Saturday 24 May 2014

Imagine



Imagine stepping into a Catholic Church and hearing this. Music breaks down walls. Music like this can break down thick walls of prejudice against the Church. At the Church I attended last week, this sublime music was sung during the Offertory. Why is it not sung in all Churches at its proper time in the liturgical year? Any era in the Church that rejects this music is positively insane. Only a Church that wanted to kill itself would do so.

4 comments:

Our Lady of Good Success-pray for us. said...

I would guess the reason this and, for most parishes on the planet, any real liturgical music at all, isn't sung is because it leads people to think less of the world and more of eternity which is a no no in the church these days; it's some sort of second-council-sin.

Celia said...

In my parish the answer is that we have an elderly parish priest (and a very good one in some ways) who was ordained in the mid-'60s, is an aficionado of folk masses and has been in the parish for nearly 40 years. The 'parish liturgists' are a 'Tablet'-reading couple in their late 60s.'Nuff said.
A nearby parish has a younger priest who is willing to say Latin Mass occasionally and who held 'Tenebrae' services on Good Friday & Holy Saturday where he and the servers chanted the psalms for the day. It was the same translation we use at Mass in the ghastly verse and refrain version- chanted it sounded wonderful. And it's very simple music- anyone can pick it up, which is more than can be said for modern 'praise songs'

Unknown said...

So easy to pick up and so memorable and beautiful.

I am pianist, organist, cantor and choir director for 3 Sunday morning Masses at a Novus Ordo parish. When I first went to work there 5 years ago, it was a typical tambourine banging, guitar strumming and even occasional harmonica blowing (shudder) bunch of musicians. A couple of years ago we got a new priest who prefers more traditional music. I have met with some resistance from the older members of the choir who complain that "we're going backward with this music"! But I've forged ahead---trying to give both pre and post V2 music to make everybody happy (which is impossible.). Also, the harmonica player moved to another state which was a great answer to prayer.
Since becoming more drawn to the traditional Mass which I get to occasionally during the week, I've adopted a policy of only using music written pre-Vatican 2 for our 2nd communion meditation music. We've actually had a lot of compliments on those songs---most recently an Arcadelt Ave Maria and Cherubini's Veni Jesu Amor Mi.
Seattle Kimmy

Unknown said...

Given some of the lyrics found in the modern hymns in our Oregon Catholic Press missal (which I refer to as Oregon Politically Correct), I believe you are correct, Mr. Viterbo

Seattle Kimmy

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