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“What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too…” Pope Benedict XVI (7 July 2007)

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Views from the Choir Loft

Ratzinger: “How much filth there is in the church!”

Jeff Ostrowski · January 24, 2014

saint lawrence IFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES must have been unthinkably brutal. They had no running water. They had no electricity. They lacked air conditioners and heaters. Think of it: they lacked all the techniques of modern medicine. They had no plumbing. Life expectancy was frightfully short, and childbirth nightmarish. The utter filth — the total lack of sanitation — must have been unimaginable. Worst of all, imagine watching your poor little child suffer, without any way to ease the suffering.

And yet, think of the liturgical art that comes to us from the Middle Ages. Think of the beautiful Gregorian chant, and (later) polyphony. Think of the frescoes by Angelico, Botticelli, and Ghirlandaio. Why on earth would people living in such barbaric, brutal times be concerned with liturgical beauty?

A few days ago, I read a book review on NLM and, thanks to Google, was able to read excerpts from the actual book (until I’d had enough). The book was by Andrea Grillo, who repeated the same old tired ideas of the past 40 years. Without rehashing all that, his school of thought claims that “modern man” is too stupid to appreciate a Lingua Sacra, the liturgy needs to be continuously dumbed down, Church music should be whatever entertains certain people, following a Missal at Mass is unthinkable and impossible, eloquent and hieratic language must never return, and so on ad infinitum.

And yet … consider that every day for medieval Catholics must have been pure misery compared to what we have, but they valued highly liturgical beauty and excellence. I can’t help thinking that Pope Benedict XVI was right: the liturgy must be beautiful. If we’re too lazy to put forth minimal effort, then something is wrong with us!

The 2005 “Stations of the Cross” by Pope Benedict XVI are quite moving. When he spoke of the “filth” of the Church, he was referencing spiritual filth — specifically, Catholic priests who disobeyed God’s holy law. How strange that the medieval Catholics, who lived in (quite frankly) a filthy physical world, in many ways took the liturgy more seriously than we do today, in spite of all the blessings and advantages we’ve been given.

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

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Pope Benedict XVI, Reform of the Reform Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Jeff Ostrowski

About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Can You Spare 33 Seconds?

Here’s an audio excerpt (33 seconds) of a setting for Kyrie VIII which was recorded live last Sunday at our parish in Los Angeles. The setting (“Missa de Angelis”) is by composer Richard Rice, and you can download the free PDF if you click here and scroll to the bottom. I think Richard’s composition is marvelous. I missed a few notes on the organ, but I’ll get them right next time.

—Jeff Ostrowski
5 April 2021 • When Girls Sing

Covid restrictions here in California are still extremely severe—switching “two weeks to flatten the curve” into “two years to flatten the curve.” Since 2020, we’ve had police breaking into our church to check if everyone is wearing a mask…even when only 5-6 people are present! But we were allowed to have a small percentage of our singers back on Easter Sunday, and here is their live recording of the ancient Catholic hymn for Eastertide: Ad Cenam Agni Providi. The girls were so very excited to sing again—you can hear it in their voices!

—Jeff Ostrowski
29 March 2021 • FEEDBACK

“E.S.” in North Dakota writes: “I just wanted to take a moment to say THANK YOU for all the hard work you have put—and continue to put—into your wonderful website. In the past two years, my parish has moved from a little house basement into a brand new church and gone from a few families receiving Low Masses twice a month to several families (and many individuals) receiving Mass every Sunday, two Saturdays a month, and every Holy Day. Our priest has been incorporating more and more High Masses and various ceremonies into our lives, which has made my job as a huge newbie choir master very trying and complicated. CCWatershed has been an invaluable resource in helping me get on my feet and know what to do!!! Thank you more than I can express! May God bless you abundantly and assist you in your work and daily lives!”

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Unfortunately, on the one hand a deadly error in judgment placed the official leadership of this committee into the hands of a man who—though generous and brave—was not very knowledgeable: Cardinal Lercaro. He was utterly incapable of resisting the maneuvers of the mealy-mouthed scoundrel that the Neapolitan Vincentian, Bugnini, a man as bereft of culture as he was of basic honesty, soon revealed himself to be.”

— ‘Fr. Louis Bouyer, an important member of the Consilium’

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