Scripture for
meditation: Colossians 3:16
Let the message of Christ dwell
among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through
psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in
your hearts.Ephesians 5:19: …speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.
The Catechism of
the Catholic Church teaches us: 1157: Song and music fulfill their function
as signs in a manner all the more significant when they are “more closely
connected…with the liturgical action, according to three principal criteria:
beauty expressive of prayer, the unanimous participation of the assembly at the
designated moments, and the solemn character of the celebration." In this way
they participate in the purpose of the liturgical words and actions: the glory
of God and the sanctification of the faithful.
Bishop Olmsted provides us with a short history of
liturgical music:
The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “the musical
tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater
even than that of any other art” (Sacrosanctum
Concilium 112). This led the Council fathers to decree that “the
treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care”
(ibid. 114).
Sacred Music in Judaism before Christ
The dual task of preserving and fostering sacred music
remains a crucial one for the Church today. But to understand what the Council
is asking of us, we must not only know what sacred music is in general but also
how the Church has carried out this endeavor in history. The Church inherited the psalms of the Old Testament as
her basic prayer and hymn book for worship. With these sacred texts she also
adopted the mode of singing that had been established during the development of
the psalms: a way of articulated singing with a strong reference to a text,
with or without instrumental accompaniment, which German historian Martin
Hengel has called “sprechgesang” — “sung- speech”. This choice in Israel’s
history signaled a concrete decision for a specific way of singing, which was a
rejection of the frenzied and intoxicating music of the neighboring and
threatening pagan cults. This way of singing the psalms, traditionally viewed
as established by King David (cf. II Sam 6:5), disrupted only by the Babylonian
exile, remained in use at the coming of Christ. Sung with respect to and during
sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem, the early Jewish Christians assumed this
tradition into the sacrifice of the Eucharistic liturgy.
Sacred Music in the Early Church
After Pentecost, the first centuries of the Church’s life
were marked by the encounter of what was a Jewish-Semitic reality with the
Greek-Roman world. A dramatic struggle ensued between, on one hand, openness to
new cultural forms and, on the other, what was irrevocably part of Christian
faith. For the first time, the Church had to preserve her sacred
music, and then foster it. Although early Greek-style songs quickly became part
of the Church’s life (e.g., the prologue of John and the Philippians hymn,
2:5-11), this new music was so tightly linked to dangerous gnostic beliefs that
the Church decided to prohibit its use. This temporary pruning of the Church’s
sacred music to the traditional form of the psalms led to previously
unimaginable creativity: Gregorian chant — for the first millennium — and then,
gradually, polyphony and hymns arose. In preserving the forms that embodied her
true identity, the Church made it possible for wonderful growth to be fostered,
such that centuries after that original restriction, the Second Vatican Council
boldly proclaimed that her treasury of sacred music is of more value than any
other of her artistic contributions.
Preserving, Fostering through the Centuries
In this remarkable process in which the Church navigated
her encounter with Greek culture and then other cultures, we see the same basic
pattern that Vatican II decreed for sacred music: she first preserves, then she
fosters. The early Church had to first preserve the basic form of Christian
faith that constituted her very identity — an identity that was inseparable
from specific cultural (i.e., Jewish) artistic forms (i.e., the music of the
psalms). Thus she was able to foster new forms of sacred music that,
organically and gradually springing from older forms, authentically expressed
Christian faith in new cultural forms…
The Task for Today
…The authentic renewal of sacred music is not a question
of merely copying the past, but even less is it one of ignoring it. Rather, it
is one of preserving the past and fostering new forms grown organically from
it. This is a truly great and essential task, entrusted in a particular way to
pastors and sacred artists. Preserving the old forms, fostering new growth: this is
how a gardener cares for a plant, how Christ tends our souls, how the Church’s
sacred music — carefully preserved — is able to surprise us and more
importantly glorify God with new and delightful growth. http://www.adoremus.org/0512SingingtheMass.html
My thoughts: The
early Church kept its tradition of singing the Psalms which it carried over
from its Jewish roots. Slowly, as the Church received all people into its ranks,
it opened its doors to new forms of music, until we find the music at our Mass:
a combination of sung prayers and hymns. To open the Mass, we sing! We pray in
a different form, uniting our voices to those around us as our forefathers did.
We praise God from our hearts in a way only music can inspire. We must always
see the importance in our singing, for as St. Augustine tells us: Singing is praying twice. Let us not be
afraid to open our hearts and let our emotions run into our prayer as we sing
the glory and praise of the Lord. It is His sacrifice that we are attending,
and His memorial that we carry on. “Sing to the mountains, sing to the seas,
lift your voices, raise your hearts!” (words taken from the hymn by Bob Duford).
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