A Lenten Prayer Service with Archbishop Cordileone, March 11

Miserere: A Lenten Prayer Service with Archbishop Cordileone, March 11, 11 a.m. at Mission Dolores Basilica in San Francisco. Register to attend in person or to receive the EWTN link here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/miserere-a-lenten-service-with-abp-cordileone-new-works-of-sacred-music-tickets-491821690917

Dr. Alfred Calabrese will conduct the 20-voice Band of Voices Choir in a worship service featuring works of Palestrina, Victoria, and Di Lasso paired with works by living Catholic composers, including three World Premieres commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute: Popule meus by Daniel Knaggs, Ad te levavi oculos meos by Mark Nowakowski and Timor et tremor by Jeffrey Quick, as well as a performance of Frank La Rocca’s Miserere.

In Lent, we walk with Christ towards Calvary in order to rise with him on Easter. If you are or can be at the beautiful and historic Mission Dolores Basilica on March 11 in San Francisco, do not miss this event. Registering today helps plan for the hospitality afterward. (Pizza from Mozzerela di Buffala: bring the kids). If you can’t come, please register to join us virtually via EWTN, which will also live broadcast the service.

The March 11 Lenten prayer service features sung prayers, with great works by Victoria, di Lasso and the works of gifted living Catholic composers Frank La Rocca, Daniel Knaggs, Jeffrey Quick, and Mark Nowakowski, including three world-premieres.

Program

1. Confitemini Domino (Psalm 136 (135) chanted in Latin)

2. Popule Meus, Tomas Luis de Victoria, c.1548-1611 (edited by Daniel Knaggs)

3. Popule Meus, Daniel Knaggs, b.1983 (Commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute, world premiere).

4. Timor et tremor, Orlando di Lasso, c.1532-94

5. Timor et tremor, Jeffrey Quick, b. 1956 (commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute, World Premiere)

6. Ad te levavi oculos meos, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, c.1525-94

7. Ad te levavi oculos meos, Mark Nowakowski, b. 1978 (commissioned by the Benedict XVI Institute, World Premiere)

8. Miserere mei, Orlando di Lasso

9. Miserere, Frank La Rocca, b. 1951

Meet the Living Composers

Daniel Knaggs is an internationally recognized Houston-based composer. In 2022 alone his works were performed in Singapore, Australia, Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Italy, England, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Portugal, the Czech Republic and throughout the United States. He loves evoking vivid imagery in his music, and focusing his efforts into ongoing projects such as his 50-year Ave Maria Project (2005-2054) and his “After” Motets Project. Among his many awards are the 2019 Noël Minet Prize (Germany) and the 2012 David Maria Turoldo Composer Competition (Italy). In addition to composing, Daniel Knaggs is the Artistic Director of the new Poland-based choir, Ensemble Invocatio, which he founded in 2022. He can be reached at https://danieljknaggs.com/Knaggs

Frank La Rocca is the composer-in-residence at the Benedict XVI Institute. His recent work Mass of the Americas was hailed as “Perhaps the most significant Catholic composition of our lifetimes.“ (Michael Olbash). In September 2022, the recording of the Mass of the Americas with the Benedict XVI Choir (Richard Sparks, conducting) debuted at #1 on the Billboard charts in in traditional classical music. Frank La Rocca’s other commissions for the Benedict XVI Institute include the Missa Sancti Juniperi Serra, the Requiem Mass for the Homeless, and the Messe des Malades: Honoring Our Lady of Lourdes. His work can be found at FrankLaRocca.com.

Mark Nowakowski’s works represent a modern merger of bold expression and mystical contemplation, Slavic pathos and American individualism. His work has been commissioned and performed internationally including the Kronos Quartet, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, the Silesian Quartet, Orkiestra Camerata Stargard, Stowarzyszenia Mozart, Vox Musics of Sacrement, the choirs of St. John Cantius, and of the Shrine of the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C and the Cracow Brass Quartet. Gramophone Magazine called “Blood, Forgotten” Mark Nowakowski’s debut album on Naxos “at once fierce, haunting and mystical.” He currently serves as composer-in-residence for His Majesty’s Men and directs the Vos Omnes Virtual Choir. He wrote the film score for “Mass of the Ages” and “Discovering Tolkien.” Mark Nowakowski can be reached at: http://current.marknowakowski.com/

Jeffrey Quick’s music is print-published by Lorenz and CanticaNOVA; his sacred works are available at cpdl.org, while secular works can be purchased at newmusicshelf.com He retired as assistant music librarian at Case Western Reserve University in 2020, and directs the schola cantorum of St. Sebastian Church in Akron Ohio. His first premiere by the Benedict XVI Institute was Versa est in luctum performed by the Archbishop’s Schola in San Francisco on March 5, 2022. More information is available at jeffreyquick.com

The William P. Mahrt Sacred Music Chair (Part 1): Guest Article by Roseanne T. Sullivan

We are very grateful to guest contributor Roseanne T Sullivan for this article about a new chair in Sacred Music, named for our publisher, and long-time president of the Church Music Association of America, Dr William P. Mahrt. The chair has been established by His Excellency Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, at the archdiocesan seminary and university of St Patrick in Menlo Park, and its first holder is our contributor Dr Jennifer Donelson-Novicka. This post will be followed by a second part with an interview with Archbishop Cordileone.

His Excellency Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco has created an endowed chair in Sacred Music at St. Patrick’s Seminary and University, which forms clergy for the San Francisco archdiocese and for other dioceses throughout the West and the Pacific Rim. With the establishment of this new William P. Mahrt Chair in Sacred Music, many courses in the history and practice of the Church’s sacred music will be available to seminarians and to others who are interested.

St Patrick’s Seminary

The overall quality of music at the seminary liturgies will be enhanced by the musical direction and example of the new holder of the chair, Professor Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka. In her new role as Associate Professor of Music and Director of Sacred Music at the seminary, she will also serve as the director of sacred music, overseeing all the musical activities in the seminary chapel, and accompanying liturgies at the organ, while both developing and directing a schola cantorum, which will sing Gregorian chant (in Latin), chant in English and Spanish, and sacred polyphony.

Here are some quotations from her paper “Emotion, Intellect, and Will: The Fruits of Sacred Music in the Spiritual Life”, which was given on June 29 at the Sacra Liturgia 2022 Conference in San Francisco.

“The Church has long been the greatest patron of beauty, feeding Christ’s sheep. Beauty is food for the soul. The world needs the material charity of the Church, but also Her spiritual charity.”

“It is possible to get to heaven without understanding much of anything about music, thanks be to God. But to willfully cling to ignorance or even an anti-knowledge which prizes ugliness or mediocrity is to choose to be deaf to one mode through which God makes known His glory.”

“Mediocre music, banal music is not spiritually neutral. It has a numbing effect on the soul, feeding the senses with the mere shadow of the glory of God’s love, but never really piquing our interest or helping us see God clearly. ... Bad music is a sort of spiritual junk food—food that looks like food, but makes us fat and lethargic. Musical junk food has no place in the sacred liturgy.”

Prof. Donelson-Novicka speaking at the Sacra Liturgia conference this past June; to her right are His Eminence Robert Card. Sarah, Archbishop Cordileone, and Fr Mark Doherty, the rector of St Patrick’s Seminary.

Professor Donelson-Nowicka wrote this to me in an email: “The chair is named after Dr. Mahrt in honor of his decades of devoted service to the cause of sacred music, not only in the Bay Area through his work at Stanford University and with the St. Ann Choir, but also nationally and internationally through his leadership as president of the Church Music Association of America (CMAA), and editorship of the CMAA’s journal Sacred Music.

“His scholarly work highlights, for example, how the Church’s Gregorian chant not only fittingly conveys the texts it adorns, but serves an integral role in the Church’s worship by expressing the nature of the liturgy itself. An Introit is an integral component of the liturgical action, moving the hearts of worshippers to the altar, and the procession to the sanctuary, sounding in a music that likewise moves. The Alleluia, in its profusion of notes on a short text, affords the opportunity for contemplation and meditation which, as the Church points out for example in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, is a dominant characteristic of the Liturgy of the Word. The Church’s polyphony, too, expresses a particular splendor, reminiscent of the glory of God in His creation.

“All these are insights that Dr. Mahrt has patiently developed in his own work and in the hearts of his listeners and readers. They are the thoughts of a man who takes seriously the worship of God as the center of his life, and who devotes his intellectual energies towards the probing of the gifts the Church gives her children to ‘worship the Father in Spirit and in truth.’

“Inspired by Dr. Mahrt’s work, the mission of the chair is likewise to bring together prayer, worship, theology, beauty, and academic and technical excellence in sacred music.”

Professor Donelson-Nowicka is also organizing an international sacred music conference to be held at St. Patrick’s seminary in November of 2023 celebrating the work of Dr. Mahrt.

The choice of Professor Mahrt is particularly exciting to me because I have been writing for years about his achievement of keeping chant and polyphony alive while it was out of favor. [1] I sang with the St. Ann Choir that he directs at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto for a few years beginning in 2005, and was very impressed when I learned that he had persisted in directing that choir in the singing of Gregorian chant and motets at Sunday Masses, and polyphonic Masses on feast days, in liturgies where that kind of music belongs, even during the long decades when that kind of music was virtually banned in the Church after Vatican II.

Dr. Mahrt directing the St Ann Choir... 

and here, showing a large decorated folio with the introit of the choir’s patronal feast. 

Music at the Heart of the Archbishop’s B16 Institute

This exciting innovation is tightly aligned with the goals of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy, which Archbishop Cordileone founded in 2013.

I’ve also written several articles on Archbishop Cordileone’s initiatives to promote more-reverent liturgies through the Benedict XVI Institute. On January 5, 2014, I was present when Archbishop Cordileone along with Father Samuel Weber, O.S.B., the original director, announced the founding of the new institute. During its “opening night,” the archbishop announced, “The heart of the institute is music.” Among other related goals, he said that he wanted “to reclaim the sacred music that is so much at the heart of our celebration of the Mass.”

To do this, he continued, the institute would promote “what the Church has been asking us to do for a really long time, beginning at the Second Vatican Council” and continuing with “so many documents since, including the current General Instruction on the Roman Missal: Gregorian chant is to have first place in music at Mass.”

Archbishop Cordileone speaking at the Sacred Liturgia conference.

After the archbishop’s introduction, Fr. Weber demonstrated that it is easier than generally imagined to train people to sing chant well without much instruction on how to read the chant notation. Rehearsing with a program he had prepared with English chants of his own composition, Fr. Weber prepared the 200 or so people who attended to sing hymns and psalms at Benediction and Vespers of the Epiphany. As one commenter on Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s blog noted, “Vespers was fantastic, presided over by Abp Cordileone, and cantored by Fr. Weber, chanted in its entirety. Before we went into the Church for vespers, Fr. Weber did a quick tutorial/run-through of the chants for vespers, and unsurprisingly, everyone picked them up quite easily.”

The scope of the activities of the Benedict XVI Institute has widened in the ensuing years. On July 26, 2017, Catholic San Francisco announced that the institute’s name had changed a little, replacing “Liturgy” with “Worship” and that it was expanding its focus from sacred music to include also Catholic art, architecture, and literature under the new executive director, Maggie Gallagher.

Part of the expanded focus is to promote the creation of new works of art and literature and to build community and recognition between Catholic creatives, potential patrons, and other lovers of Catholic sacred arts.

The importance of music to the institute is evidenced by Archbishop Cordileone having named Frank La Rocca to be the institute’s composer in residence. The institute has commissioned several Mass settings so far from La Rocca: the Mass of the Americas, the Requiem for the Homeless, and Missa Sancti Juniperi Serra (in honor of St. Junipero Serra). La Rocca's new Messe Des Malades: Honoring Our Lady Of Lourdes, will premiere in February 2023.

The first Mass setting La Rocca composed for the institute, Mass of the Americas, continues to be performed in more and more cathedrals and churches long after it first premiered December 8, 2018.

Another great indicator that the results of the institute’s initiatives are also spreading into mainstream culture is a new album with a studio recording of the Mass of the Americas by Grammy-winning producer Blanton Alspaugh. After the album was recently released, it quickly rose to the top of the Billboard charts.

The institute also frequently sponsors events where other music, also art, and poetry from talented living creative Catholics is performed. “Our artists need to know we value their work, including a creative genius like Frank La Rocca, but also young artists,” Archbishop Cordileone has said.

The creation of the new Sacred Music chair that is the main topic of this article emphasizes the vital importance of priestly formation in survival of the Church’s heritage of sacred music. It seems to me to be an exciting step forward in achieving the goals of the institute, perfectly in line with the archbishop’s plan from the beginning to foster reverent liturgies.

The ripple effects of this new program may continue to be seen in many places in years to come. The Vatican Council II document Sacrosanctum concilium states, “The treasury of sacred music is to be preserved and cultivated with great care.” Those who benefit from training and the example of music skillfully performed at St. Patrick’s by an expert in expounding and performing the treasury of the Church’s sacred music will in their turn go out to spread the good news to many more places.

[1] See my articles “Gregorian Champ,” (National Catholic Register, 18 November 2007) and “Palo Alto’s secret gift to the Church,” (California Catholic Daily, 20 December 2017.)

The Debut Recording of Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas

The début recording of Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas (Misa de las Américas) will be released shortly and can be preordered here. It is performed by the Benedict XVI Institute’s Choir and Orchestra and directed by renowned international conductor Richard Sparks. William P. Mahrt wrote about the Mass here following its liturgical performance at a Pontifical Mass in Washington DC:

“This stunning composition set the tone for the whole liturgy, where music ranged from traditional Gregorian chants sung by a schola of either men or women, to elaboration upon the chants, to settings incorporating the traditional Mexican melodies in music of transcendent liturgical expression. La Rocca uses his skill as a composer to create music that is harmonic but innovative. This music is modern but comprehensible, classical but not archaic.”

The work extends the genre of the Missa solemnis: a sublime setting of a Traditional Latin Mass for choir and orchestra, weaving together a rich modern tapestry with serene Gregorian chants, folk melodies from 18th-century regions of México, and florid praises in Nahuatl, the language spoken by Our Lady of Guadalupe to San Juan Diego in 1531. Benedict XVI Choir’s début recording sung in Latin, Spanish, and Nahuatl, will be released on Capella Records on September 23, 2022.

(The Mass of the Americas was sung as part of this Mass celebrated by Abp Cordileone at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Nov. 16, 2019.)

O Antiphons Prayer Service in San Francisco for St Nicholas’ Day

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship is sponsoring a St Nicholas Day prayer service with Abp Salvatore Cordileone, on Friday, December 6th at 6:00 p.m., at St Patrick’s Seminary, located at 320 Middlefield Rd in Menlo Park, California. Director Richard Sparks will lead The Benedict Sixteen choir in singing the O Antiphons in Gregorian Chant, with additional polyphonic settings by Arvo Part, Rihards Dubra, and James MacMilan, among other composers. The choir will also sing a setting of the Magnificat by Palestrina. The event is free, but they ask those planning to attend to register to help with planning: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/st-nicholas-day-prayer-service-the-o-antiphons-tickets-65465478007. For more information, see this article by Roseanne Sullvian on her blog: https://catholicpunditwannabe.blogspot.com/2019/12/archbishop-cordileone-to-lead-unique-st.html

Mr Sparks explains the plan for the music: “Since we are doing this in one Advent service (with all seven of the O Antiphons) we will do only one setting of the Magnificat, a wonderful 8-voice setting by Palestrina. As we go through the Antiphons, we will always sing the Gregorian chant of that antiphon, followed in all but one case by a setting of that antiphon by various composers, most contemporary, since composers in recent years have been fascinated by these beautiful texts. Some examples: O Adonai will be sung in a setting by Arvo Pärt, the Estonian Orthodox composer (who set all seven of the Antiphons in German), for men’s voices alone. It’s a slow, mystical setting, and utilizes the wonderful low basses in Benedict 16. The setting of O Radix Jesse is by Rihards Dubra, a Latvian composer born in 1964, who was raised as Catholic by his grandparents, and whose music is almost entirely sacred. And O Oriens is set in English by one of today’s preeminent Catholic composers, the Scottish James MacMillan as O Radiant Dawn.”

This prayer service is free of charge, but please register for planning purposes. The BenedictInstitute.org depends on generous supporters to help Archbishop Cordileone evangelize through sacred beauty.

“Mass of the Americas” and the Flourishing of Religious Culture: Guest Article By Roseanne T. Sullivan

In our era, new musical Mass settings are rarely commissioned. So, it’s notable that a new musical Mass was commissioned and celebrated by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in San Francisco last December. For this article, Roseanne T. Sullivan interviewed by email the respected Bay Area traditional sacred music composer, Frank La Rocca, who composed the Mass. They discussed when it is legitimate to call a musical composition a “Mass,” and how he was able to incorporate multiple languages and non-traditional musical instruments and elevate them into a composition suitable for the sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church. This article was previously published on the blog Dappled Things.

On December 8, 2018, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, the “Mass of the Americas” premiered at San Francisco’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption. The Mass was celebrated by Archbishop Cordileone at the end of the 25th annual “Cruzada Guadalupana,” a 12-mile pilgrimage in honor of our Lady of Guadalupe—which is held every year on the closest Saturday to her feast day December 12. This popular annual event draws thousands, many of them Mexican-American, from around the Bay Area.

Mark Nowakowski—who is also a composer and who attended the “Mass of the Americas”—wrote in his review “Return to Liturgical Glory?” that even though many mass goers were exhausted from the pilgrimage, the music elicited their rapt attention.

This reaction was confirmed for me personally by Lety (Letitia) Hernandez, who cleans house for me once in a while. She lives in San José, which is an hour’s drive from San Francisco. She told me the next Monday—with great enthusiasm, in a mixture of Spanish and a little English—that she took part in the walk, attended the Mass, and (¡Me gusto mucho!) she liked the music very much.

The Mass was sung by a 16-voice choir and by soloists singing different parts, in Spanish, Latin, English. One hymn was sung in Nahuatl, the language in which Our Lady of Guadalupe spoke when she appeared to Saint Juan Diego. The singing was accompanied at various points by an equally unusual ensemble of organ, string quartet, bells and marimba.

Frank La Rocca, who composed “Mass of the Americas,” is a classically trained musician and composer, and he is the composer in residence for the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship—which was founded by Archbishop Cordileone.

When I first read the announcements at the Benedict XVI Institute website about the planned inclusion of multiple languages and non-traditional instruments in “Mass of the Americas,” I feared the result might be a hodgepodge that departed from the accepted traditional norms of musical Mass settings. But in the process of researching the Mass and interviewing its composer, I became convinced that composer La Rocca deftly incorporated the non-traditional elements with the best possible understanding and reverence for what a Mass is supposed to be.

How It Came About

Mass of the Americas was envisioned by Archbishop Cordileone as an intertwined tribute to our Lady of the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of the United States and our Lady of Guadalupe as Patroness of all the Americas, with sacralized folk music. “I’m trying to model how the Church has always appropriately enculturated the Gospel by adapting aspects of the local culture, but within the sacred tradition” — Archbishop Cordileone

The quotes in this section are from “The Making of the Mass of the Americas” by Maggie Gallagher, the director of the Benedict XVI Institute, from an interview with La Rocca. More specifics about why and how La Rocca used various languages in the parts of his “Mass of the Americas” are in the Gallagher interview and in my own interview at the end of this article.

La Rocca at first resisted Archbishop Cordileone’s request. “I am a dyed-in-the-wool Western European classical composer. All of these things take me well outside the orbit of what I know.” However: “It is the job of a composer-in-residence to respond to commissions.”

In response to the commission, La Rocca researched the Mission period, the music, and the various versions of Mexican Marian folk hymns that the archbishop suggested, including Las Mananitas and La Guadalupana. “La Mananitas is the Mexican equivalent of Happy Birthday, although originally the tune was created for a text about the Virgin Mary and King David, so it has a devotional history even though it’s not used that way now. . . . La Guadalupana has always been, and it sounds like, a typical Mexican Mariachi tune: the oompah, oompah guitar, the crooning violins, and the two robust male singers. The challenge before me was to make the tune recognizable enough so anyone paying attention would sit up and say, ‘I know that,’ but with the words changed and the sounds of the guitars, the violins, and the voices lifted up and transformed.”

“That occupied a great deal of my time trying to figure out how close to the surface to bring the tune – how close to what listeners would be literally familiar with — in order for it to be recognized, and yet still get absorbed into the fabric of reverent music for the liturgy.” His challenge was to do it “in a musical style appropriate to the tune while taking it to sacred places that, for all I know, no other arranger ever has.” In some ways, it’s not that different than what many classical music composers have done over the centuries in incorporating folk tunes into the classical tradition.

Frank La Rocca, “Mass of the Americas” Composer

Sixty-eight year old La Rocca has a B.A. in Music from Yale, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Music from University of California at Berkeley. He was a cradle Catholic who left the Church as a young man and returned after forty-two years of being away. The first piece of sacred choral music he ever composed as a Catholic was his Ave Maria, which is included the Mass of the Americas.

He dedicated his Ave Maria to a friend, an old Cistercian Nun, Sister Columba Guare, O.C.S.O. When he sent it to her and told her he had come back to the Church, Sister Columba told him that her whole community at Our Lady of the Mississippi Abbey in Iowa had been praying for his return! (You can listen to La Rocca’s Ave Maria here).

La Rocca has said he approaches his work in sacred choral music as “a kind of missionary work” and regards himself in that role “as an apologist for a distinctively Christian faith—not through doctrinal argument, but through the beauty of music.”

MOTA’s Use of the Ordinary

La Rocca stayed true to the traditional practice of using the words of the Catholic Mass for his settings of the Ordinary. For example, La Rocca set the text of the Kyrie with each Greek verse preceded by a Spanish invocation (trope) from the Spanish translation of the Missal. For example, “Tú que vienes a visitar a tu pueblo con la paz. Kyrie Eleison.”

MOTA’s Use of Historic Hymns

La Rocca’s Mass included the music for three hymns that have deep roots in California history. The Processional (Entrance Hymn) “El Cantico del Alba,” the “Canticle of the Dawn,” is a morning hymn in Spanish to Our Lady. Historians have recorded that hymn was sung upon rising and on the way to Mass, by almost everyone, every day, and everywhere Catholics lived throughout Alta and Baja California, in the missions and the pueblos, during the years of Spanish and Mexican rule.

A unique musical setting by La Rocca was used for the Communion meditation. He set the text of a translation of “Aue Maria,” “Hail Mary” in the Nahuatl language, which he discovered in a collection used for teaching Nahuatl-speakers that was written in 1634 by a mixed-race missionary in Mexico who was fluent both in Spanish and in Nahuatl.

La Rocca’s Mass ended with a Recessional setting of the Latin Marian Antiphon for the season, “Alma Redemptoris Mater,” which melded gradually into counterpoint between “Alma” and the melody of “La Guadalupana,” a musical symbol of the unity Archbishop Cordileone asked La Rocca to embody in the work. As La Rocca explained, the tune of La Guadalupana was “elevated into a high classical sacred musical language” to suit the reverence due the liturgy. The tune was also subtly woven into a number of other movements, most notably the Gloria.

The words themselves are charming; they tell about how Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to Juan Diego, in the form of a young native woman, how she asked for an altar in her honor to be built on the hill where she appeared, and how from the time she appeared she has been the mother of all peoples in Mexico. Pope John Paul II canonized Juan Diego in 2002 and declared Our Lady of Guadalupe the patroness of the all the Americas.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

Stanford Gregorian Chant Workshop, Jan. 28 and Feb. 23

On January 28 and February 23, the Benedict XVI Institute’s Mary Ann Carr Wilson, an experienced teacher of chant and also a children’s chant specialist, will team up with eminent Stanford Prof. William Mahrt to offer workshops in Gregorian Chant on the Stanford campus. Everyone is welcome, space permitting; email mwilson@bxvi.org to apply, or register online at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/chant-workshop-at-stanford-tickets-55111358557! A donation of $10 to cover the cost of food and supplies is requested, payable at the door. Learn this ancient and moving language of the Church with fascinating friends, old and new, then pray together the ancient prayers of the Church: Compline or Night Prayer, part of the Liturgy of the Hours.The event will be held at the Braun Music Center, Room 103, located at 547 Lasuen Mall, Stanford, California.

New Mass by Frank LaRocca to Premiere in San Francisco on Dec. 8th

On December 8, St Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco will celebrate something new and historic, the Mass of the Americas, a unique tribute to Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, the patroness of the United States, and Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patroness of both Mexico and all the Americas. The Mass of the Americas was written by Frank La Rocca, the Benedict XVI Institute’s composer-in-residence, (FrankLaRocca.com); it is the first new Mass commissioned for the Cathedral since the installation Mass in 1971. Written for a 16-voice mixed chorus, accompanied by organ, string quartet, bells and marimba, in Spanish, Latin, English and Nahuatl (the Aztec language which Our Lady spoke to St Juan Diego), this polyphonic work in the Catholic tradition also incorporates traditional Mexican hymns to Mary, especially La Guadalupana. The Mass of the Americas was originally conceived by Archbishop Cordileone as the musical equivalent of mission architecture, something rooted in the tradition AND incorporating local elements to create something new. Sponsored by The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, whose mission is to open the door of Beauty to bring people closer to God, the Mass of the Americas will be televised and livestreamed by EWTN. The liturgy will begin at 2 p.m. (PT); St Mary’s Cathedral 1111 Gough Street.

The Mass was partly inspired by the fact that this year the feast of the Immaculate Conception falls on the Saturday before the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which is the day the Archdiocesan Guadalupan celebrations take place, offering a unifying moment for the Anglo and Latino Church. “The Mass of the Americas thus embodies the way Mary, our Mother, unites all of us as God's children,” says Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone.

A local television channel program on recently interviewed composer Frank La Rocca about his work.

Missa Cantata for the Feast of the Holy Rosary in San Rafael, California

The chapel of the Most Holy Rosary in San Rafael, California, will have a Missa cantata for its titular feast, on Sunday October 7th, sung by the schola of the Benedict XVI Institute and the San Francisco based Schola Sancta. The Rosary will be said before the Mass, starting at 11:15, in conjunction with the US Rosary Coast-to-Coast, with the Mass itself beginning at 12:15. The liturgy also marks ten continuous years of the traditional Mass being celebrated in this church by Fr William Young. The church is located at St Vincent’s School for Boys, 1 St Vincent’s Drive.

EF Mass for the Exaltation of the Cross in Marin County, California

On the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, the instructional choir of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy and the Schola Sancta of Marin County will sing a Missa Cantata at the church of St Sebastian Church in Greenbrae, California (close to San Rafael in Marin County.). The Mass will begin at 5:30 pm, followed by a reception; the church is located at 373 Bon Air Road.

Latin Mass to be Sung in San Quentin State Prison Starting August 25th

Twenty-five inmates to form new schola under the guidance of Benedict XVI Institute

Among the various initiatives of the recently rejuvenated Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, which is under the patronage of His Excellency Archbishop Cordileone and the Archdiocese of San Francisco, the Latin Mass is to return to San Quentin State Prison, with the first Mass scheduled for August 25th.

The Institute runs its own schola, which is a teaching choir that can visit parishes and communities in order to enable them to chant the Mass. Archbishop Cordileone recently visited the prison with the schola for an evening of musical meditation and prayers, and proposed this idea to the prisoners who attended. The response was enthusiastic and gratifying.

Maggie Gallagher, the director of the Benedict XVI Institute tells us about the evening:

I have just come back from an extraordinary evening with some extraordinary news for you: The Latin Mass is coming back to San Quentin for the first time in three generations!

Last night, our new Benedict XVI Institute Schola and Teaching Choir went to San Quentin for three reasons:

First, to give men forgotten by many in society the uplifting experience of pure Sacred Beauty—with music performed by four very talented professional singers.

Second, to teach these men they can chant too; just hearing these men chant the Litany of the Saints together was inspiring! Our Benedict XVI Institute Schola and Teaching Choir is not just a performing choir: we aim to show ordinary Catholics they can participate in the Mass in this special way.

So our third and most important goal last night was to invite the men at San Quentin to form a schola that will help bring back the Traditional Latin Mass on August 25.
And guess what? Twenty-five men said yes!

This overwhelming response was for me a totally unexpected gift from God. Here’s how the evening went: I drove in with Archbishop Cordileone and met Father Cassian (who will celebrate the Latin Mass August 25) as well as a prison volunteer and the Catholic chaplain Father George Williams at the entrance. As we walked into the Chapel, Father George told us: “The men are just very grateful you are here. Feel free to chat with them, they love that.”

Prison is a kind of community and like any community, there are some who actively work to make it better. We met a lot of men like that last night. Dwight, the sound guy, introduced himself and started asking about how we want to be miked for the Latin Mass. “Bobby”, an old hand, told me he used to sing the Latin Mass at St Peter’s in the Mission district [of San Francisco] with the “Christian brothers.” (What a gorgeous old San Francisco church I would love to do a chant camp there! Take a look!) “Sam” who sat behind me, was a Protestant curious what this new music sounded like. He’s only been in San Quentin for two weeks “but the church scene is popping!” he told me.
Father George Williams introduced Archbishop Cordileone for the opening prayer. “This is our brand-new teaching choir and you are our first gig!” he told the men to thunderous applause. “I love telling people our first teaching gig is the San Quentin Schola!”

More applause.

Then the music started. Rebekah Wu, our talented music director, organized the music around the “Six Seasons” of the liturgical year. We began with Frank La Rocca’s Ave Maria (and come to think of it also ended with Hail Holy Queen).

Starting in Advent season, the choir mesmerized 60 or so San Quentin prisoners with a mix of Gregorian chant (“Creator Alme Siderum,” “Resonet in Laudibus,” “Attende Domine,” and sacred polyphony old and new (Bruckner’s “Vexilla Regis,” Jean Berger’s “The Eyes of All,” the lovely Christmas carol “I wonder as I wander,” and during the Easter Tridium “Jesus so Lowly”).

During the deep Lenten season, Rebekah gave testimony to God’s healing power in her own life, mentioning the good thief who ended up in paradise with Jesus. Father George interrupted to say a few words: pointing to a huge painting hung on the wall he explained. “That is Saint Dismas,” Fr. George told us. “The good thief who repented and whom Jesus saved. That painting was gifted to us by a death row inmate who died last year, Fernando Caro.” Out of evil, God can rescue beauty and give hope, if we let him.

Then it was time to bring the men into chant with the choir. Rebekah taught us all to sing the Alleluia as the chorus of “O Filii et Filiae,” and then had the men chant The Jesus Prayer: Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

“Now it’s your turn to sing,” she said to the men. (“Do you really want to record this?” a man in front of me quipped.) Then as I described came the Litany of the Saints, as well as an invitation to form a schola.

Not only do we have 25 enthusiastic volunteers, all the men I spoke with, whether they joined the schola or not, are anxious to come and attend the Latin Mass on the 25th of August.

For some it will be a trip down memory lane to the music of their Catholic boyhoods. But for many of the young men present, it is a fresh chance to participate in the ancient rituals of the Church, to share the noble sacred beauty that is their heritage too.

"One young man told me that he felt the Holy Spirit buzzing in his soul while he joined the choir in some chanting during the concert. I was especially delighted to see that so many men want to learn Gregorian chant and classical sacred choral music, and help bring the Latin Mass to San Quentin,” said Rebekah Wu who directs the Benedict XVI Institute Schola and Teaching Choir.

After the closing prayer by Archbishop Cordileone, more than a dozen men came up to talk to the singers and to Father Cassian, the Contemplative of St. Joseph monk who is going to celebrate the first Traditional Latin Mass on August 25 at San Quentin. As one of the prisoners put it to one of our singers: “I don’t want to be in here. But if I have to be in here, I want to be in here listening to music like that.”

"I saw these men, who humanly speaking are in a dire situation that may seem hopeless, be lifted up to God by sacred beauty and given new hope," Archbishop Cordileone told me afterward.

“They love to sing, and they worship well. So the response of the men to the invitation to form a Latin Mass schola was overwhelming but not surprising.”
He added: “The Benedict XVI Institute teaching choir is clearly fulfilling an important need in ordinary parishes but also for those at the margins of society.”

Thank you Archbishop Cordileone--and all the supporters the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship who’ve helped make this possible: with your prayers, with your financial support, with your words of encouragement. 

People who are interested in supporting the San Quentin schola can follow the link here. And for those in the San Francisco Bay area who would like to bring the Benedict XVI Institute Schola and Teaching Choir to your parish (they offer children, teen, and young adult chant programs), email Rose Marie at wongr@sfarch.org.

Celebrating the Liturgy “Worthily, Attentively and Devoutly”: Interview with Fr. Samuel F. Weber, O.S.B.

NLM is pleased to announce the publication of a new book for the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, namely, the Hymnal for the Hours, produced by Fr. Samuel F. Weber, O.S.B., Director of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, Archdiocese of San Francisco. This book is a comprehensive collection of English plainchant hymns for all the hours of the office in the modern Roman Rite (Lauds, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, Compline, and the Office of Readings), for both the temporal and sanctoral cycles. The book includes a letter by Archbishop Cordileone and a substantial foreword by Cardinal Burke.

For the launching of this book, I asked Fr. Weber if he would answer some questions about the project, the Institute, forthcoming publications, and how these all tie in with larger issues of liturgical theology. He graciously consented, so read on!

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PK: As a Church musician who loves Lauds and Vespers, I’m extremely excited to see the publication of your Hymnal for the Hours. For the benefit of those who aren’t familiar with your project, can you explain what it is and how it will be useful?

Fr. Weber: This book gives suggested translations of the real, correct hymns of the Liturgy of the Hours in English, preserving, so far as possible, the authentic Gregorian hymn melodies that accord with seasons and feasts (this is not always possible—more elaborate melodies do not always work with English words). It is my hope that those who want the richness of the patristic/liturgical tradition and desire to pray the authentic texts of the liturgy will be delighted with this volume.

PK: Why would using plainchant settings of the hymns be better than just falling back on metrical strophic hymns? After all, many editions of the Liturgy of the Hours simply substitute such hymns for the original office hymns.

Fr. Weber: First, the words. Use the real words of the liturgy itself. Just like we prefer "singing the Mass" to "singing at Mass," I believe it is important that we should prefer singing the hymn that corresponds to the Latin editio typica of the Liturgy of the Hours. The present English versions of the 1970 LH contain almost none of the authentic texts (there are a few exceptions). This new Hymnal for the Hours rectifies that long-standing problem.

Regarding music, this will then be a matter of necessity and taste. When I am conducting a Vespers service with a parish group that has never sung Vespers before, I usually use the metrical “O Salutaris” melody, so that everyone can sing easily without too much practice. In seminaries, religious communities, and some parishes, on the other hand, I am gradually teaching the chant tradition and moving toward the correct seasonal and festal chants. In general, it is praiseworthy to aim at singing in the plainchant style, which is the ecclesiastical manner of singing par excellence, as Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict explains in many places. This would be the right goal for the sung celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours, and this new Hymnal can supply an important piece of it.

In short, sing as you can, not as you can’t—but at least use the right words, the words of the liturgy!

PK: Can you tell us about the translations used?

Fr. Weber: There are many fine poets responsible for the translations—just to list a few, Thomas Buffer, Edward Caswall, John David Chambers, William Copeland, Percy Dearmer, Mark Higdon, Placidus Kempf, Thomas Ken, John Mason Neale, Dylan Schrader, as well as translations taken from the Monastic Diurnal, Saint Cecilia's Abbey, and Stanbrook Abbey. I have used the most elegant and accurate translations available at the present time; some of the texts rhyme, others do not, but all are in what could be called "the classic style," which suits the nobility of the chant melodies. There are 481 hymns in toto, with a supplement of additional texts.

As time goes on, it is my hope that this collection will inspire gifted poets to improve on the translations included in this volume, and so enrich the prayer life of the Church for those who choose to use the English language.

The book also includes the Gospel Canticles—the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis—with all their ferial antiphons, and each in all 8 modes. For a celebration of Lauds, Vespers, or Compline in English, this will all come in handy.

I should add that it has been my goal all along to make these chants available either for free or at the lowest possible cost of publication. A condition for the use of many of the hymn texts was that the Hymnal generate no profits but be simply a service to the People of God. That is the reason we can make the book available for only $17.10 (paperback) or $25.50 (hardcover).

PK: For priests and religious who wish to fulfill their obligation to pray the office, does this book come with official ecclesiastical approval?

Fr. Weber: As this book is being published as a hymnal, it requires the approbation of the local ordinary. The Archbishop of San Francisco has given his approbation for the book to be published and used for the Liturgy of the Hours as a source for hymns for the Church throughout the world. I am also grateful to Cardinal Burke for contributing a splendid Foreword that is really a mini-treatise on the history and theology of hymns.

PK: Out of curiosity, how long did it take to produce this 730-page book?

Fr. Weber: I have been collecting hymn texts and melodies and fitting English hymns to the Gregorian models for decades, so it would be no exaggeration to say that this book, which collects all of these chants in one place in a systematic way, is the result of more than four decades of work. Over these years many have made special requests for these hymns. For the most part, the hymnal now presented is the result of fulfilling those requests, brought together in one volume.

PK: Why is the sung celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours (or Divine Office) something we should be striving for? And is it even attainable for most communities?

Fr. Weber: For me it would depend on the group. Some weeks ago I was with a corporate retreat group of lay people who work in chancery offices. At 6:00 a.m., 60 of them gathered for Lauds. I had prepared a booklet for chanting. We practiced for about 90 seconds. They had never prayed the Office before. A bishop was present, and he was so kind as to be the celebrant. I was the cantor and alternated with all, thus “lining-out” the chant tones. All present imitated and repeated the tones. They did an excellent job. They even imitated the pauses at the *. It was quite an uplifting experience. After Lauds, we celebrated a sung Mass singing the Propers and using Latin for the Sanctus, Pater noster and Agnus Dei. No problem. It went off without a hitch! It was quite impressive.

Later, I was in a rectory with three other priests. Before supper in the evening, we gathered in the common room of the rectory with our Breviaries. They were not singers. We just quietly read the sacred texts, with pauses for silence after the psalms and readings (the silence is as important as the sound in our prayer!), about twenty seconds of silence. This approach worked fine with this small group.

Singing is a wonderful thing and should be encouraged much more than it is, but it's not as if we must always sing everything; there are times for quiet recitation. Still, as Vatican II reminded us, singing the text of the liturgy elevates it to a more solemn level, makes it altogether more "impressive" in the fullest sense of the word, and that is very important, whether it happens daily or weekly or whenever practicable.

PK: There is a resurgence today around the United States (and even abroad) of singing chant at Mass, whether in Latin or in the vernacular. Could you comment on this movement—why is it important, what are its prospects for the future, and what steps can be taken at the local parish?

Fr. Weber: Again, first, it is all about the Word of God. The sacred texts are of primary importance. (I've written more about this in "Taking Up the Psalter: A Letter to Some Friends.") It's especially clear in the Liturgy of the Hours, which is almost entirely made up of Scripture, but it is no less true of the Mass.

Once the decision is made to “sing the Mass, rather than sing unrelated words at the Mass,” then correct, well-arranged music is needed, music that will work well with the congregation assembled for worship. This works best a cappella. A solid, confident cantor is needed to lead. All follow.

Again and again—in seminaries, in convents, in parishes—I hear the words "reverent, devout, holy" in reference to the music needed for divine worship. Indeed, for all the sacred signs, and for the atmosphere that best serves those who gather to adore the One God as it behooves His true servants to do. The Mass is about God, it’s not about me...  in the first place. The sacred liturgy shapes me; I don’t shape the sacred liturgy.

Cardinal Arinze once said: "Let’s not confuse what we do in the parish hall at coffee and donuts with what we do in Church." Recently an Archbishop gave a talk to his seminarians about the crisis of “narcissism” that has taken over today in the Latin Church. This pretty well sums it all up. In contrast, a recent article in the New York Times, about vocations to the priesthood and religious life in rural Michigan, can tell us volumes just from the accompanying photo. Look at the parish church. This is not an accident. Sacred signs that are treasured by the whole community bring blessings to the people. Our Catholic culture lived to the full produces holy men and women, families filled with blessings.

My Irish grandmother frequently used to say: "There are only two things worth doing in life: to know the truth and to be in love." We sing the appointed psalms of David because we want the truth, and we want to know love in our lives. These are the words God wants on our lips, and God wants them planted in our hearts. In virtue of Baptism, we are all “custodians of the sacred formulas” that God wants planted in our hearts. These are the sacred formulas that nourish us and bring about growth in the spiritual life. These are the holy words that bring blessings to family life, inspire the spouses, and delight the children.

PK: But isn't it true that the hymns in your book are not the Word of God? Couldn't someone say: "We have always sung poems written by Christians; aren't we doing the same thing today when we pick out contemporary hymns?"

Fr. Weber: Yes, it is true: over the centuries God inspires other poets, like St. Ambrose, St. Gregory the Great, and St. Thomas Aquinas, to create sacred texts: orations, sequences, the hymns of the Divine Office. With the approval of the Church, they too can serve as spiritual nourishment. They paraphrase and meditate on the Word of God. They lead us back to the sacred Scriptures as the Church reads these holy writings in her sacred Liturgy. But never, in the history of the Church, have the clergy or laity replaced the appointed texts of the sacred liturgy with words of their own choosing simply because it “pleases” them to do so.

I was once celebrating Mass in a parish. The appointed Communion Antiphon was NOT being sung during Holy Communion. Instead, these words: "Let us break bread together on our knees. Let us drink wine together on our knees." The “on our knees” part was okay—I can support that! I appreciate that. But what about the message? After Holy Communion, I asked the congregation to be seated. I used the opportunity to explain to them that we are “not drinking wine” during Holy Communion. Nothing of "what it is to BE wine" remains; only its appearance remains, but "what it IS" is Christ the Lord. I spoke—by way of reminder, I hope—of the meaning of the Sacrifice of the Mass, of propitiation for our sins, of our growth in grace. I shared with them the antiphon of St. Thomas Aquinas, “O sacrum convivium” and explained it to them phrase by phrase, hoping to undo the harm done by singing over and over again false words that directly contradict the most essential truths of our Faith.

Continue Reading this Article. . .

NLM Exclusive: Archbishop Cordileone on the Sacred Liturgy

Courtesy of Fr. Samuel F. Weber, O.S.B., Director of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, the Most Rev. Salvatore Cordileone, Archbishop of San Francisco, has graciously agreed to share with the readers of New Liturgical Movement a portion of the conference he gave to seminarians of St. Patrick’s Seminary, Menlo Park, on February 12, 2014, entitled “Doing the ‘Pastoral Thing’ Will Always Be Harder, but Right.” The portion reproduced below is where the Archbishop addresses liturgical issues.

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“Doing the ‘Pastoral Thing’ Will Always Be Harder, but Right”

The Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone

Some of the directives in these documents [Sacrosanctum Concilium and The General Instruction of the Roman Missal] have been observed in the life of the Church on the local level, but others have been ignored or misunderstood. So I would like to cite some passages to give some examples of where we need to focus our efforts to make our worship more in line with what the Church is asking us to do.

First of all, Sacrosanctum Concilium states at n. 36:

… the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites. But since the use of the mother tongue, whether in the Mass, the administration of the sacraments, or other parts of the liturgy, frequently may be of great advantage to the people, the limits of its employment may be extended. This will apply in the first place to the readings and directives, and to some of the prayers and chants … 

So we can see that it was not the mind of the Council to abolish the use of Latin in the liturgy by any means; quite the contrary. But a more generous use of the vernacular was allowed in order to engage the people in the liturgy more conscientiously. It later has this to say about music (n. 116):

The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given first place in liturgical services. But other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.

Again here, the intention of the Council was quite contrary to abolishing the Church repertoire of sacred music from her worship. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal repeats this passage from Sacrosanctum Concilium at number 41, and then goes on to add: “Since faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is fitting that they know how to sing together at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the Creed and the Lord’s Prayer, set to the simpler melodies.” In 1974, Pope Paul VI even issued a little booklet, Iubilate Deo, containing these more classic chants and sent it to all the bishops of the world in order to help implement this vision. And how appropriate it is for us here in the Bay Area, where every Sunday in many of our parishes, and certainly in Masses at the diocesan level, people from different cultural and language backgrounds come together to worship.

We have to remember that, in addition to its practical purpose as a means of communication, language also has a symbolic value. When I was installed as the Bishop of Oakland, the first reading for the Mass was in Tigrinya. Never heard of it? Neither had I before then. Tigrinya is the language of Eritrea. Now, with all of the bishops and priests present there (older priests!), more people in the Oakland Cathedral that day would have understood the first reading if it had been in Latin than in Tigrinya. But Tigrinya had a symbolic value: the East Bay prides itself on its cultural diversity (as we all do here in the Bay Area), and there is a small but vibrant community of people from Eritrea living there, who have their own priest with their own rite. It was a powerful symbol of the universality of the Church which is quite visible here on the local level.

Likewise, Latin – which I once heard the late Cardinal Hickey refer to as the Church’s “old vernacular” – has both a practical and symbolic value. The practical value is that it is the common patrimony of all Catholics, and so a way that people of different languages can worship together, using texts and formulas that have been preserved from antiquity. But it also has a symbolic value: precisely because it is our common patrimony, belonging to all Catholics of all cultures and languages – indeed, it is constituent of our common Catholic culture – it teaches us that the liturgy is not ours to with as we will. No, the liturgy is a given; it is our job to celebrate it well and faithfully, not tinker with it for the sake of “creativity” or “self-expression.” This once again is a matter of succumbing to the culture of narcissism. We hear much talk today about “servant leadership.” To have credibility, we have to model that first and foremost at the liturgy: we are the servants of the liturgy, not its creators. This takes a great deal of discipline, restraint and humility on the part of the liturgical ministers, and most especially the celebrant.

Let’s hear more from Sacrosanctum Concilum about music in the liturgy, this time about the use of instruments (n. 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. But other instruments also may be admitted for use in divine worship ... This may be done, however, only on condition that the instruments are 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.

A very important instruction on sacred music issued in 1967, Musicam Sacram, repeats this passage from Sacrosanctum Concilium, and then adds the following:

63. In permitting and using musical instruments, the culture and traditions of individual peoples must be taken into account. However, those instruments which are, by common opinion and use, suitable for secular music only, are to be altogether prohibited from every liturgical celebration and from popular devotions.

       Any musical instrument permitted in divine worship should be used in such a way that it meets the needs of the liturgical celebration, and is in the interests both of the beauty of worship and the edification of the faithful.

       64. The use of musical instruments to accompany the singing can act as a support to the voices, render participation easier, and achieve a deeper union in the assembly. However, their sound should not so overwhelm the voices that it is difficult to make out the text; and when some part is proclaimed aloud by the priest or a minister by virtue of his role, they should be silent.

It is true that, given the broader sense of enculturation of the liturgy that we have today, it is much more common to utilize other instruments which in some cultures are associated with worship in the mindset and practice of the people. Nonetheless, the basic liturgical principles enunciated here are timeless, and still apply as much today as they did the day they were written, namely: (1) the primary purpose of instrumentation is to support the singing of the assembly, and therefore it should not overpower the voices of the people, both in terms of volume (the number of instruments employed should therefore not be exaggerated) and of style (showy musical embellishments more appropriate to a performance should be avoided); (2) instruments commonly associated with secular use must be incorporated in such a way as to be consistent with the sacred character of the liturgy, and not simply reproduce the profane in a sacred context; and (3) there nonetheless remain some instruments that, by their very nature, cannot be suitably adapted into a sacred context.

In the Parish Context 

Now, some people might say that this is all fine and dandy, but it’s irrelevant because it’s not what’s happening in our parishes. Well, if you see a discrepancy between what is in the pages of the Church’s documents and what is going on in our parishes’ liturgies, it’s not because the documents are wrong!

This is where the three approaches can be so easily illustrated. The ideologue will simply start mandating changes without talking to people, seeking to understand them, and, most importantly, teaching them. He’s in charge, so he does what he wants, and even if what he wants is what the Church says we should be doing, he alienates people. The lazy priest simply lets things drift off on their own, and get further and further away from what the Church teaches about how we are to worship. This, too, will inevitably begin to affect how and what his people believe, and so weaken their faith. But the pastoral priest will educate his people about what the Church teaches, what the Council really had in mind for authentic liturgical reform; he will begin to introduce changes gradually, probably targeting one principal Sunday Mass to build it up as the one with special solemnity. He also will not take anything away from his people; he will keep the contemporary music at the other Masses, and teach the musicians how to do it well. In this way, he will facilitate liturgical renewal organically. And it can be done. I’ve seen it done. I know pastors who inherited a parish in shambles (in one of them, the kids’ swing set was in the pastor’s back yard!), and, by approaching it precisely this way, they have completely transformed their parishes: the Masses are full, there are long lines for confessions, the full spectrum of ministries abound – even including the teaching of Natural Family Planning – and people are on fire for their faith.

This won’t happen with the ideologue or the slouch. When the ideologue discovers that the high school kid is having a great time banging away at the drums at Mass, he’ll tell him to take a hike. Never mind that this was his one connection to the Church, and maybe even hope for keeping out of trouble. Of course, the slouch will just let it continue, maybe even encourage it, and pretend as if it’s enjoyable. The true pastor will befriend the young man, guide him as to how he can use his instrument in a way that supports the singing rather than drown it out, and begin to sensitize the musicians to their proper role. When the young man graduates and leaves for college, there is an opportunity to make a subtle change of direction.

This pastoral, organic approach is what we are trying to model here at St. Patrick’s Seminary. Gregorian chant is to have the first place in music for worship; one day a week and one Sunday a month is hardly “first place.” But it’s a start in educating you in this rich patrimony of the Church. If you are going to implement what the Church is asking us to do, you first need to understand it and appreciate it so that you have the vision; you then need to learn how to do it in a pastoral way. But if you don’t have the vision, it will never happen. This is an institution dedicated to the formation of Catholic priests; how could anyone consider it unreasonable that it wants to educate you in Gregorian chant? You are – God willing – going to be Catholic priests! Catholic priests should not know Gregorian chant?

At the same time, you all need to be familiar with classic hymnody. There is a certain repertoire of hymns that all Catholics should know. You need to know this repertoire and appreciate it yourself, if you are going to inculcate it in the people of your parish. And, yes, it is true that, at the majority of our parishes’ Masses, it’s contemporary music that is used. You need to know how to use that well; you need a lot of discernment here. There is just simply a lot of bad music out there; you need to know how to distinguish bad music from good. And you also have to pay attention to the words, because there is also a lot of bad theology. For example, a lot of popular contemporary Church songs use the phrase, “we are the body of Christ.” That is not Catholic theology, and it is not scriptural. St. Paul says that we are “one body in Christ.” “We are the body of Christ” says that this is our body to do with as we will. Sound like a familiar argument? There we see narcissism reeling its ugly head again. There is one song that even explicitly endorses narcissism. The refrain goes like this: “Behold the Body of Christ, Jesus our Savior and Life! Rejoice O people of God! We are the Body of Christ!” You have all studied logic, so do the syllogism: major premise – behold the body of Christ; minor premise – we are the body of Christ; conclusion – let us behold ourselves. But if we are one body in Christ, with him as our head and we the members of the body under him our head, that is something quite different. We are under his authority and dominion. It’s his Church, and he gave her to us for our sanctification, not to do with as we will.

In addition to paying attention to the quality of the music and the words, you also have to be sensitive to the liturgical season of the year. What the Church really envisions us doing at Mass is singing the propers at the entrance, at the preparation rite, and at Communion. In fact, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal lists the options, in order of preference, this way (n. 48; cf. nn. 74 and 87):

(1) the antiphon from the Roman Missal or the Psalm from the Roman Gradual as set to music there or in another musical setting; (2) the seasonal antiphon and Psalm of the Simple Gradual; (3) a song from another collection of psalms and antiphons; (4) a suitable liturgical song … approved by the Conference of Bishops or the diocesan Bishop.

Notice how the lowest preference is the one that is almost always done. This can’t be changed overnight, but it is possible to pick hymns and songs conducive to the season, and perhaps even to the given entrance and Communion antiphon from the Roman Missal for the given Mass. Besides the ones with bad theology, there are also a lot of contemporary songs that are straight from Scripture, especially the psalms. There will be times that you can find a wellknown contemporary song that is taken from the same psalm (or other Scripture passage) as one or both of the antiphons from the Mass of that day.

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music - Guest Article by Roseanne T. Sullivan

Our thanks to Ms. Sullivan for this write-up of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, newly founded in the diocese of San Francisco by His Grace Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Fr. Samuel Weber, O.S.B. 

If you are a lover of reverent Masses, this is the kind of news that could make your heart soar. 

Regina Magazine’s Secret Insider’s Guide for Priests issue (December, 2013), included an article with breaking news about a new liturgical institute that was about to be launched in the archdiocese of San Francisco. On January 5, 2014, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and Father Samuel Weber, OSB, the institute’s founder, officially revealed more specific details about the goals of the institute. 

In his introduction, Archbishop Cordileone announced the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship. The institute is fittingly named after the Pope whose book The Spirit of the Liturgy, written before his election to the Papacy, made a persuasive case for many liturgical practices that had fallen out of favor in the liturgical reforms that took place after the Second Vatican Council. Benedict XVI, of course, is the same Pope whose motu proprio Summorum Pontificum defended the Traditional Latin Mass as never having been abrogated, named it the “Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite,” affirmed it was just as validly a part of the Roman Rite as the Ordinary Form, and gave permission for it to be celebrated more freely with fewer restrictions. This new liturgical institute is just one of several initiatives that Archbishop Cordileone has launched to put the principles of The Spirit of the Liturgy and Summorum Pontificum into practice. 

Archbishop Cordileone

After the archbishop’s introduction, Fr. Weber demonstrated that it is easier than people might imagine to train people to sing chant well without any instruction on how to read the chant notation. Rehearsing with a program he had prepared with chants of his own composition, Fr. Weber prepared the 200 or so people who attended the event to chant hymns and psalms at the Benediction and Vespers of the Epiphany. Even though most of those attending had never been exposed to chant before,  the congregation sang the Gregorian chant in the service very well. As one commenter on Fr. Zuhlsdorf’s blog noted, “Vespers was fantastic, presided over by Abp Cordileone, and cantored by Fr. Weber, chanted in its entirety. Before we went upstairs to the Church for vespers, Fr. Weber did a quick tutorial/run-through of the chants for vespers, and unsurprisingly, everyone picked them up quite easily.”
Photos courtesy of Roseanne T. Sullivan and Sancta Trinitas Unus Deus: Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco. (sanctatrinitasunusdeus.com)

Fr. Weber training the faithful to sing Vespers.

The cover of the chant booklet put together for the event.

The hymn for Vespers of the Epiphany.

Incensation of the Blessed Sacrament at Benediction

Fr. Weber leading the congregation in chant.

Although the liturgical institute is housed at St. Patrick’s Seminary, its focus will not be only on seminarians but also on laity. Father Weber has affirmed that part of his work in the Institute includes teaching duties in liturgy and Latin at the seminary. “Seminarians who would like to learn the Extraordinary Form and have the permission of their diocese may do so. At the direction of the Archbishop, a chapel has been designated for celebrating the Extraordinary Form, which is available on certain days.”

A large part of the work of the institute will be to provide formation for lay people who are exercising ministries at parishes, and courses will be offered that will lead to certification in specific ministries. For example, Extraordinary Eucharistic ministers will be taught the theology of the Eucharist. Lectors will be taught Biblical theology, so that they will understand the context of the readings and what they mean in the history of salvation.

The Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship supports pastors in their efforts to form lay people for liturgical ministries, including music directors, parish musicians, acolytes, and extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. The Institute will offer courses toward certification both online and at parishes. The Institute is based at Saint Patrick's University and Seminary in Menlo Park, California in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. - http://www.benedictinstitute.org/

If we are going to enter into the true spirit of the liturgy, we need to inculcate a liturgical spirituality, a liturgical devotion – Archbishop Cordileone.

The archbishop emphasized the importance of music in the new institute: “The heart of the institute is music.” The goal is to “reclaim the sacred music that is so much at the heart of our celebration of the Mass.” To do this, the institute will promote “what the Church has been asking us to do for a really long time, beginning at the Second Vatican Council” and continuing with “so many documents since, including the current General Instruction on the Roman Missal: Gregorian chant is to have first place in music at Mass.” Even when contemporary music is used, the parish musicians, as in any field, need to understand the tradition, so a course in "The Tradition of Sacred Music" will be required.

For more information, see this article from Catholic San Francisco.

For photos of the event, click here. 

For a videos of the event, click here and here.

Archbishop Cordileone has taken several steps to improve the liturgy during his first year in office:
Initiated the creation of a Liturgical Institute at the seminary to improve the celebration of the Mass and church music, with the help of Fr. Weber, a world-renowned expert and composer of Gregorian chant, who previously founded and directed a trail-blazing Institute for Liturgical Music in St. Louis. See this article “New Liturgical Institute in San Francisco” for more details.

Established a weekly Extraordinary Form Mass at a San Francisco parish church during normal Sunday morning Mass hours (at 11:00 a.m.), weekdays at 7:30 a.m. and First Fridays at 6:30 p.m. When the pastor, Fr. Mark Mazza, asked Archbishop Cordileone who was going to celebrate the Masses, Cordileone told him that he was going to be the one. For the first time in about 50 years, what used to be the normal Latin Mass is being said regularly again in a centrally-located regular parish by a regular parish priest during regular Sunday Mass hours (before noon).  See this article for more details.

Commissioned the fledgling order of the Contemplatives of St. Joseph to dedicate themselves to liturgical reform in the archdiocese of San Francisco. Prof. William Mahrt, Church Music Association of America president, Editor of the journal Sacred Music, and director of St. Ann Choir has been teaching the two COSJ priests, and preparing booklets from them to use to chant the Divine Office. Canon Olivier Meney, a priest of the Institute of Christ the King, trained the priests in the Traditional Latin Mass, and they began offering a regular Sunday EF Mass at 5 p.m. in the city of South San Francisco on January 19, 2014, and daily Masses Monday to Friday at noon. They are also being called upon to teach others what they have learned. See this article, “New California Men’s Order Will Teach Roman Liturgy” for more details.