Merton on Gregorian Chant

The Chant Café has some interesting comments from Thomas Merton about Latin and (Gregorian) chants.

He says "they offer us an irreplaceable monastic and Christian experience." Which is great, because it sets his comments strictly in the context of monastic experience, ie people who have devoted their lives to full-time prayer and detachment from the world. Which is not the case for most Christians.

He also notes that

"it is not at all impossible to make such things [meaning Latin and chant] understood and appreciated. Generally I succeed quite well in this, in the novitiate, with some exceptions, naturally, who did not understand well."

So some his novices - highly motivated, aspiring professional-prayers in full time formation with an experienced guide - couldn't manage to understand Latin and chant.

If some of them couldn't manage it, then what hope for the average Christian whose capacity for such formation is intrinsically less, simply because they have to devote the majority of their time to the affairs of the world.

My conclusion:   Chant is great for people who have the gift of praying with chant.   But that isn't all - or even most - of us.

Retreat Venues in Ireland

I can't find a good list anywhere else, so am making my own.   In no particular order:

Lay Retreat Association of St Ignatius


Donegal

• Lough Derg (There are also places called Lough Derg in Clare and Galway, but they're not the retreat centre)

Galway

• Esker
• Jesuit
• Croi Nua

Kilkenny

• Integritas Centre

Mayo

• Ballintubber?

Some interesting books

Catholic Music through the Ages: Balancing the Needs of a Worshipping Church

Edward Schaefer

Sacred Treasure

Joseph P. Swain


Conveys deep understanding of issues without needing technical vocabulary.

A lamentable eurocentrism

Read a great comment from the Church Music blog

There is a lamentable eurocentrism to our music in Church. What we now loosely call sacred music was merely the secular music of another age co-opted by the church and old enough now that no-one remembers that organ music was originally popular entertainment and frowned upon by the Church. Besides the Psalms call for stringed instruments, not organs.

This popular music called Rock comes from Black, Jewish and Scots-Irish sources, and has much to recommend it. Certainly in Australia rock music means more to people than church organ music (unsuited to hot climates where pipe organs suffer in any case).

I've been contemplating researching the history of the pipe organ to try to understand why some people think it is so much more suitable for liturgy than any other instrument. Sure, the church says so - but why???

Personally I find it that the way it is used in church is often distant, pompous, antagonistic, triumphal - anything but able to encourage a personal or communal relationship with a loving God.

Obviously other people don't have the same visceral reaction I do - but mine is no less valid, and I suspect not all that uncommon.

Some phrases about music from the Catechism of the Catholic Church

Paragraph 1157, lists three principles for selection of music for liturgy:

• Beauty
• Expressive of prayer
• Unanimous participation of the assembly at the designated moments, and the solemn character of the celebration.

You could summarise this as saying that it's got to be something prayerful and solemn that someone having no special musical training can actually sing.

Paragraph 1158 says that songs are

"all the more expressive and fruitful when expressed in the cultural richness of the People of God who celebrate".

So contemporary styles of music, which are a part of our cultural richness, can be used.

Some short and sweet words about liturgy

Some short-and-to-the-point statements about liturgy - adapted from here:

People have repeatedly observed the transformative power of ritual.

Liturgical celebrations are times when people come together to be nourished and transformed, and then sent back into the world on
mission.

The Lamb of God - Twila Paris

A hymn style song from the CCM genre, that I'd like to see us start using.

It's not often that one of these works crosses over and becomes a song for the whole church but this one does it for me.