"Spem in alium"

I have never heard anything so beautiful as "Spem in alium" by the great Thomas Tallis. As the sound sweeps around, you can imagine the gates of Heaven opening before you with choirs upon choirs of angels crying out in joy. The trumpets blare, the light dazzles before you, you approach the Lord our God in all of His divine majesty and splendor...
Words can not describe the sight.

"That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him." - 1 Cor 2:9

Spem in alium numquam habui praeter in te
Deus Israel
qui irasceris
et propitius eris
et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis
Domine Deus
Creator coeli et terrae
respice humilitatem nostram

I have never put my hope in any other but in you,
O God of Israel
who can show both anger
and graciousness,
and who absolves all the sins of suffering man
Lord God,
Creator of Heaven and Earth
be mindful of our humility.

Traditional Hymns in the Post-Vatican II Era

This is a brief commentary that I just submitted for a music class which I am taking. I am not particularly proud of the prose but I believe that it succinctly captures the meaning which I intended to convey.

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“Sacred music, being a complementary part of the solemn liturgy, participates in the general scope of the liturgy, which is the glory of God and the sanctification and edification of the faithful.” – Tra le sollecitudini, Pope St. Pius X[1]

Among the various styles of music that have gained prominence in the post-Vatican II era, the traditional style, which is least vulnerable to the great innovations of this period and shows the greatest continuity with past musical tradition, has shown the strongest adherence to the general instructions of the Vatican throughout the past century. Traditional hymns such as Lift High the Cross, Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, and Holy God We Praise Thy Name, drawn from repertoires decades old, are relatively immune to the folk and populist influences so common in newer church music and can be justifiably qualified as sacred and edifying. However, the music which should have “pride of place”- Gregorian chant- is relatively rare in Catholic churches.

As suggested by Pope Pius X’s seminal motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini, Gregorian chant must be used as the standard against which all sacred music is compared. Insofar as most traditional hymns are not overtly anthropocentric- perhaps one of the greatest flaws of post-Vatican II music- and are lyrically directed to divine worship, these compositions are praiseworthy. Being composed in older, more classically-oriented styles, traditional hymns preclude the congregation from excessive participation and innovation.

However, the implementation of Gregorian chant in the traditional sphere, with the exception of its use during solemn seasons, has been at best condescending in that it is widely considered as an exceptional embellishment of Masses where newer music otherwise predominates. In the May 1998 edition of the New Oxford Review, author William J Abbott described the new trends of the Catholic Church as follows: “The Church seems to be choosing to represent herself to the world - and to her worried children like me - as in decline not just artistically, but liturgically and inspirationally. The Catholic Church - for the first time in history - seems to have gone tone-deaf.”[2] While Gregorian chant is very much rooted in Scripture, even traditional hymns are mainly traditional poems or the acclamatory praises of individuals set to music. As such, they may not be as effective in edifying the faithful through scriptural exposure than would be chant.

Objections aside, compared to the widespread folk and ethnically-oriented music typical of the post-Vatican II era, the hymns and chants of decades past are perhaps the last remaining anchors to the greater tradition of sacred music that can be found, with the major exception of Gregorian chant.

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[1] http://www.adoremus.org/TraLeSollecitudini.html#anchor40142047

[2] Abbott, William J. "Post Vatican II "La La La" Music: Unworthy of the Catholic Church." New Oxford Review May 1998.

Music in the Tridentine and Novus Ordo Masses

Following the block quote is a paper I just wrote for a class called "Music in the Catholic Church" highlighting the usage of music in the Tridentine and Novus Ordo Masses. Since I wrote it at the last minute, considering that I just arrived from France a few days ago, it is not of excellent quality. All the same I am posting it, and I ask that anyone quoting it give me credit for the original as per copyright laws and the protection accorded this site, etc.

"It is as important today as ever that we carefully distinguish between simply religious music -- be it never so beautiful, artistic, and conducive to private devotion -- and that kind of music which the Church requires for her services. Outside of the Church each one may sing such melodies to religious texts as best satisfy his own pious mood; he may even indulge his æsthetic predilections in choosing his hymns. The house of God, however, demands an entirely different attitude; we must realize that we are there to pray, that we may not force our personal mood on our fellow Christians, but that, on the contrary, we must follow with devout attention and pious song, according to the will and in the spirit of the Church, the liturgical action at the altar. And, in according to the Church our filial obedience, we need entertain no fear mother and protector of the arts, that she, the venerable will assign to music a function unworthy of its powers."

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Throughout the history of the Catholic Church, music as a conduit for prayer has been an indispensable and crucial part of the liturgy. Before even Latin became the central language of the Church, Christians were united by the universal language that is music, which alone touches the deepest recesses of the human soul. So much so that St Augustine was prompted to write:

"Music, that is the science or the sense of proper modulation, is likewise given by God's generosity to mortals having rational souls in order to lead them to higher things."

(Epis. 161. De origine animae hominis, 1, 2; PL XXXIII, 725)[1]

While for a significant portion of the Church’s- and coincidentally Western civilization’s- history the primary mode of sacred musical expression was the Gregorian chant, developments since the 1960s in the Church have prompted a move in a different musical direction, appealing to some and troubling to others. The nature of this distinction is the focus of this brief work.

The primary liturgical forms in current practice in the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church today are what are referred to as the Tridentine Mass and the Mass of Paul VI, in this paper referred to as the Novus Ordo Mass. The Tridentine Mass, named after the city which hosted the Council of Trent (Tridentium), came out of the reforms of that council, held from 1545 to 1563, themselves a response to the abuses emerging in the wake of the Protestant Reformation[2]. It was the predominant liturgical rubric in place in the Church until the Second Vatican Council, held from 1962 to 1965.[3]

One of the primary goals of the Tridentine reform was to provide a uniform format for all churches to implement as a means of abating the post-Reformation confusion that had gripped the faithful with regard to doctrine and practice. Among other measures, one of the primary unifying forces in the liturgical reform was the maintenance of the Gregorian chant as the musical vehicle of the Church.

In the context of the Tridentine Mass, the usage of chant is divided into two forms: the Accentus and the Concentus. The Accentus is never accompanied by any instrument and is sung only by the sacred ministers. The Concentus consists of that which is sung by the choir after the intonation of the Accentus, and is comprised of the Ordinary, which are sung at every Mass, and the Propers, which are particular to every day of the year. For example, the Credo is a part of the Ordinary and begins with the Accentus “Credo in unum Deum…” (I believe in one God) and is followed by the rest, which is the Concentus (…patrem omnipotentem…). The Proper could consist of, for example, the readings appropriated for a particular Sunday[4]. In sum, the various chants and prayers comprising the music of the Mass make for an enduring tradition which has formed the backbone for all Western music since its origins. It also proves to be a stark contrast from the novel musical tradition that has emerged with the Novus Ordo.

Following the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, which were in part destined to make the Mass more accessible to the faithful, a noticeable shift occurred in the nature of Catholic liturgical music. While pre-Vatican II music could be considered predominantly classical in nature, employing Gregorian chant as frequently as possible, church music since the 1960s has for the most part relegated chant to an inferior role and has switched to contemporary or folk-style compositions. It has also been characterized by widespread use of inclusive language. Unlike in Tridentine Masses, particularly High Masses, where significant parts of the Mass are sung, especially the main readings, this is done infrequently in Novus Ordo liturgies. An obvious difference is the prevalence of music in the vernacular in the post-conciliar period, as opposed to the period before during which music was sung in Latin.[5] A major difference seen as beneficial in the Novus Ordo period is the increased participation of the faithful in the performance of the music, with compositions considered simpler to sing and join in as contributing to the spiritual development of Mass-goers.

An important point worth discussing regarding the difference in liturgical music before and after Vatican II can be made by asking the question: to whom is the music directed and why? While many levels of analysis can be made with this topic, a simple look at the lyrics of compositions from both periods reveals much in itself. Among the most famous Gregorian chants that initially come to mind are Pange lingua gloriosi (Sing, my tongue, the Savior’s glory); Veni, Creator Spiritus (Come, Holy Spirit, Creator); and Te Deum (We praise thee, O God). It can be convincingly argued that the lyrics of most if not all Gregorian chants are wholly directed towards God, either in praise or supplication, but rarely if ever directed, at least not primarily, in any way towards the people. The trend differs, on the other hand, with some of the more popular contemporary Catholic hymns such as “On Eagle’s Wings”, “Here I Am, Lord”, and “You are Mine”. A brief comparison of a hymn from both periods proves representative of the general trends then prevalent.

Pange Lingua Gloriosi: Sing, my tongue, the Savior's glory, of His flesh the mystery sing; of the Blood, all price exceeding, shed by our immortal King, destined, for the world's redemption, from a noble womb to spring.

On Eagle’s Wings: And He will raise you up on eagle's wings/ Bear you on the breath of dawn/ Make you to shine like the sun/ And hold you in the palm of His Hand.

Both hymns chosen are considered among the most popular or well-known from both periods. It is evident that the focus of the lyrics differs in each hymn. Pange lingua tells of the glory of the Lord and of the salvation and redemption at hand. On Eagle’s Wings tells of a more immediate salvation or consolation, as well as the glorification of the individual in the words “Make you to shine like the sun.” Such refrains are wholly absent in the canon of Gregorian chant.

The instrumentation of liturgical music differs in both periods, as well, and is reflective of the nature of public worship in each era. Prior to the reforms of the 1960s, there is no dispute that the pipe organ was the instrument of the liturgy. According to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 120, “In the Latin Church the pipe organ is to be held in high esteem, for it is the traditional musical instrument which adds a wonderful splendor to the Church's ceremonies and powerfully lifts up man's mind to God and to higher things.”[6]

There is no denying the recollection of that which is sacred in the common conscience upon hearing the sound of an organ.

Interestingly, in the second paragraph of Sacrosanctum Concilium, a dispensation is accorded permitting other instruments provided that they be “suitable, or can be made suitable, for sacred use, accord with the dignity of the temple, and truly contribute to the edification of the faithful”. Among instruments commonly used in the post-conciliar period are pianos and guitars, however, all manner of instruments, including percussion sets and even electric instruments, are known to be used. One can argue that the organ has almost always been used exclusively in a sacred setting. Indeed, even for “secular” organ performances musicians must often play in churches! As such, the music of the organ has always been equated, at least subconsciously, with a religious function. The same can not be said for the piano, much less for the guitar or percussion set, which are regularly employed for profane settings such as bands, pop concerts, or even intimate settings wholly foreign to that of worship. In this regard, the trend in post-conciliar music has been to wrest the exclusivity of sacred music from the organ and to make it accessible to a variety of different instruments, in a way providing for a sort of democratization of instrumentation or, as some might argue, a removal of the sacred and exclusive from the liturgical function.

Nonetheless, despite all of the arguments for or against the liturgical music of either period in recent Church history, one argument is irrefutable: music has not ceased to be a crucial aspect of the worship of the faithful. Be it Gregorian chant, a majestic classical Mass by a classical composer, or even a simple hymn sung by the faithful at the beginning of the liturgy, the engagement of the faithful in song and music has ever been seen as the most profound means of engaging the divine and offering a spiritual oblation at the Mass.At the height of what many consider to be a period of near-revolutionary change during the Second Vatican Council, the drafters of Sacrosanctum Concilium described the beauty of the Church’s musical tradition best in writing:

“The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.”[7]

The question in our current time is: will we continue in the direction of a greater “vulgarization” of liturgical music by implementing contemporary styles, lyrics, and instrumentation, or will there be a return to the ancient traditions of chant and classical composition in the Mass? Whatever the answer, the primacy of music in the Catholic Mass will assuredly never be challenged.

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[1]Musicae Sacrae, The Vatican: Pope Pius XII Archives, http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/pius_xii/encyclicals/

[2] Council of Trent, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15030c.htm

[3] The 21 Ecumenical Councils, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/library/almanac_14388a.htm

[4] Music of the Mass, New Advent: Catholic Encyclopedia, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10001a.htm

[5] http://www.tommcfaul.com/escritaria/litmusic.html

[6] Sacrosanctum Concilium, The Vatican, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html

[7] Sacrosanctum Concilium, The Vatican, http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html

How dark were the Dark Ages?

How dark were the Dark Ages? We reply reflexively that, once upon a time, there were castles and lords and then there were peasants and their fiefs: ignorant, backwards country folk. Thus were the Dark Ages. Then came the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. I must wonder if anyone ever stops to ponder how it is that the Dark Ages were dark. My big question is: are we more or less ignorant now than we were back then in the Middle Ages?

I was inspired to ponder this question yesterday when I went to see the awe-inspiring cathedral of Amiens in northern France. As I beheld the splendor and breathtaking beauty of this architecturally immaculate wonder, I began to ask myself if people were really so ignorant back then in terms of their understanding of the world and their place in it. Just imagining the rationality and purpose behind every element of the cathedral revealed to me in stunning terms the intimate knowledge and profound respect for the sublimity of God that people in that epoch surely had.

As I prayed in the adoration chapel, I looked up and noticed a beautiful vertical panel of stained glass which, upon close scrutiny, I noticed depicted the entirety of the history of Christ's Passion. It was unmistakeable. The beauty of the illuminations reveal the simple truths of the Gospel, and yet leaves the spiritual impact of our Lord's self-sacrifice to the heart of each individual believer. Every single part of the cathedral had a purpose. The floors were paved with labyrinth patterns to reveal the mesmerizing and intangible path towards the divine. The sheer massiveness of the nave left me breathless, and yet it depicted but a microcosm of God's immensity! And in the sanctuary-the holy of holies- cordoned off by a jube and beautiful choir stalls, even the most ignorant of persons could gather that in that place the most sacred of events- the consecration- transpires at every Mass.

I could not help but ask myself and reconsider the meaning of the word "ignorance". From where do our intellectual pursuits originate and whenceforth are they to lead us? I do not feel that it was merely the impressive beauty of the cathedral Notre Dame d'Amiens that truly brought forth this question in me. Rather, it was the perception of the simple sense of ordered purpose in that space wholly directed towards one goal: the glorification and revelation of our Lord's essence, which is beyond us. It is beyond me to divine how that space was so elegantly erected. It is beyond me to understand what drove otherwise simple people to gather together and build it up from nothing. And yet, in that cathedral, I understood that somehow, even in that allegedly most ignorant of epochs, there was manifest a profound and reasoned understanding of the unintelligible. So much so that, even lacking what we consider in our modern times to be the signs of advancement and progress, there could be witnessed a true sense of direction and, most importantly, faith.

The central questions, which I feel are really quite simple to answer are: have we truly progressed since then? Are we more or less ignorant?

Link to album of Amiens, including beautiful shots of the cathedral. Below are shots taken from Google.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling

Few things make me as happy as a good poem, especially a poem by Robert Frost. However, I'm posting here the poem "If" by Kipling because it is a beautiful poem and has many good lessons in it. Enjoy!

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

The Rock and Roll Morality

I am writing in great humility with regard to the writing of a great thinker of our past half-century in such a way as to render this text as a commentary more so than an actual personal production of real creative ingenuity. In fact, so humbled am I by the profundity of what I would like to discuss here that I feel a greater temptation to adulate the author rather than to dare comment at all. I will simply leave the commentary to the reader’s own spiritual turnings and disturbances.

At present I am reading a book which I have longed to read for quite some time called The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is, as stated on the back cover, an argument that “the social/political crisis of 20th-century America is really an intellectual crisis.” Thus far he has touched on a multitude of topics and approaches, from relativism to religion to music, the great works of literature, etc. The list is already endless.

Anyways, today I read the chapter titled, “Music”, and was stunned by the fluidity and coherence of Bloom’s argument and observation on our current moral state and how it pertains to our obsession with music. He states that the entire nature of music, as well as its purpose, has changed. If I may sum it up in my own (potentially incorrect) terms, where music was once a means of conveying meaning, a message, and only acutely a form of expression, music as it is manifest in its most popular form today- rock- is now mostly a means of expression with the end of creating an effect, a feeling, and a predominantly physical sense of pleasure.

Before I quote Bloom, I will ask, “Why does this matter?” It matters because music and our relationship to it are intimately tied, as Bloom argues, to our spiritual condition. This should come as no surprise to a Catholic, who knows the centrality of music to the liturgy. And yet, the flux which our musical and, consequently, moral expression has undergone has been virtually overlooked and its effect and reflection of our moral state for the most part ignored. What does all this have to do with “sex, drugs, and rock and roll?”

“Rock gives children, on a silver platter, with all the public authority of the entertainment industry, everything their parents always used to tell them they had to wait for until they grew up and would understand later.” (73)

“In alliance with some real art and a lot of pseudo-art, an enormous industry cultivates the taste for the orgiastic state of feeling connected with sex, providing a constant flood of fresh material for voracious appetites. Never was there an art form directed so exclusively to children.” (73-4)

This fosters a sense of rebellion against authority, that rebellion so emblematic of the era of sex, drugs, and rock and roll that was the 1960’s.

“The inevitable corollary of such sexual interest is rebellion against the parental authority that represses it. Selfishness thus becomes indignation and then transforms itself into morality. The sexual revolution must overthrow all the forces of domination, the enemies of nature and happiness. From love comes hate, masquerading as social reform. A worldview is balanced on the sexual fulcrum. What were once unconscious or half-conscious childish resentments become the new Scripture. And then comes the longing for the classless, prejudice-free, conflictless, universal society that necessarily results from liberated consciousness—“We Are the World,” a pubescent version of Alle Menschen werden Brüder, the fulfillment of which has been inhibited by the political equivalents of Mom and Dad. These are the three great lyrical themes: sex, hate and a swarmy, hypocritical version of brotherly love. Such polluted sources issue in a muddy stream where only monsters can swim. A glance at the videos that project images on the wall of Plato’s cave since MTV took it over suffices to prove this. Hitler’s image recurs frequently enough in exciting contexts to give one pause. Nothing noble, sublime, profound, delicate, tasteful or even decent can find a place in such tableaux. There is room only for the intense, changing, crude and immediate, which Tocqueville warned us would be the character of democratic art, combined with a pervasiveness, importance and content beyond Tocqueville’s wildest imagination.

Picture a thirteen-year-old boy sitting in the living room of his family home doing his math assignment while wearing his Walkman headphones or watching MTV. He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress culminate? A pubescent child whose body throbs with orgasmic rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the joys of onanism or the killing of parents; whose ambition is to win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes the music. In short, life is made into a nonstop, commercially prepackaged masturbational fantasy.

This description may seem exaggerated, but only because some would prefer to regard it as such…” (74-75)

Bloom introduces a moral sociopolitical aspect to his critique of the new musical phenomenon a few pages later:

“It is interesting to note that the Left, which prides itself on its critical approach to ‘late capitalism’ and is unrelenting and unsparing in its analysis of our other cultural phenomena, has in general given rock music a free ride. Abstracting from the capitalist element in which it flourishes, they regard it as a people’s art, coming from beneath the bourgeoisie’s layers of cultural repression. Its antinomianism and its longing for a world without constraint might seem to be the clarion of the proletarian revolution, and Marxists certainly do see that rock music dissolves the beliefs and morals necessary for liberal society and would approve of it for that alone. But the harmony between the young intellectual Left and rock is probably profounder than that. Herbert Marcuse appealed to university students in the sixties with a combination of Marx and Freud. In Eros and Civilization and One Dimensional Man he promised that the overcoming of capitalism and its false consciousness will result in a society where the greatest satisfactions are sexual, a sort that the bourgeois moralist Freud called polymorphous and infantile. Rock music touches the same chord in the young. Free sexual expression, anarchism, mining of the irrational unconscious and giving it free rein are what they have in common. The high intellectual life…and the low rock world are partners in the same entertainment enterprise. They must both be interpreted as parts of the cultural fabric of late capitalism. Their success comes from the bourgeois’ need to feel that he is not bourgeois, to have undangerous experiments with the unlimited. He is willing to pay dearly for them. The Left is better interpreted by Nietzsche than by Marx. The critical theory of late capitalism is at once late capitalism’s subtlest and crudest expression. Anti-bourgeois ire is the opiate of the Last Man.” (77-8)