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Views from the Choir Loft

Liturgy And Diversity

Christopher Mueller · September 7, 2015

330 liturgical Chris EVERAL YEARS AGO, I had the very good fortune to have several lengthy conversations with the Director of Music at a cathedral in the United States. This church has an astonishing music program, featuring a world-class children’s choir and professional schola. Each week at the principal Mass of the cathedral, the schola sings chant and polyphony, including the day’s propers (in Latin chant), a full Mass Ordinary (typically Renaissance polyphony, also in Latin), and motets at Offertory and Communion (to follow the chanted propers). The children join them on much of this music (particularly the polyphony).

I thought of these conversations as I perused this thread at the Musica Sacra Forum. The question under discussion is whether a choral Ordinary (that is, an Ordinary sung solely by the choir) is in keeping with the Church’s guidelines on how to celebrate the Ordinary Form. Many think that choral Ordinaries are to be eschewed, because the congregation doesn’t have anything “to do” while the choir provides music for the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus & Agnus Dei.

His answer was very surprising to me, and I thought it both prudential and catholic. He said, “We do a choral Ordinary each week because we can. We are the only Catholic church in the state with the resources to offer the Mass in this manner, and so we do. We don’t prescribe it as normative, and we only do it at a single Mass each weekend. We offer it as a way that the Mass can be celebrated, not as the way that it should be celebrated.” In essence, he provides the Catholic community a greater diversity of liturgical experience by having one Mass per weekend which features some of the most beautiful music man has created, intended for the glory of God and the edification of the faithful. And every week at this Mass, the church is full.

I found his reasoning to be prudent: putting the stewardship of the faithful to wonderful use in service of the Holy Mass. I also found it to be catholic, in the meaning of that word as “universal.” The musical treasures of the church, “greater even than that of any other art” (SC 112), are universal and timeless, just as precious and beautiful today as when they were created. Beauty is one path by which God opens our hearts and leads us to Himself; let us rejoice wherever the church’s music effects this.

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

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Christopher Mueller

About Christopher Mueller

Christopher Mueller is a conductor and composer who aims to write beautiful music out of gratitude to God, Author of all beauty.—(Read full biography).

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20 January 2021 • REMINDER

We have no savings, no endowment, and no major donors. You can help us (please) by subscribing to our mailing list. It’s incredibly easy; just scroll to the bottom of any blog article and enter your email address. Thank you!

—Jeff Ostrowski
19 January 2021 • Confusion over feasts

For several months, we have discussed the complicated history of the various Christmas feasts: the Baptism of the Lord, the feast of the Holy Family, the Epiphany, and so forth. During a discussion, someone questioned my assertion that in some places Christmas had been part of the Epiphany. As time went on, of course, the Epiphany came to represent only three “manifestations” (Magi, Cana, Baptism), but this is not something rigid. For example, if you look at this “Capital E” from the feast of the Epiphany circa 1350AD, you can see it portrays not three mysteries but four—including PHAGIPHANIA when Our Lord fed the 5,000. In any event, anyone who wants proof the Epiphany used to include Christmas can read this passage from Dom Prosper Guéranger.

—Jeff Ostrowski
6 January 2021 • Anglicans on Plainsong

A book published by Anglicans in 1965 has this to say about Abbat Pothier’s Editio Vaticana, the musical edition reproduced by books such as the LIBER USUALIS (Solesmes Abbey): “No performing edition of the music of the Eucharistic Psalmody can afford to ignore the evidence of the current official edition of the Latin Graduale, which is no mere reproduction of a local or partial tradition, but a CENTO resulting from an extended study and comparison of a host of manuscripts gathered from many places. Thus the musical text of the Graduale possesses a measure of authority which cannot lightly be disregarded.” They are absolutely correct.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

“Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another… It teaches that all are to be tolerated, for all are matters of opinion. Revealed religion is not a truth, but a sentiment and a taste; not an objective fact, not miraculous; and it is the right of each individual to make it say just what strikes his fancy. […] Men may go to Protestant Churches and to Catholic, may get good from both and belong to neither.”

— Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman (May of 1879)

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