Monthly Archives: July 2018

Precious in the Eyes of the Lord is the Death of His Faithful Ones

Choir Schools, Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy

Everyone experiences certain events throughout his life, ones which he remembers with incredible fondness and nostalgia, perhaps even with a bit of longing. Perhaps it is best that God created man to live in time, continually moving toward eternity, lest he become comfortable “here below” and fail to keep his eyes lifted heavenward. Nevertheless, certain moments in this valley of tears remind us to raise our eyes again to the Father Who loves us and to strive for Heaven with all of our being. These experiences provide strength for those who are persecuted—strength to remain faithful to their call. They also call the lost back to faithfulness. I am reminded of Christ’s Transfiguration on Mount Tabor, where He gave His apostles a glimpse of His heavenly glory to fortify them against His coming Passion and to both comfort and challenge them after His Resurrection.

One such personal experience of mine took place at the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains on 2 January, 2016. The Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum was on pilgrimage to Rome and in that capacity sang for Sunday Mass in the basilica. It was early in the morning, perhaps too early for most Italians, and the sun had just burst forth along the horizon of a beautiful and crisp winter morning. The choristers had vested and made the short walk from the bus to the church. As choir director I really had no idea what to expect as we arrived. The sacristan motioned for the singers to proceed to the ancient choir stalls surrounding the altar and confessio, shortly after which, Holy Mass began. The Missa cum iubilo rolled down the nave and back again as the Eternal Sacrifice resounded about us. We sang in view of the creche, not far from the chains that held St. Peter both in Jerusalem and in Rome, ever watched over by Michaelangelo’s Moses. There we were in the Eternal City where St. Peter stood as pontifex between the Old and New Testaments, announcing the Kingdom of God to what was then the greatest kingdom mankind had ever known. Two thousand years later the great Roman Empire had been consigned to history, while the Church, ruled by the Lord of history, stretched across the entire globe as a sign to all people that God, in His Son, has redeemed mankind and opened again the gates of Heaven to all below. In our parish back home, the inquisitive sojourner in our Perpetual Adoration Chapel might have noticed inscribed around the monstrance the Latin phrase Ecce panis angelorum factus cibus viatorum (Behold the Bread of angels, made the food of travelers). There in the creche in the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains was a small likeness the Infant-King, Who in that Mass became the Living Bread, the Holy Eucharist for each of us, food for us travelers. To this day everyone who traveled with the choir remembers this Mass as the crowning moment of the entire trip.

We have all encountered these moments that sustain us along our pilgrim way and I assume the same could be said of all the Holy Martyrs. I have often wondered what went through the heart and mind of the Maccabean mother, who, “being filled with wisdom: and joining a man’s heart to a woman’s thought” (2 Maccabees: 7:21) not only beheld, but counseled her seven sons to remain faithful to the God of their fathers and to the laws of Moses, even if when it meant torture and death at the hands of Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Surely there were moments she remembered from her life that, along with her prayer and confidence in God, emboldened her to watch the deaths of her sons with every hope that their sacrifices would be rewarded in eternal life. I also imagine that her husband, who I assume was deceased by this point, inculcated a love for God and His Law in his family that helped sustain them as well. I am moved by this story every time I hear it and I pray that I might be given the grace to endure such a test if, God forbid, it should ever happen to me and my family.

Imagine my surprise this morning as I read through a portion of the Roman Martyrology to discover that in the old Roman Calendar both the Feast of St. Peter in Chains and the Feast of the Maccabean mother and her sons shared the same calendar day (tomorrow, 1 August) and that this family are traditionally thought to be buried in the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains. How fitting it is that St. Peter in Chains, by no means the most beautiful and opulent in Rome, houses Michaelangelo’s Moses, a symbol of the Law to which this family was so faithful. It is a poignant reminder to me to constantly pray for the gift of fortitude. May we pray for such witnesses to be raised again in the western world, and we pray for the intercession of those Christians who have been martyred in various parts of the globe this century. May their prayers and example bring us to the Gates of Heaven and may Mary, Queen of all Martyrs, give each of us such strength and courage.

 

A Model for Parish Revitalization (NO)

Feasts of the Church, Music for the Liturgy, Uncategorized

Last week George Weigel released an article entitled A Pastor in Full honoring Fr. Jay Scott Newman of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Greenville, SC, a priest who has influenced Weigel greatly over the years and who recently celebrated the silver jubilee of his ordination. Weigel writes about Fr. Newman’s parish:

“I know of none better than St. Mary’s in Greenville, where the entire parish is, as Pope Francis urges, “permanently in mission,” empowered by biblically-rich preaching, nurtured by a beautiful and prayerful liturgy that embodies Vatican II’s liturgical reform at its finest, and led by a pastor who makes evangelization a priority.

Weigel even released his work Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church at St. Mary’s. I decided to pop over to the parish’s website and found the following from Fr. Newman. “Being Evangelical Catholics requires that we know the Gospel, believe the Gospel, live the Gospel, and share the Gospel with others, and this begins and ends for us in the sacred liturgy, the source and summit of the Church’s life.” This struct me because its wisdom flies in the face of the commonest forms of evangelization promoted in the Church today. Fr. Newman claims, and rightly so, that evangelization begins and returns in the Sacred Liturgy, where we find Christ Himself. I cannot stress how important this is. If we  truly seek to evangelize, we must first receive before we can give. It is in the Sacred Liturgy, especially in the Holy Eucharist, where we receive Christ and through this gift are able to transform the world.

I would encourage everyone to visit the parish website and to see what can be done in a parish. Especially pay attention to Fr. Newman’s page about Evangelical Catholicism. Please share this website with those pastors you know who truly pray and work for the building up of the Mystical Body of Christ. It is refreshing to see the Gospel put forth in all of its beauty and glory. Otherwise the faithful get this.

The Sung Canon

Feasts of the Church, Most Pure Heart of Mary Schola Cantorum, Music for the Liturgy

Throughout my life I have been spared the ghastliest of liturgical abuses and aberrations within Mass and in most cases I can even write that these celebrations were both valid and licit, yet like most of my generation, such liturgies left me wondering if there was more to my Catholic Faith. Thanks to the wonderful teaching and example of my parents, this was never of question of doubt in God, or in His Goodness, Truth or Beauty, mind you, but rather a series of questions beginning with why. Why is the God of the universe, Whom I know to be all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving presented to me as an effeminate man who willingly sacrifices all of his Goodness, Truth and Beauty and real charity in order to be nice? Why is holiness, intimate friendship with God, sacrificed for those greater “virtues” of tolerance and niceness? Why is Heaven, our glorious patria, our eternal homeland, made present in a veiled manner at every Holy Mass, presented as a place of niceness (which to a boy of 13 and 14 is code for BORING)? I still remember the first time my family attended a Mass in the Extraordinary Form my freshman year in high school. The music was of no particular quality and I couldn’t relate a word of Father’s homily any more, but I do specifically remember it being awe-some in the deepest sense of the word—the very opposite of BORING. The fact that I asked the aforementioned questions was a particular grace of God. Unfortunately most of my schoolmates experienced BORING and simply left the Church. They never knew there was more—infinitely more.

If we hope to address this particular problem in the Ordinary Form, short of returning wholesale to the Extraordinary Form (which is another topic all together), we must work to restore a sense of mystery, transcendence and awe to the Sacred Liturgy. Otherwise we run the risk of lying to the faithful in the pew about Who God is and what He has done fore us.

I was fortunate enough to attend the Sacred Music Colloquium last month and experience the Ordinary Form celebrated in continuity with the Church’s great liturgical tradition, devoid of the mundane and banal, which so often paralyze the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the faithful. One particularly poignant moment I recall took place during the Canon of the Mass on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, when the priest, facing ad orientem and devoid of any amplification, chanted the Canon of the Mass. I was immediately struck by the awe-someness of the moment and my soul was filled with peace as its usual restlessness and fight against the BORING was banished. I have often attended Mass in the Ordinary Form celebrated ad orientem but have still struggled with the constant talking on the part of the priest at the most intimate moment of Mass, especially when a microphone is involved. Yet chanted, the words of the Canon take flight as prayer as opposed to mere talking, and when sung without the aid of a microphone, the words almost force the person in the pew to listen more intently. Prayer becomes natural as God is brought to the fore.

Since the Canon cannot be recited “silently” in the Ordinary Form, I wonder if chanting it might be one answer to the lack of transcendence we often encounter within Mass. Perhaps those priests who have personally tried this might offer advice based upon their experiences. Regardless, continue to turn toward the Lord in your heart and wait for Him in the silence of your interior room.

Impressions from the CMAA Sacred Music Colloquium 2018

Chorister Training, Music for the Liturgy, Sight-Singing

In Catholic circles we often joke that not even God Himself knows how much money the Jesuits really have, the truth of which I witnessed on parade at the beautiful Loyal University waterfront campus in Chicago, host for the CMAA’s 2018 Sacred Music Colloquium last week. I thought today I would share with readers some of my impressions of the wonderful events that took place.

Holiness and Friendship: Saints tend to come in batches, one friend encouraging another, which I found no less true for those I met at the Colloquium. Men and women, priests and religious from all backgrounds and walks of life (my roommate was a priest from Nigeria!), arrived in Chicago, but all were animated by the common goal of Heaven. All were striving for holiness, a witness so important for the world today. Pope Benedict once mentioned that Beauty, especially in the lives of the saints would convert the world, and I was both edified and encouraged by the desire for holiness I saw in so many at the colloquium. This naturally resulted in the deepening of old friendships and the creation of new, lasting friendships built on and in Christ—friendships that will endure.

Beauty and Transcendence: If the Holy Eucharist truly is the source and summit of our Catholic Faith and if all we do as Christians and as musicians comes from and returns to the God the Father, through Christ and in the Holy Spirit in the Sacred Liturgy, then our worship of almighty God is of primary and paramount importance, and so it follows that how we pray affects how we believe, and how we believe affects how we act. The beauty and solemnity in the way the priests celebrated the Holy Masses and the Divine Office spoke not only to a hermeneutic of continuity with all the Church has taught and professed throughout Her 2000 year history, but also spoke to what they themselves believed about God. I found this both inspiring and challenging.

As an aside, it always strikes me that the more we try to make the Mass understandable, the more we try to bring it down to the level of “common humanity,” the harder time I have remembering that God is all holy and all powerful and that He loves me with a love so  deep that He willingly endured His Passion and Death in order to open the gates of Heaven to me. The beauty and transcendence of the Sacred Liturgies at the Colloquium reminded me of just how all powerful God is and how much He must have loved mankind to willingly step down from His thrown, so to speak, and do what He did. When God is presented and worshipped as if He were a cross between Ralph Nader and Maya Angelou (I think these are Peter Kreeft’s words) prayer becomes difficult for me, but the Masses and Divine Office of the Colloquium truly flooded my soul with peace, and yet challenged me to confront my sinfulness and open myself to God’s healing and Almighty Hand.

Awe for the Workers in God’s Vineyard: I was truly edified by those who work so hard in the field of Sacred Music. I met men and women who chose to attend the Colloquium because they wanted to learn how to make this music in order to transform their parishes and they realized the task fell to them alone to make that happen. I was also surprised and edified at the number of young men and women who are entering the field of Sacred Music professionally and who desire to be supremely competent in their craft. As we know, there is often a false dichotomy presented in the Church today between the professional musician and the faithful disciple, and many participants I met were living proof that professional competency and discipleship are both possible and necessary.

Hope: I realize there is a lot of confusion in the Church today, most of it self-inflicted, and while it is easy to become discouraged, don’t despair. I see so many reasons to hope for the future. At the same time, the musicians I met realized that this hope must be grounded in a healthy acknowledgment that the survival and ultimate flourishing of the Faith in the western world is by no means assured, only possible if we continue to pray and work and spend our lives in the service of God’s Holy Will for each of us. There is a healthy dose of very potent leaven in the world today, but it is up to us to kneed the dough and and bring to fruition the bread that God desires. Of course, this is only possible if we are grounded deeply in prayer, especially in the prayer of the Sacred Liturgy.

Fun: I confess wholeheartedly to being a musical geek and that the most fun I had at the Colloquium was on the last day when a number of folks had already left and the choirs needed extra male singers to fill the choral ranks. Mass was celebrated in the Extraordinary Form for the Commemoration of St. Paul and the choirs sang Palestrina’s Missa Aeteran Christi munera. I had never sung this Mass before, which meant sight-singing with no chance of a “do-over.” Scott Turkington joined the choir to my left and Peter Carter of St. John the Baptist Latin Mass Community joined to my right and the sound was glorious! I could have done that all day.

If you have never been I strongly encourage you to do so—you won’t regret it.