The Recovering Choir Director

He says “The Low Mass was the liturgy that most Catholics encountered on Sundays and weekdays. There was no singing by anyone. Even if congregational singing were allowed, it would have been in the form of Latin chants. Hymns in English (or the language of the people) were forbidden.”

I know most of the parishes in our area (the north east,) sang English hymns from the St gregory, the little blue hymnal at mass.

So were we all doing something officially “forbidden”?

1. I realize that authors are often not responsible for their headlines, and Father’s article rather wanders anyhow, but what he is in fact saying in “Hymns for the Liturgy [sic]” is that singing hymns at the Eucharist is not important. In fact, the Mass itself generally has no hymns. It is too bad that vernacular hymns were allowed at Low Mass in the 1950’s or 1960’s (earlier in Germany, as I understand), as the four-a-Sunday hymns/songs/twangs/rants on a “theme” (”The Mass has only one ‘theme!’”) have come to dominate Church music.

As you know, the Church has an official hymnal, the Liber_Hymnarius, published after Vatican II if that is important, which is for use with the Liturgy … of the Hours, i.e.. These hymns are ancient or medieval and are sung once per liturgy while everybody is … just standing around and meditating on the words — what a concept! If we mistakenly _insist_ on using non-Scriptural static meditative vernacular poetry for “accompanying” dynamic actions leading to and from the Sacrifice, what we really need are good translations of these beautiful hymns. Hmm … just like the good translations we need for the Mass! (Including its propers.)

On the other hand, you could just sing the propers, and any setting I have seen of them, besides the “original” chants in the Graduale_Romanum, are quite singable by the congregation. If that is crucial.

2. Of course we know that there were singing parishes forty and fifty years ago. St. Pius X did actually get some results; sanctity will do that at times! But whether there were such parishes is a moot point; bad praxis of forty years ago should be irrelevant to anyone not traumatized by it. Sometimes I think that parish Masses are often therapy sessions for the priest. (Cf. Archabbot Weakland’s [OSB!!] actions with regard to sacred music.) We were not even born forty years ago. The real question is, “What was and is the mind of the Church?”

3. Ecumenical hymns are a “mooter” point. Just sing from the Bible! E.g., metrical (or chanted) psalms and canticles.

(And while we are discussing using non-Catholic hymns: I would not mind if everybody kept his Amazing Grace off my un-doubly-predestined soul!)

Thanks for the privilege of posting to this site.

Daniel Muller
Latin [not Roman] Rite “Roman” Catholic
Dallas