The Recovering Choir Director

I am a newcomer to this site, and after reading a number of articles and posts I have a few comments. I have been a Catholic pastoral musician for over 15 years. I was director at Diocesan celebrations of a chorale drawn from over 20 parishes. I also am a convert. I was raised as a Southern Baptist, sang through their graded choir program and was a music major at a Baptist college. The discussion of “appropriate” worship music now rages among our Protestant brethren over hymns vs. praise songs. We are not alone – this disagreement is possibly our strongest point of ecumenism. I have moved recently and am enjoying just singing in the choir. It is a contemporary parish and the music director would be a familiar name to those who use OCP hymnals.

1. There has always been “new” music. The liturgy wasn’t suddenly full of Palestrina motets just because he wrote a few good songs. Change always has taken time, and our view of post-Vatican II events has to keep that in mind. This isn’t a brand new issue.

2. Most “new” music dies a natural death. Look at the copyright at the bottom of songs in a hymnal. They have evolved and are constantly changing. We have a collection of all the Bach chorales only because many years later a scholar hunted them down. How many of them were still being regularly sung? How much useful music from all generations has been lost? The music evolves as our revelation of the Holy Spirit evolves. Language and musical styles encourage these changes. Are we singing the same songs from 5 years or 200 years ago? Change happens and it isn’t worth getting upset over it.

3. Catholic music should be catholic. The little “c” is intentional because our music should be reflective of our parishioners. Chant does serve a useful purpose at many points in our liturgy, but so do contemporary praise songs, traditional hymns, children’s songs, and songs in languages other than English. We deny the universality of God’s love, and our faith, when we segment our worship services by population and musical taste. We can only achieve full, active and complete participation when we are willing to share with each other, and explore our cultures and their heritage. Pastoral musicians who “throw a bone” to communities by grudgingly programming songs of appeasement miss what it means to be catholic with a little or a capital “c”.

4. God’s people should sing together. Protestant hymnals have accepted very few songs from the post-Vatican II repertoire. “On Eagle’s Wings”, “Be Not Afraid” and the “Prayer of St. Francis” spring to mind from my visiting other churches for ecumenical services. What will the heavenly choir sing, and from what hymnal? How many Easter Vigils welcome the neophyte and their Protestant friends by singing only “Catholic” songs? Singing “Jesus Christ is Risen Today” unites Christians in ways that theologians can only dream of.

5. It’s the MYSTERY, stupid. One of my favorite quotes is from Tom Conry (he may not be a favorite of all readers, but stay for the point of the remark). “The mystery of our faith isn’t the change of bread and wine at the Eucharist. The real mystery of the Catholic church is why they keep coming back!” In spite of everything that we have done to the assembly in the past forty years, they still show up. They aren’t deterred by over amplification, by mumbling readers, incoherent homilies and Eucharistic prayers raced through as if the celebrant’s alb were on fire. It isn’t the choir or the music. It isn’t the effusive greeter. It isn’t the chance to wave swords with the Knights or light seas of candles. They come because there is a deep longing that cannot be filled with anything other than the bread and blood at Christ’s table. Music, art, movement and prayer all build to full, active and complete participation when that central point is reinforced. Winning the argument of what is “appropriate” in any other sense is a hollow victory.

At least in my humble opinion …

“The mystery of our faith isn’t the change of bread and wine at the Eucharist. The real mystery of the Catholic church is why they keep coming back!” In spite of everything that we have done to the assembly in the past forty years, they still show up.

They do?

Where are you getting you stats?

They are “showing up” in ever smaller numbers, from what I have read (with ever less understanding of the Mysteries of the Faith, from what I have personally observed.)

According to figures reported on CNN, by the Catholic new Service, in the New York Times, and on CBS news, this year this year the percentage of Americans who are nominally Catholic who attend church weekly dropped below that for the nominally Protestant, for the first time since such things have been tracked.