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Views from the Choir Loft

Don’t Fall For It

Lucas Tappan · November 10, 2015

LMT Catholic School Mass WOULD BE A WEALTHY MAN if I had a dollar for every time someone told me that the youth of today can’t connect with, or simply don’t like sacred music. I used to think “Okay, how do I get young people to like it, because I know there is real value in it?” However, I don’t buy the basic premise of the complaint any more.

Go to any of the vast majority of Catholic school Masses in the USA today and watch the junior high/high school students worship. They’re bored with EVERYTHING! Count how many of them don’t attempt anything more than a mumble throughout the entire Mass, including the Lord’s Prayer. The only difference is that they have gotten used to being bored with the Catholic Church’s “greatest hits” from the 70s, 80s and 90s. The crux of this issue is not that we don’t have the right music (although that is part of it) or that worship isn’t “cool” enough. The real problem is that these children were perhaps sacramentalized, but never evangelized and catechized. A wise deacon once told me, “God has no grandchildren. Every generation must be a first generation follower of Christ.”

It is true that Beauty draws many people to Christ, and this is an important part of evangelization we tend to forget today. However, when (not if) the accusation is laid at your feet as the Director of Music of turning people away from the Faith because you are striving to bring sacred music back into the sacred liturgy, take a deep breath and gently, but firmly respond, “No, they left because because they were never evangelized and catechized in the first place.”

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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Lucas Tappan

About Lucas Tappan

Dr. Lucas Tappan is a conductor and organist whose specialty is working with children. He lives in Kansas with his wife and four children.—(Read full biography).

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Quick Thoughts

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
2 January 2021 • Temptation

When I see idiotic statements made on the internet, I go nuts. When I see heretics promoted by people who should know better, I get angry. Learning to ignore such items is difficult—very difficult. I try to remember the words of Fr. Valentine Young: “Do what God places in front of you each day.” When I am honest, I don’t believe God wants me to dwell on errors and idiocy; there’s nothing I can do about that. During 2021, I will strive to do a better job following the advice of Fr. Valentine.

—Jeff Ostrowski
31 December 2020 • “COMITES CHRISTI”

The feasts for Saint Stephen Proto-Martyr (26 December), Saint John the Evangelist The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved (27 December), and the Feast of the Holy Innocents (28 December) seem untouched by any liturgical reforms. These are very powerful feasts—I believe they once possessed octaves—and I believe they could sometimes “overpower” a Sunday feast. The rules for octaves in the olden days are extremely complex. These feasts are sometimes referred to as a single entity as: Comites Christi (“Companions of Christ”). This is just a guess, but there seems to be a triple significance: STEPHEN martyred after Christ lived, JOHN was a martyr who knew Christ personally, and the HOLY INNOCENTS were martyred before Christ’s birth.

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Some are called not to much speaking, | nor to conversations about the Church, | but, rather, to a deep silence | and to a life hidden in the heart of the Church, | far from wrangling tongues, from speculations, and discord. […] This is the essence of a Eucharistic monastic life.

— Fr. Mark Daniel Kirby (Meditation on Colossians 3:3)

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