Abandoning Latin Changed Liturgical Music... For the Worst

[Gnarwhal]

After 35 years as a liturgical musician, it’s amazing how little I really know about the liturgical music of the Roman Rite.

Then again, what should I expect when my earliest memories of music at Mass tend to involve now-forgotten attempts to make Ray Repp tunes, guitar-group versions of Beatles songs, social-justice-pop-folk songs, and patently juvenile compositions like “Sons of God” and “Here We Are” seem at home in the most august Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?

http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/abandoning-latin-dramatically-changed-liturgical-music-worse

 

[archer75]

Interesting topic, though I'd note that using Latin is not necessarily holy-making. And that worthy registers of English or another language could be found.

In other words, there's a suggestion that there's a binary choice. It doesn't quite say so, but it's implicit. But there are a lot of choices in between.

 

[JesusLovesOurLady]

My order of my Douay-Rheims-Vulgate Latin-English Bible has just arrived today, and it's remarkable how singable the Psalms our in Latin! I actually want to start chanting these Psalms out-loud, and make recordings of them!

 

[dzheremi]

It might be interesting to remember in this thread that when you're talking about 'holy' languages, you're most often talking about languages that came into Church via translation, so as to meet the challenge of bringing the gospel to places where the people spoke languages other than Aramaic or Greek. This is how my Church ended up worshiping in Coptic, as that was the language of the average ethnic Egyptian person, though Greek was known among the educated and the Hellenized, as at Alexandria. This is also how your Church began worshiping in Latin, how the Armenians began worshiping in Armenian (prior to St. Mesrob and the translation of the liturgy and the scriptures into Armenian, they had worshiped in Syriac), how the Axumites began worshiping in Ge'ez, etc.

Think about it seriously: what is the root of the problem -- a change in language, or a change in the ethos behind the creation of music in your church? Presumably there were perfectly serviceable or even quite beautiful English-language Catholic liturgical texts available in the time before VII. In fact, I own one such example in the form of my aunt's bilingual English-Latin missal from the 1930s, which was given to me a few years ago after she passed. Yes, today the translation would seem antiquated, but I doubt it could be characterized as banal or any of the other words likely to be used about Catholic music by those who decry VII.

I can say that in my own Church this has been an issue in recent decades thanks to the influx of popular 'taraneem' (non-liturgical songs) in Arabic which are often set to secular Egyptian melodies derived from Arabic sources (read: not Coptic), and now even more recently thanks to confusion in the so-called 'diaspora' about how to be Orthodox and live in the West where the dominant forms of Christianity are not Orthodox, which has resulted in some absolutely horrific abuses in some churches in Canada and the United States, all in the name of 'nativization' or keeping the Egyptian-American kids of Egyptian immigrants from abandoning the Church or whatever. It's the absolute worst.

I cannot say anything about whatever may be going on in Roman Catholic parishes, but here are some examples of how my own church's bishops have been dealing with this challenge:

HH Pope Tawadros II:

HG Bishop Raphael:

HG Bishop Abanoub of Mokattam (in two parts; context: Protestant 'prayer meetings' and songs had been sung in this church, and HG stepped in to put a stop to it):

Translation, in case the annotations don't show up (sometimes they do, sometimes they don't; not sure why): "Here we will sing Orthodox hymns, which all 20 million Coptic Orthodox rejoice in. And he who wants to sing Protestant, non-Orthodox hymns is free to leave along with those we have already sent out, and here we will sing Orthodox hymns."

I realize I am biased on this point, but I'd like to think that as a fellow traditional church, the replies shown above might be adapted by the Roman Catholic Church if its leadership wants to regain some sense of control over what passes for worship in their churches. I think the example of HG Bishop Abanoub might be of great importance, as the situation at Mokattam, as I understand it, might be a close analogue to the RC situation: people being given various unacceptable forms of worship to engage in, that worship settling is as what is 'normal' at that location even though it is abhorrent, and because it is normalized, it becomes all that much more difficult to stand against. You will note that HG is literally yelling at the people..."chewing them out", to use the common phrase. That's not usual, but it's necessary to deal with severe problems severely. And you will hopefully also note the response of the people: they clap and cheer! No doubt many of them felt the same way for a long time, or had their senses stirred back to wakefulness (cf. HH in the first video, about how un-Orthodox forms of worship dull people's senses), or responded in a repentant manner after realizing that there really was not a Coptic Orthodox church at that location for all that time, and it was all their fault (the priests, the people, and everyone else involved in letting the Church of St. Simon the Tanner be infiltrated by Protestant heresy) that they were in such a position now to need to be yelled at, for the good of the Church at that location.

Maybe there is someone in your church like HG Bishop Abanoub who can shock people awake and lay down the law, so to speak, if that is what is necessary. Lord have mercy.

 

[Michie]

I'm ignorant I guess. I don't get this idolization of a pretty much dead language that is latin. Who said or what makes latin "holy"?

Is that the heavenly language or something? I appreciate it for what it is but I think this borders on idolizing. JMO. Feel free to correct me. I'm sure it's coming.

 

[archer75]

There's nothing holy about it as such, @Michie. Some will tell you that the prayers and liturgical texts have been sanctified through centuries of use in the RCC.

While I personally like Latin, I can say that hearing a worthy, dignified English at Mass would probably serve the Church better. My opinion. As to the music itself, well, that's another story.

 

[JesusLovesOurLady]

I'm ignorant I guess. I don't get this idolization of a pretty much dead language that is latin. Who said or what makes latin "holy"?

Is that the heavenly language or something? I appreciate it for what it is but I think this borders on idolizing. JMO. Feel free to correct me. I'm sure it's coming.

I hate to sound like a Bible-thumbing Protestant but:

"19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus Of Nazareth The King Of The Jews.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin." - John 19:19-20 DRV

Seriously though, I'm not a Latin Mass-Only TradCat, I really want to see Tridentine Masses done in the vernacular. However, there are some songs, like the Gloria, that I can't imagine being done well in English. The good Gloria I've heard done in English, is the one done at my Diocese's Cathedral, and that one strikes me as a sort of stereo-typical Fundamentalist Protestant-style, which is better than most versions but still.

Like I implied in my earlier post there is something about Latin, (and probably Hebrew and Greek, since they too, are holy languages) that just harmonizes certain songs. (Albeit, in this case, Hebrew probably works the best, since that's the original languages, they were written in.)

 

[Gnarwhal]

I'm ignorant I guess. I don't get this idolization of a pretty much dead language that is latin. Who said or what makes latin "holy"?

Is that the heavenly language or something? I appreciate it for what it is but I think this borders on idolizing. JMO. Feel free to correct me. I'm sure it's coming.

This is one of the more succinct explanations why Latin has so much value to Christianity. It's cued to the relevant part, and it's only a couple minutes long.

I really want to see Tridentine Masses done in the vernacular.

You should YouTube an Ordinariate Mass, that's exactly what it is.

 

[dzheremi]

I hate to sound like a Bible-thumbing Protestant but:

"19 And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was Jesus Of Nazareth The King Of The Jews.
20 This title then read many of the Jews: for the place where Jesus was crucified was nigh to the city: and it was written in Hebrew, and Greek, and Latin." - John 19:19-20 DRV

I'm not sure what you're getting at by citing this. What does it mean to you that the sign was in these three languages?

(By the way, apparently εβραιστι can mean either "in Hebrew" or "in Aramaic".)

 

[SnowyMacie]

wow, I'm blind. This is why I don't CF this late at night.

 

[JesusLovesOurLady]

You should YouTube an Ordinariate Mass, that's exactly what it is.

Awesome! So the Gloria can be song reverently in English, Awesome! It's too bad, that there are so few Ordinariate parishes in Western Canada.

 

[archer75]

There's nothing holy about it as such, @Michie. Some will tell you that the prayers and liturgical texts have been sanctified through centuries of use in the RCC.

While I personally like Latin, I can say that hearing a worthy, dignified English at Mass would probably serve the Church better. My opinion. As to the music itself, well, that's another story.

There's also the possibility of doing a bunch of stuff in Latin and a bunch of stuff in English...and offering instruction to those who would like to understand the Latin...

 

[Michie]

I do not have an issue with Latin. But trying to push it as a holy language is ridiculous imo. It seems some make an idol out of it. I find it creepy.

 

[archer75]

I do not have an issue with Latin. But trying to push it as a holy language is ridiculous imo. It seems some make an idol out of it. I find it creepy.

Yeah, I hear that.

I'm unaware of parishes that perform Tridentine Masses (or any masses) in Latin AND offer courses in ecclesiastical (or any) Latin to parishoners. There may be some. But to me, that's a good middle ground -- offer "traditional" masses in Latin and give the members of the parish an opportunity to learn to understand the service in that language.

And that would reduce the possibility of making an idol out of it. If you know why it means what it means, it's not a magical amulet anymore...

"Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto..."
"Why do Patri, Filio, and Spiritui all have different endings if they 'mean' the same thing: to ? Is it just magic?"
"I'm glad you asked, and no, it isn't magic..."

 

[Michie]

You put it better than I could. Thanks!

Yeah, I hear that.

I'm unaware of parishes that perform Tridentine Masses (or any masses) in Latin AND offer courses in ecclesiastical (or any) Latin to parishoners. There may be some. But to me, that's a good middle ground -- offer "traditional" masses in Latin and give the members of the parish an opportunity to learn to understand the service in that language.

And that would reduce the possibility of making an idol out of it. If you know why it means what it means, it's not a magical amulet anymore...

"Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto..."
"Why do Patri, Filio, and Spiritui all have different endings if they 'mean' the same thing: to ? Is it just magic?"
"I'm glad you asked, and no, it isn't magic..."