Turning toward our Lord in Music

Amidst all the discussion of Ad orientem, many may not have caught a small but important musical note last week. In his Sacra Liturgia address of July 5, Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect, Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, his Eminence spoke at length of the need to reexamine conciliar and papal teachings.  Returning our focus to God, and our profound need to worship him, there was a beautiful reflection on Sacred music:

…we must sing the liturgy, we must sing the liturgical texts, respecting the liturgical traditions of the Church and rejoicing in the treasury of sacred music that is ours, most especially that music proper to the Roman rite, Gregorian chant. We must sing sacred liturgical music not merely religious music, or worse, profane songs.

9 Replies to “Turning toward our Lord in Music”

  1. Of course, it's not in "the Spirit of Vatican II," because "the people can't sing it."

  2. yes, even though Vatican II requires pastors to teach their congregations to sing, in Latin, the parts of the Mass proper to them!!!

  3. 'Will left-wing loon Cardinal Nichols condemn this as well?' Hardly, since he would be condemning the practice of his own cathedral.

    Fr Ray Blake's blog has a nice picture of Cardinal Nichols celebrating 'ad orientem' (or at any rate 'ad absidem' given the church's northward orientation) and in Latin at the London Oratory.

  4. Strange, given Cardinal Nichols' ignorant and intellectually dishonest rant against a fellow cardinal.What would be his possible motivation?

  5. He would have been invited by the Oratory Fathers to celebrate a Solemn Mass and conformed to Oratory practice regarding orientation and vestments.

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