Because, you know, you’ve been living under a rock these past few days or something.  There’s a new web site offering us the ability to pray the Breviarium Romanum without having to drop some serious change to do so (well over $200US the last I looked).  As excited as I am about this possibility, I really need to get crackin’ on my Latin if I am to make any good use of this site.  It should be noted that the folks running the site haven’t yet integrated the office of Matins, but even just starting with Lauds and Vespers would be great, let alone Compline and the mid-day hours.  Well done, good souls!

It’s a subject of seemingly never ending conflict:  what should we do about noisy kids at Mass?  Dom Bettinelli got in some hot water just recently posting on this very issue.  Needless to say, the proper way to handle it has far from universal agreement.  Well let me tell you a little story.

I went to daily Mass this morning which, as with daily Mass in most places, is mostly older folks dotted with a few younger ones – much more salt in the hair than pepper, shall we say.  As Father started Mass with the sign of the cross one voice rang out loud and clear, “In the name of the FATHER and of the SON and of the HOLY SPIRIT, A-MEN!”  I didn’t notice any grumbling and even a few smiling faces could be seen – very few turned around to look, conscious of making the parent feel self-conscious.  I immediately felt bad for his mother, knowing what it’s like to be the parent of the one loud child in an otherwise quiet church.

Now normally you’d expect this to happen once, maybe twice during Mass and then the parent would either regain control or take the child out to re-inform him of proper etiquette.  Not this time – every single response was the same, twice as loud as the rest of us and a half-beat behind.  But it wasn’t just loud, it had a certain joy to it that our otherwise sedate responses lacked.  At the end of Mass I finally had the chance to surreptitiously catch a glimpse of the boy making all the noise and lo and behold, he was maybe five or six and appeared to have a slight disability (or maybe he just really didn’t want to put his jacket on, I don’t know).

That five or six-year-old boy taught everyone there a lesson today.  Our responses can be sedate, but must never be morose or lackluster.  He reminded us that proper solemnity does not consist in merely saying the responses in a reverently understated manner, but that they must be done with the joy only a Christian can bring.  Now I am not about for one second to suggest that loud or off-timed responses are the key to good liturgy – far from it – but rather that even those who love good liturgy must remember that joy is a fundamental component to all Christian living.  Even in recalling the Passion and death of our Lord there is an underlying joy in knowing that He deigns us worthy of all that.  As St. Leo the great said, “Be conscious, O Christian, of your dignity!”

Update: Keith’s comment really deserves a read.

Fr. Z has an excellent post centered around an equally excellent article  by the Administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, Most Rev. Robert J. Herman.  Sadly it has become rather rare to see a figure in the Church as prominent as Bishop Herman make as bold, direct and honest a statement as the one here.  Put bluntly, there is a war going on – a war of culture – and we as Catholics need to pick up the armor of Christ provided us through the Church and get involved.

Fr. Z extends Bishop Herman’s call with the reminder that the liturgy is the source and summit of our lives as Catholics, and that without a strong liturgical life a strong presence in the world becomes all but impossible.  Lex orandi, lex credendi strikes again.  When we once again focus on the God above us we come to see the people around us in a whole new light – the light of Christ who shed His Blood to save each and every one of us, even those who now stand in the way of a Culture of Life.  Let us bring our prayers before Him and bring His Answer out into the world!

As related by NLM, et. al., Francis Cardinal Arinze has resigned as head of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments due to reaching the canonical age limit.  Appointed to replace him is Cardinal Antonio Cañizares Llovera, who is the Archbishop of Toledo and Primate of Spain.  May his years as head of this Congregation be fruitful for the whole Church, and may Cardinal Arinze find rest and continued vigor in his retirement.  Ad multos annos!

…rather than just scare the cats and make the dog have that sad “please stop the pain” look

My son has been telling me for several days now that they’re working on a song in Latin in choir practice, but he couldn’t quite remember exactly what it was.  Today I had the chance to pick him up from choir after school and I figured he’d be able to remember the name right after practice.  In his best third-grade I’ve-never-been-trained-in-Latin he tells me it’s Adoramus Te, Christe.  A beautiful, if short, piece and one I’ll be quite glad to hear at Mass this Saturday.  Ecstatic, even.

Then something … unexpected … happened.  Out of my random selection of MP3s I’ve copied to my Sirius Stiletto comes … wait for it … Adoramus Te, Christe from the Catholic Latin Classics CD from Richard Proulx’s Cathedral Singers.  Somehow, I think we have a certain approval of the selection.  Even though there’s no way the childrens’ choir will sound anywhere near as polished as the Cathedral Singers, it will be music to my ears and bliss in my heart.

On my recent post regarding liturgical music, commenter Orvis asked some very good questions.  I’d like to lay out a brief response here as I now realize I was far too brief in that last post to be intelligible.

Am I saying “yes” or “no” to pop music as a part of the Mass?  That depends largely on your definition of “pop” music, since as a rule the definition of the term morphs with each day.  In a nutshell, if it is proper liturgical music I have no problem with it at all; if it is, in the words of both Pope St. Pius X and Pope Benedict XVI, “profane” then it is both explicitly and implicitly not appropriate for Mass.  In Tra le sollectudini Pius X stated:

Still, since modern music has risen mainly to serve profane uses, greater care must be taken with regard to it, in order that the musical compositions of modern style which are admitted in the Church may contain nothing profane, be free from reminiscences of motifs adopted in the theaters, and be not fashioned even in their external forms after the manner of profane pieces.

Now, some will object to bringing Tra le sollectudini into the discussion as it’s over 100 years old and refers to issues no longer facing liturgical music (i.e. the Pope’s concern regarding overly operatic performances, thus his reference to “the theaters”).  Yet, does his point not continue to hold given how far modern music performances deviate from what could and should be expected at Mass?  Even standard Praise and Worship performances usually lack the sobriety befitting the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  Do I deny their usefulness as Christian music?  Not at all.  Do I deny they belong in the Mass?  Unless properly formed to the Mass, indeed I do.  There is a place, as Pope Pius XII wrote in Musicae Sacrae, for this type of music:

We must also hold in honor that music which is not primarily a part of the sacred liturgy, but which by its power and purpose greatly aids religion.  This music is therefore rightly called religious music.  The Church has possessed such music from the beginning and it has developed happily under the Church’s auspices.  As experience shows, it can exercise great and salutary force and power on the souls of the faithful, both when it is used in churches during non-liturgical services and ceremonies, or when it is used outside churches at various solemnities and celebrations.

So do I think the Church should support such work, encourage and even host it?  Absolutely.  Do I think it belongs in the Mass?  Absolutely not unless it is properly conformed to the requirements of the liturgy.  The Church has a great need in this day for ways to involve people in their Catholic faith outside of Sunday Mass.  Periodic concerts of this type would both encourage that active participation of the faithful and provide opportunities to reward the work of the artists, writers and composers involved.  An old pastor routinely did this as part of his Life Teen work and had great success, and neither the Mass nor the music had to suffer for it.

As to whether I believe the Farther Along Octet (the actual name of the group from Goshen College) serves to prove anything as regards the status of “pop” music, no I don’t.  I bring them up precisely as an illustration of youth who have sufficient respect and appreciation for chant and polyphony to not only listen to it but learn to perform it as well.  Do I think their performance of other music forms has any bearing on the appropriateness of those forms in the Mass?  No, I do not.  Even their performances of sacred music were non-liturgical and do not address the question of appropriateness.  What they all do, however, is address the question of whether you can attract youth of their age with anything other than pop music in general and with sacred music in specific.  So yes, use all the forms of music that attract people to the Church, but be selective in when and where each form is used that they may each be used only where appropriate and where they will have the greatest effect.

I’m quite certain I have gone on far too long already, but please do let me know what you all think.  I could write far more but I’d prefer to move in small paces unless absolutely necessary.

And then explain to me again why going against the express wishes of every Pope since Pius X is the only way we’ll interest kids.  These young men are from Goshen College – the precise age range being targeted by those who want to add guitars and drums to the Mass:

The young want a challenge – they want authentic Catholicism, to live a life of true holiness with all the beauty the Church has to offer.  We ought to do nothing less than give it to them.  All of it.

Tolle, lege! Anything I’d say would just degrade it.

Reading this post by Jeffrey Tucker at NLM made me wonder for just a second if maybe he wasn’t probing around in the small amount of gray matter still under active use in between my ears. Now, to be honest, the music at my parish is nowhere near as bad as that which many are forced to endure Sunday after Sunday – in fact it is generally well-sung and the selections are occasionally even quite good.

What I find missing, and which Jeffrey alluded to in his Second Great Catholic Radio 2.0 Liturgy Debate, is any linkage at all between the liturgy we are experiencing and the music. We’ve gone from music that was created for Mass to music that occasionally sounds good at Mass – from a unified whole pointing to the unity of both Creator and Church to an amalgam which speaks more of the community as a collection of dispersed talents. I want to be very clear on this so no one thinks I’m just complaining – the songs are almost always performed very well and I have yet to hear a single song that outright does not belong in Mass. At the same time there is a great opportunity to use that music for everything great music can do – spiritual uplift, catechesis, etc. To put it another way, it’s okay as it is, but it could do so much more.

Perhaps the one difference I have with Jeffrey (besides not knowing a fraction of what he does when it comes to both liturgy and music) is that I haven’t the slightest hint of musical skill. As the saying goes, I couldn’t hold a note with a bucket. He, and all true musicians, can speak to the situation of liturgical music “from the inside” as it were, whereas I can only look at it and say “it seems odd” or “it seems right”. Perhaps I am too picky. Perhaps I am one of those who will never be satisfied. Or perhaps I’ve, through a combination of luck and persistence, sniffed out one truth from a pile of assorted options. Which that is, I’ll be honest and say I don’t really know.