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| Auguste Danse, Study of Three Singers (detail) |
The following is based on a real letter.
Dear Friend,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re experiencing some “ups and downs” with regard to the liturgy there, though it’s hardly surprising in a way. Your diocese is not well known for liturgical propriety or taste, and, beyond that, priests mostly have control over how the liturgy goes, which is why we end up with a lot of messes and relatively few triumphs. Once you grasp the essential problem of the optionitis of the new rite, you can then see clearly why the challenge of agreement on what to sing and when arises in such acute form. Very few clergy are well-trained nowadays in sacred music, and they often have a hard time understanding why (to take one notorious example) one would wish to use a Gradual instead of a responsorial psalm. They are just used to what they’re used to, and other things seem odd. This is the power of custom at work, and even bad custom, unfortunately, feels like, and is treated like, law.
You asked me how I ever got to the point of being able to sing so much chant at the place where I used to direct music. It was rather remarkable how things worked out. When I was first hired, I was in a position to convince the pastor—then a conservative who was open to Ratzingerian ideas—that Mass should be as “reverent” and “traditional” as possible. We wrote up a guide that we followed almost without deviation. There was also always a desire for a strong choir; and once people heard what the choir was capable of, they simply wanted that beauty to continue. Both my friends and my enemies would probably say that I kept a stranglehold on the program and fought hard against innovation or change, except when it was change in a more traditional direction.
In the end, as you know, I was too traditional for the place, especially under the dominance of new and more “progressive” (in reality, regressive: “Back to the ’70s!”) leadership, and so my tenure came to an end—but not before eleven good years had passed.
The use of Propers at daily Mass is certainly very exceptional in the Novus Ordo Missae [NOM] world. The place you pointed to as a model happens to be one of the few places on the planet where the Graduale Romanum is more commonly used than a hymnal.
Moreover, one must grasp—this is crucial—that the mentality of Catholics about daily Mass is very much a “low Mass” one. They want to get in and get out in a half-hour or so if possible. To my mind, this worked well enough when you had the real low Mass—a quiet, peaceful, contemplative Mass said by the priest and servers, with no music. But with the NOM’s near constant flow of words, a daily Mass can be a painfully didactic and unedifying experience; the chant, I found, helps a lot to dissipate that feeling and to elevate the worship, and it is possible to sing the Ordinary and Propers without Mass taking longer than about 40 minutes, provided the preaching does not carry on. Still, you have to understand that you are working from a baseline assumption of no music for weekdays, so every piece you add, no matter how beautiful or fitting, is already a step beyond that, and likely to be experienced, at least by some, as an unwelcome imposition.
The various Gregorian antiphons are, in keeping with the NOM’s character, optional. That is why no one can ever say “they must be sung,” even on Sundays or Holy Days. One can try to make a “hermeneutic of continuity” argument that they should be sung, that it’s better to do so, more fitting, but at the end of the day, they are as optional as the day is long. And options often facilitate the attitude: do what’s quickest, or even skip it altogether.
In the music program I used to direct, we did the Propers because, at the time, I was firmly convinced of the need for (and the possibility of) liturgical harmony between the old and new forms of the Mass, and others there were willing to accept my view because they liked the results. In the old Mass, in contrast, degrees of solemnity, and thus, required items of music, are hard-wired into the liturgy: you cannot do a High Mass or Solemn Mass without singing everything that must be sung. In the new Mass, solemnity is a subjective concept that is made up of a lot of accidental elements, which, again, can make navigating the waters quite a challenge.
Arguments for singing the antiphons at daily Mass are not difficult to come by (read this, this, and this), but you have to be prepared for pushback. One of the most disappointing aspect of fallen human nature is that a convincing argument, even an unanswerable argument, may still not be enough to shift someone to your position. That’s because people work by prejudice, sentiment, habit, instinct, laziness, fear, and a hundred other factors.
You asked me for recommended reading on the history and theology of the liturgy in our times, since your own education in Catholic institutions was deficient in this area. Don’t feel too badly; there is almost nowhere in the world where liturgy is studied from a traditional point of view, or even much at all, outside of traditionalist seminaries. Most degree programs are thoroughly in the grip of the “spirit of Vatican II” paradigm, and even when they are not, any serious or systematic critique of the liturgical revolution is verboten. Having and studying the following texts will constitute a profitable introductory course:
Ratzinger. A masterpiece—and the fact that it was globally attacked by progressives shows that he was very much on target.
Reid. A bit of heavy lifting but nothing is better on the concept of what development is and looks like and doesn’t look like.
Chiron. The perfect biography of a figure one must know about. Also lots of twentieth-century liturgical history.
Fiedrowicz. This book is essential reading on the history and theology of the liturgy. Just magnificent. And don’t skip the footnotes.
Shaw. Eminently practical and thorough, with copious sources of documentation. Indispensable for background of all kinds.
Mosebach. The masterpiece on the question of liturgy as art-form and the necessary aesthetic requirements of it.
Lastly, my “trilogy” (1, 2, and 3).
That should be plenty to keep you busy. Be patient, do your best, and make time for the Byzantine liturgy you have in your neighborhood. It will teach you much.
God Bless,
Dr. Kwasniewski
You asked me how I ever got to the point of being able to sing so much chant at the place where I used to direct music. It was rather remarkable how things worked out. When I was first hired, I was in a position to convince the pastor—then a conservative who was open to Ratzingerian ideas—that Mass should be as “reverent” and “traditional” as possible. We wrote up a guide that we followed almost without deviation. There was also always a desire for a strong choir; and once people heard what the choir was capable of, they simply wanted that beauty to continue. Both my friends and my enemies would probably say that I kept a stranglehold on the program and fought hard against innovation or change, except when it was change in a more traditional direction.
In the end, as you know, I was too traditional for the place, especially under the dominance of new and more “progressive” (in reality, regressive: “Back to the ’70s!”) leadership, and so my tenure came to an end—but not before eleven good years had passed.
The use of Propers at daily Mass is certainly very exceptional in the Novus Ordo Missae [NOM] world. The place you pointed to as a model happens to be one of the few places on the planet where the Graduale Romanum is more commonly used than a hymnal.
Moreover, one must grasp—this is crucial—that the mentality of Catholics about daily Mass is very much a “low Mass” one. They want to get in and get out in a half-hour or so if possible. To my mind, this worked well enough when you had the real low Mass—a quiet, peaceful, contemplative Mass said by the priest and servers, with no music. But with the NOM’s near constant flow of words, a daily Mass can be a painfully didactic and unedifying experience; the chant, I found, helps a lot to dissipate that feeling and to elevate the worship, and it is possible to sing the Ordinary and Propers without Mass taking longer than about 40 minutes, provided the preaching does not carry on. Still, you have to understand that you are working from a baseline assumption of no music for weekdays, so every piece you add, no matter how beautiful or fitting, is already a step beyond that, and likely to be experienced, at least by some, as an unwelcome imposition.
The various Gregorian antiphons are, in keeping with the NOM’s character, optional. That is why no one can ever say “they must be sung,” even on Sundays or Holy Days. One can try to make a “hermeneutic of continuity” argument that they should be sung, that it’s better to do so, more fitting, but at the end of the day, they are as optional as the day is long. And options often facilitate the attitude: do what’s quickest, or even skip it altogether.
In the music program I used to direct, we did the Propers because, at the time, I was firmly convinced of the need for (and the possibility of) liturgical harmony between the old and new forms of the Mass, and others there were willing to accept my view because they liked the results. In the old Mass, in contrast, degrees of solemnity, and thus, required items of music, are hard-wired into the liturgy: you cannot do a High Mass or Solemn Mass without singing everything that must be sung. In the new Mass, solemnity is a subjective concept that is made up of a lot of accidental elements, which, again, can make navigating the waters quite a challenge.
Arguments for singing the antiphons at daily Mass are not difficult to come by (read this, this, and this), but you have to be prepared for pushback. One of the most disappointing aspect of fallen human nature is that a convincing argument, even an unanswerable argument, may still not be enough to shift someone to your position. That’s because people work by prejudice, sentiment, habit, instinct, laziness, fear, and a hundred other factors.
You asked me for recommended reading on the history and theology of the liturgy in our times, since your own education in Catholic institutions was deficient in this area. Don’t feel too badly; there is almost nowhere in the world where liturgy is studied from a traditional point of view, or even much at all, outside of traditionalist seminaries. Most degree programs are thoroughly in the grip of the “spirit of Vatican II” paradigm, and even when they are not, any serious or systematic critique of the liturgical revolution is verboten. Having and studying the following texts will constitute a profitable introductory course:
Ratzinger. A masterpiece—and the fact that it was globally attacked by progressives shows that he was very much on target.
Reid. A bit of heavy lifting but nothing is better on the concept of what development is and looks like and doesn’t look like.
Chiron. The perfect biography of a figure one must know about. Also lots of twentieth-century liturgical history.
Fiedrowicz. This book is essential reading on the history and theology of the liturgy. Just magnificent. And don’t skip the footnotes.
Shaw. Eminently practical and thorough, with copious sources of documentation. Indispensable for background of all kinds.
Mosebach. The masterpiece on the question of liturgy as art-form and the necessary aesthetic requirements of it.
Lastly, my “trilogy” (1, 2, and 3).
That should be plenty to keep you busy. Be patient, do your best, and make time for the Byzantine liturgy you have in your neighborhood. It will teach you much.
God Bless,
Dr. Kwasniewski
