The Recovering Choir Director

For what it’s worth, when I was in Amsterdam 10 years ago, at whatever parish I went to Mass at the Credo was sung (in Latin) antiphonally between the choir and the congregation.

The Credo is next on our list for our Schola at my parish. Maybe next fall.

I don’t think the ND Center for Pastoral Liturgy is going to make you a good liturgist by any means

Well, Aristotle, it’s your basic Rochester silliness. They’ve got a Religious Sister of Mercy and another lay woman (the one in charge of CCD) who give “homilies” (their talks are insipid and they use “the voice”), excessive use of EMEs, the EMEs receive before the priest, the EMEs fraction the Precious Blood (this is what really drove me away, random RSMs walking up to the altar, picking up the chalice and pouring it into other smaller chalices). There’s other stuff too, but those were the biggies. It’s the rich parish I’ve complained about before in my blog. They have a ton of priests, a great choir and organist, and you get the feeling people are there for a concert rather than the unbloody sacrifice of the Mass (big round of applause with a bowing choir). And did I mention that the fractioning thing really bothers me. I get touchy about people messing around with the Eucharist.

As an unofficial “liturgist”/song leader in my parish, I would love for our congregation to chant Credo III, but I feel it’s not a priority right now. (I once heard that the Credo, being a declaration of faith, should be recited, not sung, but that’s another story.)

What I dearly, dearly want is for our congregation to start chanting the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei in Latin, let alone the Credo. But I don’t know how I could get them started.

Our priests had advised me to always try to get the assembly to sing by singing only songs that they know (i.e., “Be Not Afraid,” “Here I am, Lord,” “Pescador,” “On Eagle’s Wings,” “Sing to the Mountain,” etc. - all carry-overs from liturgists and choirleaders before me) as much as possible.

And as much as possible, I try not to follow this advice, introducing the assembly to kosherer, more traditional hymns, i.e. “Shepherd of Souls,” “The Strife is O’er,” “Lord Who At Thy First Eucharist,” “Soul of My Savior.” Even with these old standards, there are always excuses that the assembly does not sing because they are “not familiar with the songs.”

With this sad state of affairs, is there any hope that my congregation will ever be able make it to the level of Gregorian chant?

Help!

The newest issue of Today’s Liturgy (November 30, 2003), published by the OCP, runs a generally informative piece on the GIRM by J. Michael McMahon, who is the president and CEO of NAPM. But on the issue of Article 41 he is not so informative.

His piece is perhaps 2000 words long but on the subject of Article 41 he manages only the following statement: “This fifth edition, for example, quotes directly from Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium SC (1963) regarding the use of Gregorian chant, polyphony and other appropriate musical styles.”

From this sentence, the reader is left to wonder whether chant and polyphony are recommended or discouraged or what. One might think that a musician writing in a music publication addressed to musicians would mention that the GIRM plainly says that chant holds “pride of place” and is “proper” to the Roman Rite–not that anyone would know this by looking at the weekly lineup recommended by the OCP.

Striking, isn’t it?