New Missal & New Music?

When it comes to music, I speak a different language. I can't sing, I don't play and instrument, and therefore I have never really focused on music on this blog very much. That being said, I love music especially Chant and polyphony. Needless to say, most modern American Catholic Churches end up using sing-songy hymns written by protestants (literally). When questioned about this the response is: "They are approved songs by the Church." What they mean is that the USCCB has approved some hymnal or missalette which has these songs in there.

Now that we are 40 years+ into this way of thinking, many adult Catholics don't know anything but these songs. So when you ask them their favorite Catholic song you get responses like "On Eagle's Wings" and "Gather Us In." To them, these songs are nostalgic, even if they weren't organically inserted into the faith, but instead were shoved in like mail in a post office box, slipped in during the night.

Well, for those that have longed for a return of more appropriate and liturgically congruent music the New Missal might offer some hope. Jeffrey Tucker of The Chant Cafe and The New Liturgical Movement has written a nice post about the changes to the Missal regarding music. A lot of it is speculative, and of course he has no idea how it will be actually implemented by parishes, but it offers hope.

Here is his take on the situation:

Some of the most advanced thinkers in the world of music and liturgy have long identified the critical problem in Catholic music today. They have pointed out that the Mass itself provides for the texts and the music for the Mass, but in the General Instruction on on the Roman Missal, there appears a loophole. Musicians can sing what is appointed, or (“option 4”) they can sing something else, and that something else is limited only by what the musicians themselves deem as “appropriate.” What this has meant, in effect, is: anything goes. This is why it often seems that when it comes to music at Mass that, well, anything goes.

I’m happy to report that the legislative ground has just shifted, and dramatically so. The new translation of the General Instruction removes the discretion from the music team to sing pretty much whatever it wants. The new text, which pertains to the new translation of the Missal that comes into effect on Advent this year, makes it clear beyond any doubt: the music of the Mass is the chanted propers of the Mass. There are options but these options all exist within the universe of the primary normative chant. There can be no more making up some random text, setting it to music, and singing it as the entrance, offertory, or communion.

Go check out the rest at: The Chant Cafe.

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