Kneeling, silence–and beauty
Walter Esler, a week or ten days back, spoke of the lack of beauty in the liturgy. I’ve heard the complaint before, and often enough to make me think that there are many Catholics who don’t associate the liturgy with beauty, or beauty with the liturgy. Think, for example, of the lists of favorite hymns that have come out in recent weeks–where post-conciliar songs and ditties predominate in the top-ten. (A priest recently told me of preparing a couple for a wedding, and one of the party said he’d like a “classic” hymn, like “On Eagle’s Wings” or “Be Not Afraid” ! )
Someone has compared most of the post-conciliar music to finger-painting–fine for children, but not exactly works of art.
How much does making the Mass an expression and an experience of beauty enter into the minds of those planning the liturgy? of those who are carrying it out?
It actually is possible to celebrate the “New Mass” (now old, so old it’s the only Mass a generation or two knows! ) with beauty. How often does that happen?
Here, God help us, is the list of most popular Catholic songs/hymns:
The List (composer and votes in parentheses):
1. On Eagle’s Wings (Michael Joncas, 242 )
2. Here I Am, Lord (Dan Schutte, 152 )
3. Be Not Afraid (Bob Dufford, 146 )
4. You Are Mine (David Haas, 138 )
5. How Great Thou Art (Stuart Hine, 76 )
6. Holy God, We Praise Thy Name (Ignaz Franz, 70 )
7. Amazing Grace (John Newton, 69 )
8. All Are Welcome (Marty Haugen, 58 )
9. Prayer of St. Francis (Sebastian Temple, 43 )
10. Ave Maria (42 )
11. We Are Called (David Haas, 38 )
12. Let There Be Peace on Earth (Miller-Jackson, 36 )
13. I Am the Bread of Life (Suzanne Toolan, 30 )
14. The Summons (trad./John Bell, 30 )
15. Panis Angelicus (29 )
16. The Servant Song (Richard Gillard, 29 )
17. Pescador de Hombres (Cesareo Gabarain, 28 )
18. Servant Song (Donna McCargill, 28 )
19. Shepherd Me, O God (Marty Haugen, 27 )
20. Ave Verum Corpus (26 )
21. Lord of the Dance (trad./Carter, 24 )
22. One Bread, One Body (John Foley, 24 )
23. Tantum Ergo (24 )
24. Hosea (Gregory Norbet, 23 )
25. Pange Lingua (23 )
And, for points of comparison here are the top ten from Adoremus readers (AH stands for the number in the Adoremus Hymnal.):
1. Holy God We Praise Thy Name (AH* 461)
2. Ave Verum Corpus (chant AH 514)
3. Immaculate Mary (AH 532)
4. Come Holy Ghost (AH 443)
5. Hail Holy Queen, Enthroned Above (AH 530)
6. Jesus Christ Is Risen Today (AH 410)
7. Panis Angelicus (AH 523)
8. Salve Regina (AH 547)
9. Soul of My Savior (AH 522)
10. To Jesus Christ Our Sovereign King (AH 480)
And at this site http://www.lcrchurch.org/topten hymns.htm, you can find the Lutherans’ preferences.
I’ll shut up now.
jak
Egads! Does the lcr list suggest I might be a Lutheran?
At The Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake City beauty and liturgy coincide all the time, especially at our 11:00 am Sunday Mass, Holy Days, the Triduum, the great Easter Vigil, etc.
http://www.saltlakecathedral.org/
I have come to hate many of the songs on the top 25 list, to be sure. (Although I was actually pleasantly surprised to see “The Summons” there!) But I think my dislike is due as much to gross overuse, and schlocky performance by “contemporary choirs” (all over 50, these days) than any innate musical inferiority. These are largely good, effective, scriptural liturgical songs that have been done to death or outlived their usefulness.
Is any song influenced by the American popular music tradition “unbeautiful”? If so, we’re in trouble, because this is the music people live and breathe. I don’t think “Panis Angelicus” is a better piece of worship music than some of these more contemporary hits. To me it usually seems just as sentimental and tiresome – and usually, excruciatingly performed to boot.
I’d like to hear more chant, of course – especially newer forms like the amazing music from the Sant’Egidio Community in Rome – but I doubt there’d be a great popular embrace of it in the U.S. There’s no accounting for taste, after all, and in many cases, taste is what we’re arguing about, I think, rather than beauty.
The lucky folks in Salt Lake City seem to have a good thing going, with a serious choir and an interesting repertoire. We take potluck here in Westchester. One Sunday there will be a lovely range of traditional German and English Hymns, and the next week will bring a dreary selection from the pop hits. Unfortunately, though, our choir sings both kinds of hymns in a sentimental whine suitable to some cowboy lament. I think this dreadful style has been very much encouraged, by the Schutte and Haugen style of hymn writing that seems to dominate the hymnals.
Some of the top 25 I actually enjoy. I can remember in high school singing: “Here we are all together as we sing our song joyfully…
In other words it could be worse
I find most of the top 25 repellent as music. The one exception from the new hymns is I Am the Bread of Life. There is a long tradition of excellent hymns in English, many of Protestant origin, but so what? Charles Wesley could write. I also love A Might Fortress Is Our God. At least we could all sing it on Reformation Sunday. Or would that confuse the congregation?
The positive element in the top 25 is that the sentiments are strong and spirited. I would add that if Panis Angelicus were understood better it would be number 1. Certainly there is work to be done but some of the other songs chosen have no meat or bounce to them. The 25 at least are “hummable” and engaging. As the purists get into it they should not forget this.
Come, on, Catholics! You sound like the nice Republican ladies who run the Altar Society at a spiky Episcopal Church.
The beauty of the Mass is the miracle that , when we celebrate together, Jesus will join us.
Even when the lector falters, the music is keening, the EM is wearing pedal pushers, somebody’s toddler is running around in the aisle, the 14-year-old altar boys are shambling around in tennis shoes under their robes looking sullen and ashamed, and the priest’s solution to the income shortfall is Texas Hold’em tournaments.
That’s where Jesus lives in my neck of the woods, and I can only imagine how much worse it might be if He didn’t.
This is hardly a new concern and it is not simply the music that is at issue. It is the entire concept of what liturgy (i.e., “the Mass” as it used to be called) is. It has gone from being part of the eternal praise of God (CCC #315, 1073, 1136), in which we take part, to something human beings “do” for God. This focus on the human involvement attenuates the primary focus of the Mass, which is to praise God. In the process, God works in us. The Mass used to be a space and time in which one could experience a foretaste of eternity; now it is merely the launching point for various persons/groups to impose their own, often theologically unsophisticated, wares on those who attend. Of course, even with the Novus Ordo we still experience the Risen Lord, but the way it is celebrated is one of the reasons that so few Catholics have a sense of the transcendent or any idea that there is something beyond this world. I am hoping that Pope Benedict’s revision of the Novus Ordo and eventual reconciliation with the SSPX will encourage Catholics to regain this sense of the presence of the invisible God.
Jackie:
Yes, the textbooks do indeed “preach it” as you iterate.
As one who was raised in the reality of the Pre Vatican II Mass, however, I find your naivete about what people think happened then to be sadly mistaken (in the main).
The reality of most of those masses (except possibly in religious communities or urban cathedrals) was dulnessl, mundane rote ritual, perfunctory and attended out of a sense of obligation rather than an opportunity to .”experience a foretaste of eternity.” In my old parish, the pastor was very popular because he could (and would) “get ‘em in and get ‘em out” as quickly as possible. Punch that ticket and then get out to real life.
If that was what eternity is to be, deal me out!
Jimmy Mac,
You are the one who’s naive and cynical, by the way. Just because YOU didn’t get much of the old Mass doesn’t mean that other’s did not. The old Mass did present a foretaste of eternity and transcendence and many people responded to that. You are not the only arbiter of what people think. You are like the current group of historical-critical “experts,” who think that if something wasn’t done the way THEY do it, then it’s invalid or NAIVE. The Novus Ordo, at least as handled by the “spirit” of Vatican II clergy, presents nothing but banal, horizontal liturgies that offer nothing but a God in our own image and all the transcendence of an Elks meeting. Who are you to say that those who attended the old Mass (and who are excited about its return) did so only out of obligation? That may be true in your case, but you don’t speak for everyone. And, again, you lost!
Maybe you both need to avoid generalizations. I was an altarboy in the late 1940s and throughout the 1950s. Some Masses in my parish embodied invitations to transcendence. Others did not, as, for example, the Requiem Masses that Fr. Joe O. zipped through in eighteen minutes!
And, yes, some Masses today are “banal, horizontal liturgies,” but I wouldn’t use those words to describe, say, the way in which Pope Benedict XVI celebrates the Novus Ordo liturgy.