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Views from the Choir Loft

Saint Cecilia and Why the Word is Preeminent

Richard J. Clark · November 22, 2013

N THIS SAINT CECILIA DAY, I confront a challenge most liturgical musicians face: the battle between the Word and musical “feel.” While, they are in not mutually exclusive, one is always a priority. This battle often includes sacred music as entertainment versus prayer.

The musical experience is highly subjective. I often compare listening to music to looking in a mirror. Each person may look at the same mirror, but each sees something different: themselves. Music, like a mirror, reflects what is inside each of our hearts. We hear the same thing, but feel differently despite having the same experience. Hence it is impossible to please everyone. (N.B.: No artist should ever try to please everyone—and arguably no one—regardless of the medium. Doing so almost always results in worthless art.)

So in liturgical music what do we rely upon? The Word. Why? One simple notion perhaps tells us so well: Jesus was the Word made flesh. (John 1:14: “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.”) Is it that simple? Perhaps, yes. Consider that Jesus was not the “Feelings made flesh”, nor the “Emotion made flesh” that came to dwell among us. Certainly, He was not the “Good Vibes made flesh.” Jesus was the Word Incarnate and all the beauty, truth, and challenge that came with it.

Likewise, at mass, we have the “Liturgy of the Word” not the “Liturgy of Easy Going Thoughts.” The scriptures are, more often than not, challenging. Our forebears suffered greatly, often death, for our faith. Jesus confronts nearly everyone head on—his own disciples, his followers, the religious leaders and the government. He indeed brought about division. Jesus was very direct to the point of sounding cold when describing the personal challenge of being one of his disciples.

HAT THE WORD IS PREEMINENT in liturgical music comes as a surprise to many. This must be true even if planning hymns and songs. They must be chosen, not to emphasize “themes” or “moods”, but to reinforce the Word. That this is surprising to some is indicative of how far afield liturgical music has come from its purpose and intent: to sing the mass, and hence the scriptures—the Word. Historically, the sung mass is a direct descendant of the Hebrew tradition of singing scriptures. At a bar mitzvah, one does not study to sing a nice song about God. One sings the Torah. To do otherwise would be absurd. This is a simple example, but singing the mass is the liturgical ideal, one perhaps surrounded by many emotional barriers. It is a shift in contemporary thinking to prioritize the dialogues, acclamations, antiphons, etc. — all of which have prescribed texts.

Some may argue that this sounds cold. Not at all. From the Word, emanates a life: all that is love, all that is beauty, all that is sacrifice and service to God. As John 15: 5 states, “I am the vine, you are the branches.” The Word is the vine. In joy and in love, we are the branches sent out into the world to serve.

As musicians it is also our responsibility to express the Word with great passion, emotion, dignity, prayerfulness, and reverence. In giving glory to God, we in turn serve each other well.

AINT CECILIA PRAYED that she “not be confounded.” May our prayer be that we express the Word as God intends, and in doing so, while at times we struggle, we may not be confounded!

“Playing the organ, Cecilia chanted to the Lord, saying: Let my heart be made spotless, so that I may not be confounded.” – Vespers Antiphon for the Feast of St. Cecilia, November 22

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Propers, Saint Cecilia, Singing the Mass Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Richard J. Clark

Richard J. Clark is the Director of Music of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Cathedral of the Holy Cross.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    “Yahweh” in church songs?
    My pastor asked me to write a weekly column for our parish bulletin. The one scheduled to run on 22 June 2025 is called “Three Words in a Psalm” and speaks of translating the TETRAGRAMMATON. You can read the article at this column repository. All of them are quite brief because I was asked to keep within a certain word limit.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Music List” • Pentecost Sunday
    Some have expressed interest in perusing the ORDER OF MUSIC I prepared for Pentecost Sunday (8 June 2025). If such a thing interests you, feel free to download it as a PDF file. Because our choir is on break this week, the music is relatively simple.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Truly Great Processional” • (Pipe Organ)
    I stumbled upon this live recording of a PROCESSIONAL I played on the pipe organ in 2002. It’s an excerpt from a much longer composition by Sebastian Bach. In those days, there weren’t sophisticated recording devices allowing one “fix” wrong notes. (Perhaps they existed, but we didn’t have machines like that.) So it was necessary to play the entire piece from beginning to end. If you’re a church organist, feel free to download the PDF score. I suppose it’s only a matter of time until some joker uses “artificial intelligence” to play music at church … but there’s something so satisfying about playing an organ in real life.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    When to Sit, Stand and Kneel like it’s 1962
    There are lots of different guides to postures for Mass, but I couldn’t find one which matched our local Latin Mass, so I made this one: sit-stand-kneel-crop
    —Veronica Brandt
    The Funeral Rites of the Graduale Romanum
    Lately I have been paging through the 1974 Graduale Romanum (see p. 678 ff.) and have been fascinated by the funeral rites found therein, especially the simply-beautiful Psalmody that is appointed for all the different occasions before and after the funeral Mass: at the vigil/wake, at the house of the deceased, processing to the church, at the church, processing to the cemetery, and at the cemetery. Would that this “stational Psalmody” of the Novus Ordo funeral rites saw wider usage! If you or anyone you know have ever used it, please do let me know.
    —Daniel Tucker

Random Quote

“Contradictions place us at the foot of the Cross, and the Cross places us at the gates of Heaven.” (Saint John Mary Vianney)

— Cardinal Merry del Val’s Prayer-Book

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