In most Catholic communities there is debate over the worship music. With the range of music available for churches it’s no wonder that there are differing opinions. The vast range of tastes reflects the vast range of music types.
What we must do is trying to choose liturgical music is sort out some basic questions: First of all, what is music at Mass for? It is not to make us feel good or even feel holy. It is to give us voice to worship God. There are secondary functions: it may inspire us. It may help us to express our love for God and our desire to serve him. It may build esprit de corps. It may encourage and uplift us. However, all of these functions, while worthy, are secondary. First of all a hymn is supposed to give us the words and music to worship the Almighty.
If this is correct, then we can therefore judge whether a hymn is successful in doing this. A few basic questions can be asked: First; are the words of the hymn addressed to God as words of worship? “Praise my Soul the King of heaven” works. “We the people are gathering now etc.” doesn’t. There are some devotional hymns that express personal devotion and work well, but they are better suited as communion or offertory hymns.
Many of the contemporary hymns are faulty in other ways. Many of them quote Scripture. This is worthy in some ways, but it becomes absurd when it is turned into a hymn. “I am the Bread of Life, he who comes to me shall not hunger. I the Lord of sea and sky. I have heard my peoples cry.” These are the words to a popular worship song, but why does it makes sense to sing the words that God speaks to the prophet or words Jesus said to us back to God? This is not worship, it is a musical Bible meditation.
These type of Scripture quotation hymns are often also what I call ‘comfort hymns’. “When you walk through the darkness I will will be with you. Be not afraid. I will bear you up on eagle’s wings. I will always hold you in the hollow of my hand. etc etc.” While these are wonderful Biblical promises, again, they are not hymns of worship directed toward God. They are hymns of comfort directed towards us.
This leads me to the final problem with many of the contemporary worship songs. They are frequently about us, the people of God and our mission in the world. “We can make a difference. We can make a difference, yes we can.” While there is certainly room for some hymns to be about our mission in the world (especially as a recessional hymn) when they are all about us, the community and our mission to change the world it changes divine worship into a sort of pep rally.
When I speak on this topic I am often accused of elitism or snobbery or ‘being Anglican’. Perhaps some of this is true. I would simply counter that I am only trying to do my job, that I am supposed to know something about worship, and I don’t pretend to be an total expert in the field, but I should know a little bit and try to apply it.
“When I speak on this topic I am often accused of elitism or snobbery or ‘being Anglican'”Maybe the problem is that you seem to know what you are talking about. Carry on, Father.
Carry on, Father. There’s nothing that distracts me more during the liturgy than those hymns you mention, and precisely for the reason you give.And some of the ones used during Communion are no better. Some days I feel like weeping, because they distract me so.
Wow, that expressed clearly what I’ve struggled to put into words myself.Any thoughts on what songs would fit the bill for a Catholic wedding?
I have never been anything other than a Catholic and these hymns (and similar) have always given me the creeps. They seem to me the antithesis of prayer.
This is why we should use the propers. The Church has given us music for every sunday Mass. Why not use that Music? Should this sacred music be left sitting on a shelf when Holy Mother Church has given hymns specific to each Sunday of the year that ties in with the readings and prayers of the day. Here on the NLM are links to many different settings of the Sunday Propers rendered in English. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/03/what-to-do-for-starters.html
I’ve never been able to put it into words the way you just have other than to say to people, “I don’t feel right singing God’s part!”Uncomfortable to sing “I am the bread of life.” Doesn’t it jsut contiue to desensitize us further to Christ’s Real Presence in teh Eucharist? It is Him!
There used to be a website for the Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas, or SMMMHDH for short. It offered a forum for disgruntled music critics and others subjected to…well, you get the message. It even posted a membership roster that included many from Canada, Australia and New Zealand. This web page is no longer actively maintained, but some posts are available; see the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine at: http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.mgilleland.com/music/moratorium.htm.
… only called a snob? HA! When I wrote to my choir director about my concerns – as a dedicated member of the alto section – I was told that perhaps their “style of worship” just wasn’t my cup of tea and that perhaps I should consider finding a different church – one that better suited my personal preferences. I thought I had been quite charitable and I had referred to church documents and everything…We have had whole Sunday’s of nothing but Haugen-Haas-Shutte. It has gotten down right distracting. It was one of many reasons that I had to leave the choir.We have CENTURIES worth of truly Divine music and we only use tripe from a couple of dubious decades.
One reason I'm fond of the standard hymns is that they're singable, not just in a technical sense, but in a physical sense. They make it easy to worship with my whole being, body & soul.Like a lot of things, older hymns are good not because they're necessarily excellent, but because they avoid being bad.
I see your point in another way. I cringe at ideas of a vain Deity that needs to be coddled and "sung to"–any notion of an insecure God. God indeed delights in hymnody, but it adds nothing to Him, and our adulation for God, so expressed, adds everything to us. I think "worship" (hymnic, in this case) is a combination of all of those aspects and designed (in God's wisdom) to strengthen our bond with Him, first, and with each other, definitely second. Also the adage that Catholics "can't sing" is true for various reasons: our hymnals & music issues are far too full of new-ish (and often new agey) tunes that have not yet had nearly enough time to become entrenched in the Post-Vatican II consciousness of congregations. A few have, but not nearly enough for regular liturgical worship. Also, our liturgies are often so irregular in terms of their musical structuring; cantors all over the place in terms of melodic selections and choices. That's one reason why I feel the hairs rise on the back of my neck when our parish sings the Agnus Dei, in Latin, always, with the same chant structure. Everyone knows it, it rattles the roof, and one feels as if worship is, indeed, taking place. God bless our music ministers and choirs, but often I think they end-up doing all the work and, because of herky-jerky liturgical structures and too too many unfamilar hymns, Catholics in the pew simply give up and prefer to consider our music teams and ministers as part of "the show." I approach this from a great deal of worry about liturgical anemia over the years. Once again, you cut to the heart of a very crucial point, Father.
Wonderful post and responses.Looking forward to bishops reasserting themselves and taking responsibility for the liturgical worship in their dioceses.Then again, some already have. (Please pray for Cardinal Mahony and Bishop Tod Brown.)
You put into words what I’ve often thought. Your points about “Eagle’s Wings” and “We Can Make a Difference” are spot on!
Thank you Father! You’ve articulated what I could not (because I couldn’t be that polite). ;-)I just don’t sing anymore if the song/”hymn” was written after 1970…
Thank you, Father. I have left the choral fold at our church as well, and would prefer to be a cantor no longer for some of the reasons mentioned here. How did the Church manage to go from the sublime to the ridiculous in such a short period of time? Our organist/choir leader LOVES the songs you mentioned. I commented once in an aside to a fellow choir member that I hadn’t become a Catholic convert (in 2004) to sing bad Protestant music. Kyrie Eleison !!!
So very well explained…I may just copy out your post (with your permission or at least credit to you) and pass on along to some “interested parties” at our church. We do get some golden oldies mixed in with our newbie-nothingness music…yes, you are right the focus is on us, or comforting, and not on what is occuring in the transubstantiation, the grandeur and awe and wonder and…breathtaking love….
Your points are well taken, Father. I don’t agree with all of them, but well taken. We are having a bit of a different problem at my home parish. We have an excellent organist and choir director who has won many awards and most of our Masses use completely traditional Catholic hymns and responses. however, the woman plays the organ like the Phantom of the Opera, drowning out even her own excellent choir and the excellent (and classically trained) cantors. She also plays all of the hymns way too high to be useful for the congregation. And she has to fill in all the “silent” parts of Mass with long drawn out “improvisations” on the melodies of the classic hymns she plays. It seems we have the opposite problem of many parishes…an “embarrassment of riches” when it comes to talented musicians who know traditional Catholic music, but a music director who doesn’t seem to know when to quit. Our pastor is way overworked and has many irons in the fire right now and we hate to complain to him and add one more thing to his list. Any suggestions on how to deal with this problem?
We never developed a hymnody as the West did, and all of the services and Liturgy are chanted (excepting only the homily and the Prayer before Holy Communion). I keep seeing modernists claiming that “old music” would bring back “passive” worship, yet nearly everyone in my parish chants along with the choir, and we are surely the most musically and liturgically conservative church. If using “old music” leads to so-called “passive” worship, why does it not among the Orthodox? Is this some sort of applicable only to Roman Catholics argument?
Thank you for this post! I totally agree with you and I’m so glad you said it!My husband and I often joke about what Catholic snobs we are. And we have a “three strikes and your out rule” with our Church and the tamborine. Right now they have 2 strikes.
Excellent, will link to this post.And thank you, James for mentioning the propers.If nothing else, the propers, and their themes should be your model for selecting the texts for hymns, which are only a last ditch substitute for what should be sung.(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Ian Ransom- I agree with you,The musicians at my parish have for the most part jettisoned modern catholic music simply because it’s not congregational. It’s soloist music. It’s meant for a particular talented person to sing, while we shut up and listen. It often has weird harmonies and key changes, is written too high, and is sung by a female soprano cantor with her mic turned up loud enough to drown out any possible participants.We, on the other hand use music that it suited for congregations. Today for example, we used “I heard the Voice of Jesus Say”, “Adoro Te Devote” and “Lord Christ When First You Came to Earth” Everyone sang, and everyone usually sings.And ‘Being Anglican’ is so definitely a compliment when it comes to music.
wow, I have never thought about this from your perspective, and I think I can understand what you are saying. I am happy to have read this. (I am a first time visitor to your blog).I look forward to visiting again.