Thought For The Day

Doesn’t Oregon Catholic Press publish most of this music trash?

The pseudonymous Diogenes of Ignatius Press once asked “Who likes this stuff other than div school twinks?”.

Years ago, I saw a piece of social survey research done of lay Catholics in the diocese of Rochester on their worship music preferences. The breakdown was: 24% in favor of strictly traditional, 18% in favor of strictly modern, 29% in favor of a mix, and 29% indifferent or antagonistic to music in general. I don’t imagine it was too different in the Diocese of Syracuse.

I was attending in the Diocese of Syracuse at the time. You’d think a sensible parish which offered four masses on Saturday and Sunday might have one with traditional music, one with modern, one with a mix, and one without. The mode was three masses of which two were without music and the third had musical selections which were 85% modern, 15% traditional. And by ‘modern’, I mean composed after 1965. You might call them ‘show tunes’, but perhaps ‘Hallmark Channel TV scores’ might get closer to the mark. AFAICT, parishes hire music directors who want to do that, the pastor / administrator does not want to tangle with the music director, the parish council is composes of a mix of people who either favor this dreck or don’t want to tangle with the music director or the pastor, and no one else wants the disagreeableness of complaining. I’ve never in any parish at which I’ve attended understood just who it is who effectively hires the lay officialdom of the parish. It seems to me that the principal point of failure is the nonfeasance or misfeasance incorporated into hiring the music director. The question is, why are there so many cr!p music directors. I’ve attended two Roman-rite parishes with a decent musical program. (A satisfactory program is standard for Byzantine-rite parishes). One of the capable music directors had once been hired by a neighboring parish to counsel their music directrix in response to lay grumbling. After a while, he gave up. The point of the musical program should not be to please the music director, but that’s the way it seems to roll.

I spent four years singing in a contemporary choir, and ours was the most popular Mass of the week despite being at 5:30 pm on Sunday. There are a few gems in the contemporary canon, but you have to dig deep to find them. Most is dreck, and it got to the point that I couldn’t stand it anymore. My choir loved doing a Godspell Mass, which is as odious as it sounds. Once a year, and the church was full to the rafters. I made a point of missing it whenever possible.

The alternative is music no one sings s along with.

You don’t need music that someone ‘signs along with’. You benefit from the sublime and reverent.

It is said that he who sings prays twice.
These songs that are either saccharine glosses of theology or outright corruptions of good theology. I believe much damage has been done by this. Most people leave with one or more of the songs stuck in their heads, which is kinda the point. However, this is damaging to a true transmission of the faith just as the ideas in popular music are often damaging to popular morals.
Maybe someone enterprising out there can start marketing instrumentals of the theologically solid music, which is also not under copyright, and sell it to parishes at cost as an alternative. As a bonus, no more money goes to the most offending composers.

I think we would be better off with plainchant. Have a women’s choir in the balcony chant the ordinaries, have a cantor or men’s schola in the sanctuary chant the propers. If you cannot recruit enough men, have the priest chant the propers.

The alternative is music no one sings along with.

That’s what we have now. The “Joyful Noise” isn’t so much.

BTW, my nominee for “most odious” is “Table of Plenty.”

I have to wonder if the disdain for these songs is that they were written in our lifetimes and the tendency to disparage anything new. Maybe in a hundred years Catholics will long for these songs instead of the current hip hop and rap music.

I’m pleased with different sorts of contemporary music, just not at Mass.

Handsome, but not at Mass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZU_hTVnDNw

George, I think there’s some of that, but my main problem with the modern hymns is their lyrical content. I’ve used this example before, but the line “Thou on Earth both Priest and Victim in the Eucharistic Feast” is set to an earworm of a tune in the hymn Alleluia, Sing to Jesus. You probably heard the mathematical, musical precision of that passage when you read those words. Some 60 year old who hasn’t been to church since his childhood might remember that and start thinking about the faith he lost. Or maybe he hasn’t been to a Catholic church since his youth, and finds that clear statement of theology pop into his head some time. The hymn Hosea? Is that same person going to think of “Long have I waited for your coming home to me and living deeply our new life”? If he did remember it, would he think, what was that from, a phone company commercial, or was it a country song?

Amazing how the “trads” are ignorant of the 60% of the Roman Catholic population that speaks Spanish, and yes, uses the guitar in most of their masses. Only 8% of the RC worldwide speak English as their first language and even less worship in Latin, or should I say worship the Latin? Attend a Spanish mass. Be surprised t0 see their whole family at worship, multi-generations, and fathers and children are in attendance, not just the elderly. This is the future of the church, not the English-speaking world. Grow up. The God who hears all prayers, hears the prayers in every tongue. May the next Pope come from anywhere EXCEPT America and/or Europe or the British Commonwealth.