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The Gregorian Missal

All the world knows that Americans are peculiar people when it comes to language. If it is not in English or if an English translation isn’t nearby, we tend to treat the text as if it belongs to someone on another planet. Foreign tongues boggle our minds, and rather than get busy and actually learn another language (never!) we just toss it aside.
It’s my own private theory that this tendency has long hindered the dissemination of the church’s music in the United States. The Graduale Romanum, the official songbook of the Roman Rite, is entirely in Latin.
Hand it to a typical musician and it will not penetrate their brains. It’s not the Latin in the music so much as the absence of English. Call it ignorance or bigotry if you want but it is a fact of reality. Latin chant will never go anywhere in this country until singers can feel a sense of ownership over the meaning, and that means translations.
This is why the CMAA produced The Parish Book of Chant as the new book for people. It opens up the Latin chant tradition to all English speakers.
The complementary book for the scholas — the book containing the propers of the Mass — is the Gregorian Missal published by the Solesmes Abbey in France. This book is a treasure, a glorious thing to behold. The running headers are all in English. All Latin texts are translated. And this allows the great revelation to unfold: here is the music of the Mass.

(from Sing like a Catholic by Jeffrey A. Tucker, p. 180)

Latein und Liturgie

(…) Zusammenfassend lassen sich die Überlegungen zum Stellenwert des Lateinischen im heutigen Gottesdienst auf drei Momente verteilen:

1. Tradition: Das Anerkennen der Tradition ist nicht mit Traditionalismus oder einer unreflektierten Art der Vergangenheitsbetrachtung zu verwechseln. Die Überlieferungsgemeinschaft der Kirche hat auch ein liturgisches kollektives Gedächtnis, das geschichtstheologische und ekklesiologische Implikationen trägt. Die Entwicklung der westlichen Riten erfolgte in lateinischer Sprache, die auch in der erneuerten Liturgie die Primärsprache der Liturgiebücher ist. Ein traditionsbewußter Zugang drückt ekklesiologisch die Verbundenheit mit der Kirche aller Zeiten aus und bekräftigt den in der Liturgie bestehenden Glauben, mit „Kirche“ nicht ein räumlich und zeitlich („hier und heute“) eingeschränktes Konzept zu meinen, sondern der Verstorbenen zu gedenken und in den himmlischen Lobgesang einzustimmen.

2. Einheit: Der Einheitsbegriff ist für den Römischen Ritus aus gutem Grund nicht definitiv geklärt worden, aber er ist ein Regulativ bei der Evaluation von Zweifelsfällen. Der unbedingte Gebrauch der lateinischen Sprache ist mit dem Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzil nicht als Merkmal der substantiellen Einheit erkannt worden, da sie auch bei Verwendung der Volkssprachen bestehen kann. Das heißt aber umgekehrt nicht, daß die lateinische Sprache rechtlich, systematisch und symbolisch kein zentrales Element der Einheit des Römischen Ritus ist, sofern man beipflichtet, daß Latein die Primärsprache bleibt und auch praktisch weitergeübt wird. Dies hat auch Konsequenzen für die volkssprachlichen Übersetzungen, die ihre Herkunft nicht kaschieren sollten. Die Einheit der Liturgie verwirklicht sich zudem in hierarchischen Abstufungen: Manche Teile wie die sakramentlichen Formeln und das Hochgebet werden als zentraler erachtet als andere Teile; zudem können die Bischofskonferenzen entweder außerhalb des Zentrums Eigentexte entwickeln oder Formulare rekognoszieren lassen, die der Struktur und Formulierung der römischen Liturgie entsprechen (z.B. neue Hochgebete). Außerdem gehört die Recognitio selbst zu den sichtbaren Elementen der Einheit, da hier auch formal bestätigt wird, daß römische Liturgie gefeiert wird.

3. Sakralität: Jede liturgische Sprache hat sich zu bemühen, den Gottesdienst als Bezugspunkt zu nehmen und ein Idiom zu entwickeln, das der Heiligkeit liturgischen Tuns angemessen ist. Heute zeichnet sich das Latein dadurch aus, daß es keine lebende Sprache ist, zumindest in bezug auf die Qualität als Muttersprache. Ebenso überliefert die lateinische Liturgie (zelebriert oder in volkssprachlicher Übersetzung) sperrige und im Alltag ungebräuchliche Formulierungen, fremdartige Bilder und Gedankengänge. Anstelle einer Glättung empfiehlt es sich, die Spannung auszuhalten, um auch in diesem Bereich Liturgie als Raum der religiösen Erfahrung der Alterität und Differenz wahrzunehmen. Diese Offenheit kann aber nicht bestehen, wenn im Gottesdienst der Primat der Erklärung gilt und Verständlichkeit für einen absoluten Wert gehalten wird. Die Sakralität liturgischer Sprache zeigt sich außerdem auch an der Intertextualität verschiedener liturgischer Texte zueinander und der Liturgie zur Bibel; der intermediäre Raum des Gottesdienstes ist eine eigene Wirklichkeit, die man betritt (vgl. die eindrucksvolle Formulierung im OR I: intrat in canonem). Die Sakralität liturgischer Sprache schützt daher zwei Dinge: das verbalisierte Netz liturgischer Querverweise und eine negativ-theologisch verstandene religiöse Erfahrung (Mysterium), die den Menschen ganzheitlich-existentiell („Gefühl“ im Sinne Schleiermachers) und nicht nur sprachlich-intellektuell erfaßt. Letzteres schließt Verständlichkeit generell nicht aus, sondern setzt es in Relation zum komplexen, multidimensionalen Gefüge der Liturgie und zeigt, daß Sprache nicht nur als Mittel der Kommunikation und Informationsverarbeitung anzusehen ist, sondern selbst schon an Ästhetik teilhat. Sowohl das Lateinische als Liturgiesprache als auch eine an der lateinischen Vorlage angelehnte Übersetzung oszillieren zwischen Verständlichkeit und Ästhetik. (…)

Aus Predrag Bukovec, Latein und Liturgie – Zum Systematischen Stellenwert der Lateinischen Sakralsprache, in Hans-Jürgen Feulner, Andreas Bieringer, Benjamin Leven (Hgg.) – Erbe und Erneuerung – Die Liturgiekonstitution des Zweiten Vatikanischen Konzils und ihre Folgen.

Nuova Musica per la Liturgia Eucaristica

Sabato 19 ottobre 2019 -Ore 17:00
Sala Locatelli Via Arena, 9 Bergamo (città alta)
TAVOLA ROTONDA
a cura di: Cristian Gentilini e Andrea Talmelli

Quale liturgia per quale musica?
Relatore: don Gilberto Sessantini (Priore della Basilica di S. M. Maggiore in Bergamo)

Scrivere musica e scrivere per la liturgia
Relatore: Pippo Molino (Compositore)

Il ruolo del Maestro di Cappella ai giorni nostri
Relatore: Roberto Brisotto (Direttore della Cappella Civica della Cattedrale di Trieste)

Unum loquuntur omnia: la percezione della Forma
Relatore: Umberto Bombardelli (Compositore)

Link

The Musical Shape of the Liturgy

The reforms of the liturgy resulting from the Second Vatican Council have greatly increased the freedom of choice of liturgical music; the council also encouraged the composition of new music for the sacred liturgy. However, every freedom entails a corresponding responsibility; and it does not seem that, in the years since the council, the responsibility for the choice of sacred music has been exercised with equal wisdom in all circles. To judge by what is normally heard in the churches, one might even conclude that the Church no longer holds any standards in the realm of sacred music, and that, in fact, anything goes.
The council did not leave all up in the air, however, and if its Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy had been seriously heeded, a living tradition would still be alive everywhere, and we would have added musical works of some permanence to the “store of treasures” of sacred music. The council laid down some rather specific norms which can serve as a basis for developing an understanding of sacred music and thus for choosing wisely.
In its chapter on sacred music, the council declared that the solemn sung form of the liturgy is the higher form, that of all the arts music represents the greatest store of traditional treasures of the liturgy, that music is the more holy insofar as it is intimately connected to the liturgical action, and that Gregorian chant is the normative music of the Roman rite. Moreover, in speaking of innovations in general, it required that new forms derive organically from existing ones.

From Sacred Music 102, no. 3 (1975), reprinted in The Musical Shape of the Liturgy by William Peter Mahrt (2012)

Card. Sarah: la Chiesa Cattolica ha perso il senso del sacro

La crisi della liturgia è al centro della crisi della Chiesa. Se nella liturgia non mettiamo più Dio al centro, non lo mettiamo nemmeno al centro della Chiesa. Nel celebrare la liturgia, la Chiesa ritorna alla sua sorgente. Tutta la sua ragion d’essere è rivolgersi a Dio, dirigere tutti gli occhi verso la croce. In caso contrario, pone se stessa al centro; diventa inutile. Credo che la perdita dell’orientamento, di questo sguardo diretto verso la croce, sia il simbolo della radice della crisi della Chiesa. Eppure il Concilio aveva insegnato che “la liturgia è principalmente e soprattutto l’adorazione della divina maestà”. L’abbiamo trasformata in una celebrazione completamente umana ed egocentrica, un’assemblea amichevole che si autocelebra.
Non è quindi il Concilio a dover essere sfidato, ma l’ideologia che ha invaso diocesi, parrocchie, pastori e seminari negli anni seguenti.
La banalizzazione dell’altare, dello spazio sacro che lo circonda, sono stati disastri spirituali. Se l’altare non è più la sacra soglia oltre la quale Dio risiede, come troveremmo la gioia di avvicinarci? Un mondo che ignora il sacro è un mondo uniforme, piatto e triste. Vandalizzando la nostra liturgia abbiamo disincantato il mondo e ridotto le anime a una cupa tristezza.
(…)
Mentre la Sacrosanctum Concilium ha ripetutamente raccomandato la partecipazione consapevole e attiva e persino la piena comprensione dei riti, raccomanda in un passaggio la lingua Latina che prescrive che “i fedeli sappiano recitare e cantare insieme, anche in lingua latina, le parti dell’ordinario della messa che spettano ad essi”.
In effetti, la comprensione dei riti non è opera della sola ragione umana, che dovrebbe afferrare tutto, capire tutto, dominare tutto. La comprensione dei riti sacri presuppone una vera partecipazione a ciò che essi esprimono del mistero. Questa intelligenza è quella del sensus fidei, che esercita la fede vivente attraverso il simbolo e che conosce per sintonia più che per concetto.

(Leggi l’intervista completa qui)

Cardinal Sarah: The Catholic Church Has Lost Its Sense of the Sacred

The crisis of the liturgy is at the heart of the crisis of the Church. If in the liturgy we no longer put God at the center, then neither do we put him at the center of the Church. In celebrating the liturgy, the Church goes back to its source. All its raison d’être is to turn to God, to direct all eyes towards the cross. If it does not, it puts itself at the center; it becomes useless. I believe that the loss of orientation, of this gaze directed towards the cross, is symbolic of the root of the Church’s crisis. Yet the Council had taught that “the liturgy is mainly and above all the worship of the divine majesty.” We have made it a flatly human and self-centered celebration, a friendly assembly that is self-aggrandizing.
It is therefore not the Council that must be challenged, but the ideology that invaded the dioceses, parishes, pastors and seminaries in the years that followed.
The trivialization of the altar, of the sacred space that surrounds it, have been spiritual disasters. If the altar is no longer the sacred threshold beyond which God resides, how would we find the joy of approaching it? A world that ignores the sacred is a uniform, flat and sad world. By ransacking our liturgy we have disenchanted the world and reduced souls to a dull sadness.
(…)
While Sacrosanctum Concilium has repeatedly recommended the conscious and active participation and even the full intelligence of the rites, it recommends in one movement the Latin language prescribing that “the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”
Indeed, the intelligence of the rites is not the work of human reason alone, which should grasp everything, understand everything, master everything. The intelligence of sacred rites presupposes a real participatio in what they express of the mystery. This intelligence is that of the sensus fidei, who exercises the living faith through the symbol and who knows by attunement more than by concept.

(Read the complete interview here)

Il 5 ottobre 2019 in Santo Spirito in Sassia per difendere Gesù-Eucaristia

Il 5 ottobre 2019, a partire dalle ore 18, si danno appuntamento a Roma, presso la Sala Conferenze di Santo Spirito in Sassia, i membri del Comitato internazionale ‘Uniti con Gesù Eucaristia per le mani santissime di Maria’, che si battono per una rinascita della devozione eucaristica, cominciata con Benedetto XVI. La Fede Quotidiana, per saperne di più, ha chiesto ad una delle componenti del gruppo, la consacrata polacca Agnieszka Rzemieniec di che cosa si tratta: leggi l’intervista completa qui.

Aggiornamento del 26 ottobre 2019: trascrizioni e video degli interventi qui.

Ad Orientem and Music

The liturgy is Christocentric; it is the action of Christ offering himself to the Father. As the action of the Body of Christ, the whole church offers it, it is in that sense anthropocentric; but, being offered to the Father, it is more importantly theocentric. The synthesis of the two poles is centered upon Christ, true man and true God.
As sacred liturgy, the Mass has a transcendent object—almighty God—and an ultimate goal—happiness with him. But since the liturgy takes place in the here and now, these aspects of transcendence must be expressed in human terms, using human means. Two of the means, space and time, give rise to two important aspects of liturgy—the stance of the priest at the altar and sacred music.

(…)

Sacred things need to be differentiated, so that one kind can be distinguished from another, and so that the more sacred can be perceived as distinct from the less sacred. Thus by spatial differentiation the eastward direction is priviledged over other directions, and the image of Christ over other images.
Time is also used in the liturgy to differentiate the sacred, in kind and degree, and to express the transcendent, particularly through music, the pre-eminent art of time. Important times of the day, Lauds and Vespers, are emphasized by receiving services with more music and slighty more elaborate music. Each day is distinguished from the others by different pieces of music (propers), and the major days easily become associated with their propers. Especially Holy Week and Easter are distinguished from the rest of the year by their unique music.
Likewise music contributes to the sense of the sacred by structuring the time of the the rite it accompanies. By being based upon a sacred text, set to a sacred melody, performed for the duration of a sacred rite, it projects the sense of the sacredness of the rite itself, and extends this in time; the time of the rite by itself would be amorphous, but the addition of music expresses the purpose of the rite by giving it a temporal shape and direction.

(…)

What orientation and music have in common, then, is addressing the transcendent: ad orientem by being a part of a notion of space that is itself transcendent, that is, it is directed to East, not as a geographical direction, but a transcendent one; and Gregorian chant by avoiding the emphasis upon the regular passage of time that is oriented to transcending earthly time and indicating or intimating heavenly time, eternity.

Editorial by William Mahrt in Sacred Music Volume 136, Number 3 Fall 2009 (freely downloadable issue here)