70’s.

Personally I think some of those songs are defensible, particularly when they are scriptural, but to say they are defensible is not to say they are ideal.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Sunday, December 21, AD 2008 11:24pm

I am personally a lover of Lassus, Victoria, Byrd, Palesrtina Tavener AND all of the songs on Donald’s list.

Darwin/Brendan
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 12:26am

I have a certain shame-faced affection for Gift of Finest Wheat, though my list of horribles would line up well with Donald’s. I’d add Let Us Build the City of God in place of Gift of Finest Wheat.

There’s an important distinction to bear in mind, however, when talking about Palestrina, Byrd or the Glory & Praise Hit Parade versus talking about chant. (And this applies equally to Gregorian Chant in the Latin Rite and the various Eastern forms of chant which are found in the Eastern Rites and the Orthodox churches.

John Michael Talbot and Palestrina are both composers who wrote specific compositions in the idiom of their times (though one barely deserves the title and the other was among the most brilliant composers of choral music who ever lived). In that sense, Desprez, von Bingen, Monteverdi, Byrd, Tallis, Palestrina, etc. are of a specific time and culture, though composing music to fit an eternal and universal purpose. (And creating beauty which can be appreciated in many times and places.)

Chant, however, is not a composition in the same sense. It is a mode of turning words into musical prayer, not a style for composing songs. This is what make’s Michael’s comment about “restoring the former dominant cultural paradigm” very odd. The “dominant cultural paradigm” in regards to sacred music has varied throughout the history of the Church. Medieval compositions are very different from Renaissance ones, which are in turn different from Classical and Baroque and modern ones. The various forms of chant, however, are not time and place specific in the same way. They’re flexible — listening to an African or Latin American priest or choir chant is very different from hearing a French or Spanish one — and yet they contain a universal musical language of prayer. (The use of the Church’s universal language helps as well, of course, when it comes to bridging barriers.)

That is why the Church teaches that chant should have price of place in our liturgy — not because it is superior music or from a superior culture (though it is musically superior to much of what is churned out in any given period or by any given culture) but because chant provides the Church with a musical language of prayer which crosses cultural and temporal boundaries.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 5:35am

I appreciate music from all periods, but the problem that happened over the past generation and a half with Catholic Mass music in this country is that it largely remained frozen in time with the same 20 hymns or so, mostly from the seventies, played ad nauseum. One of the benefits of belonging to a Church that spans two millenia is that it gives us the opportunity to choose good music from many time periods, with the mediocre and bad music, alas always in the majority for any time period, residing in sweet oblivion. Time to take advantage of this and give the jejune hymns of the past two generations a rest for say a century or so.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 5:37am

“Hear is a good article that explains why this mouldy boomer music is foisted upon us so frequently at Mass.” should have been “Here is a good article that explains why this mouldy boomer music is foisted upon us so frequently at Mass.”, although, considering the subject matter, no doubt it was a Freudian slip.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 7:19am

.”..but because chant provides the Church with a musical language of prayer which crosses cultural and temporal boundaries.”

I understand the claim and sympathize with the sentiment, but am not so sure that it is in a category unto itself, actually delivering in such a way.

Ryan Harkins
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 11:24am

Donald,

Sadly I’ve been inculcated with these songs, having grown up in the 80’s and 90’s. Most of the songs you list I actually like. However, as I’ve become more and more aware of liturgical abuses, I’ve also become a little more sensitive to abuses in music, as well. There might be hope for me yet…

As a completely useless anecdote, just this morning I was looking up the lyrics to Tim Schoenbachler’s “Rise Up, Jerusalem”. The song popped into my head at Mass yesterday, and I was trying to remember if it was something we sang in church years ago or was some pop piece that I’d heard elsewhere.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 12:16pm

No problem Ryan, force of habit will cause many people to become fond of items that they would otherwise not be fond of. Of the songs produced during the seventies I actually like One Bread, One Body which I know is fingernails on the chalkboard to many people. Tastes will vary. My main point is that these songs are played too frequently and detract from the massive musical heritage that Catholics have to draw upon.

Michael J. Iafrate
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 11:12pm

I am curious if there is overlap between Donald’s bottom 10 and Michael’s top 10 from the 70’s.

Most of the songs he mentioned I don’t really like. I do like “I Am the Bread of Life” and “Be Not Afraid.” “Hosea” is also pretty good. The rest are not very good songs. “Here I Am Lord” rips off, of all things, the theme from the Brady Bunch.

I do tend to like St Louis Jesuits hymns for the most part (only a few of the songs D mentioned were their songs), but I tend to like the more obscure ones. And I like them stripped down to folk instruments, well played, as they were intended to be played. Not translated to piano or pipe organ. And not simplistic guitar strumming. Good guitarists and singers playing “Answer When I Call,” for example is simply beautiful.

A more interesting question is whether the songs on the “top ten worst songs” lists make it because folks are simply sick of them, and sick of bad music in general in Catholic parishes. “Be Not Afraid” is a great song, but it’s overdone and it’s usually played horribly. Any style of liturgical music can be done poorly. Donald’s later comments indicate to me that his issue is more with the fact that he is sick of certain hymns being over played. That’s certainly a legitimate point, but it does not signal an overall problem with the quality of Catholic liturgical from 1960-present.

That said, I mostly don’t like Haas and Haugen (Haugen is better). And I can’t stand the Catholic embrace of “praise and worship” music.

Chant, however, is not a composition in the same sense. It is a mode of turning words into musical prayer, not a style for composing songs. This is what make’s Michael’s comment about “restoring the former dominant cultural paradigm” very odd… The various forms of chant, however, are not time and place specific in the same way.

What is “odd” is the notion that chant somehow floats above culture as if God herself wrote it. I’ve heard that argument before and frankly I find it ridiculous.

I was fortunate to grow up in a parish that had a “folk Mass” with a very competent choir. These “folks” knew what they were doing. Great guitar players, fiddler, bass, etc. They had a huge batch of songs to draw from and they knew how the songs were intended to be played. Thus, it’s hard for me to accept the across-the-board dismissals of contemporary Catholic liturgical music.

I’m working on an album of St Louis Jesuits songs played in a very stripped down format, with a sort of Appalachian old time feel. I am picking some of their more obscure songs for the most part.

“Cry of the Poor,” played well, is one of the best, most hauntingly beautiful contemporary Catholic hymns in my opinion. But it does not translate well to piano or organ.

I like Taize music (in Latin, English, or Spanish) because it feels both ancient and contemporary.

Darwin/Brendan
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 11:49pm

God herself

Can I hope that’s a typo…?

Darwin/Brendan
Monday, December 22, AD 2008 11:54pm

That said…

What is “odd” is the notion that chant somehow floats above culture as if God herself wrote it. I’ve heard that argument before and frankly I find it ridiculous.

I don’t think the argument is that God himself produces chant, obviously the various forms of chant are human developments, but they’re human developments with a purpose and form different from “song writing” or “composition” in that they are means of singing pre-existing words (the words being the main emphasis) to a musical form that provides beauty without making the musical composition the center (a center to which the words are fit.)

In this sense, a chant approach works equally well in Latin, English, Spanish, etc., so long as one takes into account the rhythms of the language itself.

Though I can certainly imagine given your background and ideological commitments why you’d want to ignore or recategorize chanted prayer.

Jonathan Sadow
Jonathan Sadow
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 1:31am

Most of what Donald puts on his list rank near the bottom of my list, too It’s not that they are necessarily bad songs (in fact, melodically some of them are very good), but most of them suffer from one serious defect: they’re virtually unsingable by ordinary people. The melodies have huge intervals in them or cover an enormous range (and sometimes both). The majority of people can only consistently sing an interval of a third or maybe a fourth, but many of these songs have fifths, sixths, and even octaves in them. Most people’s effective range is perhaps a full octave, but some of these songs stretch almost two octaves (“I Am The Bread Of Life” is especially bad about this). If your goal is to have the people sing along with the choir, this is the worst thing you can do; the result typically is absolute cacaphony. The great advantage of chant (and hymns up until the early 20th century in general) is that the intervals and ranges are relatively small (and the meter is regular). Even untrained singers can sound reasonably good with that material. By contrast, only a trained choir typically sounds good with much of the modern stuff.

There are other issues involved that I won’t get into, such as apparently sopranos and tenors write all of the modern music and put it in keys that are uncomfortable for a bass such as myself, or performing in a style that is totally inappropriate for the source material (the parish I’m at now is the second consecutive one where the music group tries to play Andrae Crouch’s “Soon And Very Soon” and absolutely butchers it…).

Christopher Blosser
Admin
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 3:55am

I’m working on an album of St Louis Jesuits songs played in a very stripped down format, with a sort of Appalachian old time feel. I am picking some of their more obscure songs for the most part.

I’d be interested in hearing it when you’re finished.

but most of them suffer from one serious defect: they’re virtually unsingable by ordinary people.

Truer words were never spoken. I grew up in a Presbyterian church (where they sang the Psalms, and nothing but the Psalms, set to music) and later a Southern Baptist church — and in both instances, everybody sang. Take a look around my parish on Sunday and people struggle along (if at all) while the director puts on a solo performance.

Something’s amiss here, and it ain’t the parishioners.

S.B.
S.B.
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 8:29am

God herself

Can I hope that’s a typo…?

Like his refusal to capitalize certain words, Michael I. is just going out of his way to be obnoxious.

Dale Price
Dale Price
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 9:16am

One thing professional gadfly Todd Flowerday correctly points out is that everybody needs to step back and realize that hymn-sifting will occur and is occurring. Each of the currently popular hymnists is going to be lucky to have maybe five of his/her songs in a hymnal come the turn of the 21st Century. Which means that we’ll end up singing a lot of chaff, alas.

The transcultural effect of chant is a good point. The Church has rarely been monochrome culturally, least of all during its formative years, and yet that’s when traditions of chant proliferated throughout. Take a listen at Sr. Marie Keyrouz’ eastern chant repertoire and that comes through with crystal clarity. And, yes, hymns do as well, given the hymn fragments we see in the NT (Phillipians, for example). But it is the centrality of chant to the actual liturgical prayer forms of the Church across time and culture which distinguishes it from hymnody.

Michael J. Iafrate
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 12:36pm

Can I hope that’s a typo…?

If you want to. But it’s not a typo.

I don’t think the argument is that God himself produces chant, obviously the various forms of chant are human developments, but they’re human developments with a purpose and form different from “song writing” or “composition” in that they are means of singing pre-existing words (the words being the main emphasis) to a musical form that provides beauty without making the musical composition the center (a center to which the words are fit.)

I said “as if” God writes chant.

Of course I see that chant is held to be different than mere “song writing” in a way similar to how icons are not mere paintings. But even most contemporary liturgical composers do not see what they do as mere songwriting. And given what you have said about using pre-existing words, etc etc, it still does not follow that chant somehow “transcends” culture. It simply does not.

Though I can certainly imagine given your background and ideological commitments why you’d want to ignore or recategorize chanted prayer.

I have said a few times now in this thread that I like chant. A lot. I don’t ignore it at all. I have some on my laptop right now. But the push to enshrine chant as the only “real” form of liturgical music is misguided and not catholic (in the “small ‘c’ sense of the word). If you want to try to misrepresent my position (as usual), go ahead, but I’ll indeed point out whenever you do so.

The great advantage of chant (and hymns up until the early 20th century in general) is that the intervals and ranges are relatively small (and the meter is regular).

Your point about the singability is a good one. But I don’t agree that pre-20th c. hymns were easier to sing. I say this from experience in choirs over the years who have used a variety of music from different time periods.

Take a look around my parish on Sunday and people struggle along (if at all) while the director puts on a solo performance.

Yes, absolutely. But here again, this is a problem with the practice of liturgical music, NOT with the style of the music.

DarwinCatholic/Brendan
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 12:50pm

Can I hope that’s a typo…?

If you want to. But it’s not a typo.

Well, okay.

I kind of thought it might not be, but I had hoped that my low expecations were not actually reflective of reality.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 1:07pm

As Julian of Norwich says so beautifully, Jesus is our Mother…

Tito Edwards
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 2:01pm

Par for the course.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 2:22pm

Tito,

Both man and woman were made in God’s image.

Can you use your analogical imagination to understand that in God’s perfection there is femaleness?

Tito Edwards
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 2:51pm

Mark,

I understand where you and Michael I. are coming from, but I respectfully disagree with calling God a ‘she’. It is more an act of provocation rather than anything congenial.

The thread is about Gregorian Chant and then MIchael I. decides to throw a hand-grenade that is completely unrelated to the topic, ie, par for the course.

What’s the name of your pooch?

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 2:54pm

So our Lady is our mother, in whom we are all enclosed and born of her in Christ, for she who is mother is mother of all who are saved in our savior; and our saviour is our true Mother, in whom we are endlessly born and out of whom we shall never come.
….

And so in our making, God almighty is our loving Father, and God all wisdom is our loving Mother, with the love and the goodness of the Holy Spirit, which is all one God, our Lord.

The mother can give her child to suck her milk, but our precious Mother can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life..

The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open sidem and show us there a part of the godhead and of the joys of heaven, with inner certainty of endless bliss.

Julian of Norwich, Shewings

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 2:57pm

Tito,

The dog’s name is Georgia, or Georgie for those who are on familiar terms with her. She’s actually my girlfiend’s.

Tito Edwards
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 3:11pm

Mark,

Thanks for the Julian referrence. It’s always good to learn more about the faith.

Georgia it is. I’m a big cat and dog fan. Cats because they take care of themselves, dogs because they are loyal. Though I don’t own any as of this moment, I’m thinking of getting two kittens sometime next year.

Felix and Nestor!

Michael J. Iafrate
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 3:13pm

The thread is about Gregorian Chant and then MIchael I. decides to throw a hand-grenade that is completely unrelated to the topic, ie, par for the course.

I’m sorry you find female terms for God “provocative.” That’s your problem, your issue, not mine.

Utterly hilarious that you think my use of the word “she” for God was an intentional attempt to derail the conversation here. You have issues, my friend!

Can you use your analogical imagination to understand that in God’s perfection there is femaleness?

Tito has made clear for some time now that he has no analogical imagination.

Michael J. Iafrate
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 3:14pm

Mark – Femaleness is a “hand grenade,” according to Tito. I’ll bet the women in his life must be flattered.

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 3:21pm

Michael,

Maybe you are being a bit too tough on Tito. He probably just wants to respect the language that God chose in his full revelation of Himself.

Unfortuantely, a too obsessive adherence to this langauge has historically stifled the theological imagination, and we are all the victims.

S.B.
S.B.
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 4:03pm

Utterly hilarious that you think my use of the word “she” for God was an intentional attempt to derail the conversation here.

Of course it was. The troll’s mission accomplished!

Aristotle A. Esguerra
Tuesday, December 23, AD 2008 8:32pm

From a recent post:

Whenever I see debates about Church music, they are generally about stylistic issues, instrumentation, and the like. These debates usually center around music selection — which hymns to select and why. It’s been this way for at least as long as I’ve been involved in church music (13 years). I wish to change the terms of the debate; I’m not going to center on style or instrumentation. Instead, I wish to concentrate on the texts of the music assigned for the Mass each and every week.

Now many will wonder at the final part of that phrase. “I didn’t know each and every Mass has music assigned already. I thought pastors, music directors, and liturgical committees chose the music for the Mass.” This kind of question is a manifestation of what I see as a case of deep liturgical amnesia that has plagued the Western Church since even before the Second Vatican Council. But that is another post for another time.

Read on…

Darwin/Brendan
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 12:54am

Aristotle,

That’s a very key point you bring up, and while I think that chants are particularly appropriate forms of music to the texts appropriate to the mass, I would agree with you that it is more important that we regain the lost propers of the mass than what style of music they are in.

Michael,

I’ve known rather more women who are offended by the implication that they were incapable of “relating” to God when He is referred to with the masculine pronoun (which is generally how the scriptures and Church Father describe Him, after all) than who are offended by comments such as Tito’s. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I very much doubt that any women worth winning the admiration of would be offended by what he said.

As you are no doubt aware, God is traditionally referred to in orthodox Christianity as masculine, just as the Church is traditionally referred to as feminine, and I think the case is pretty solid that doing otherwise can only be taken as:

a) An attempt to shock and/or flaunt one’s transgressive attitude.
b) An expression of solidarity with the sorts of “feminist theology” which have been explicitly rejected by the Church.

Mark,

You’re right, of course, that there are aspects of God which we, in human terms, might see as feminine. Men and women are equally made in His image. However, I must admit that I can’t see where generally sticking with describing God as the scriptures and the Church Fathers described Him has stifled theological imaginations that much over the last 2000 years.

Michael J. Iafrate
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 1:34am

Darwin/Brendan:

On the contrary, God is referred to as both masculine and feminine throughout the history of orthodox Christianity. Jesus himself referred to God as female at times. Take it up with him.

You’re simply not familiar with the breadth of the tradition. Sticking God in a box labeled “BOY” is transgressive, not referring to God as “she.”

Tito-sterone is right, though: this thread is about liturgical music not “feminist theology.” The fact that you jerks can’t handle a feminine pronoun in reference to God is not my problem. YOU are the ones who are making a big deal about it, not me. Get over it.

S.B.
S.B.
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 9:45am

Jesus himself referred to God as female at times. Take it up with him.

Once, yes. But there’s hundreds of times more scriptural support for saying that God is pro-war (i.e., much of the Old Testament). Likewise, if you look at Church history, there were more wars started by the Church itself than there were orthodox theologians who called God “she.” So if, in a thread about Church music, someone dropped a completely irrelevant aside that God is pro-war, only jerks like you would be sidetracked over that comment, right?

Mark DeFrancisis
Mark DeFrancisis
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 10:09am

Is today Festivus or Christmas Eve?

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 10:26am

On the contrary, God is referred to as both masculine and feminine throughout the history of orthodox Christianity. Jesus himself referred to God as female at times. Take it up with him.

I think you’re wrong about that, but if you want to provide ten specific citations from the from the New Testament and/or Church Fathers (stick to people canonized so we don’t have to argue over whether they’re “orthodox”) I’ll gladly concede the point.

Sticking God in a box labeled “BOY” is transgressive

If you read what we wrote, we pretty specifically did not do that.

Tito-sterone is right, though: this thread is about liturgical music

Just so. Thus, if you want to return to that, I’ll throw this out: It strikes me that one of the things you’re missing when you talk about chant being culturally specific rather than a universal part of the Church is that chant as a form is not a product of a specific regional culture, but rather of Catholic culture.

So while it’s well and good that you have an affection for religious music in a bluegrass style (a style to some extent specific to your region of origin) it strikes me as important that we as Catholics also give significant (not merely token) place in all her liturgies to both her universal language and to her developed forms of music and prayer.

There’s a balance to be found here. I think in many cases in the immediately pre-Vatican II period there was a tendency to attempt to impose a lot of European cultural baggage along with an authentically Catholic culture, yet since the 70s (though this seems to be slowly and surely correcting itself) we seem to have swung in the opposite direction and our authentically Catholic language, music and other cultural elements are often ignored and replaced with quickie knock-offs of the local regional cultural forms.

Michael J. Iafrate
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 10:55am

I think you’re wrong about that, but if you want to provide ten specific citations from the from the New Testament and/or Church Fathers (stick to people canonized so we don’t have to argue over whether they’re “orthodox”) I’ll gladly concede the point.

Why ten? That’s arbitrary number. Even if Jesus referred to God as female “once” (as S.B. incorrectly states) is that not enough to convince you that referring to God as “she” ONCE in a stupid blog thread might be acceptable?

is not a product of a specific regional culture, but rather of Catholic culture.

“Catholic culture” cannot be completely isolated from culture in general.

it strikes me as important that we as Catholics also give significant (not merely token) place in all her liturgies to both her universal language and to her developed forms of music and prayer.

Sure. But nevertheless, it still remains an OPTION to do so.

Michael J. Iafrate
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 10:56am

Why am I in moderation? Because I called God a “she”?!

S.B.
S.B.
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 11:08am

Probably for the same reason that Vox Nova automatically moderates comments that use certain rude words.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 4:16pm

I’m not sure why the comment was in moderation, but I pushed it through.

Yes, ten is an arbitrary number. I’d be moderately impressed with five, come to that. But I did indeed pick it arbitrarily. Given the thousands of times that God is referred to in the scriptures and by the Church Fathers, it seems to me that if you can’t locate ten specific instances where God is referred to with the feminine pronoun (and this would have to mean just calling God “she” or “her” — not an analogy to a mother or some such literary device) then that would substantiate my claim that your use is unusual — and only makes sense as a way to make a statement or dissent from the traditional Christian understanding of God.

“Catholic culture” cannot be completely isolated from culture in general.

Certainly not, but it doesn’t need to be wrapped in the dregs of the culture in general either. At no time in the Church’s history has chant been the prevailing musical form in the wider culture — it’s always been specific to the Church and her worship.

Sure. But nevertheless, it still remains an OPTION to do so.

Yep. Kind of like it’s an option to occasionally celebrate mass in the vernacular.

S.B.
S.B.
Wednesday, December 24, AD 2008 4:57pm

Even if Jesus referred to God as female “once” (as S.B. incorrectly state

Put up or shut up. Give a citation outside of the mother hen passage (“How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing”).

Michael J. Iafrate
Thursday, December 25, AD 2008 1:04am

…only makes sense as a way to make a statement or dissent from the traditional Christian understanding of God.

There is no “dissent” involved in using “she” as a pronoun for God. Unless you happen to think God is male. THAT is heresy.

Kind of like it’s an option to occasionally celebrate mass in the vernacular.

Latin and vernacular are both options. Yes. What is your point?

Give a citation outside of the mother hen passage

The parable of the woman and the lost coin.

Tito Edwards
Thursday, December 25, AD 2008 1:37am

Merry Christmas Michael I.!

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