Category: Charles Culbreth

Love, Liturgy and Life

Those are fairly ubiquitous words in our domain. And as naturally as they are invoked by our tongues and pens, and as is natural with things of this world and in the Enemy’s parlor dubbed “cyberspace,” we who treasure these words tend to, at best, pay lip service to them when provided the opportunity to turn them from abstractions to actions. This human flaw reminds me of folks who regard Jesus Christ as their own personal “Teddy Bear.” Such people are as nice and cuddly as their own “Make a Jesus” doll, until someone else wants to share that joy and transgresses by wanting to hold that doll for while, themselves. Then hell hath no fury…

We can talk, type and sing a good game about “Jesus is my personal Lord and Savior” on OUR blogs and journals until we’re literally blue in the face, but we’re still neck deep in the big muddy of The Fall: whether we’re God’s greatest creatures ever, not only about to step in a cow patty, but to taste it as well! Or those creature’s progeny, a sibling who would crush another’s skull out of jealousy and pride. I’m reminded of Al Pacino’s “Satan” character in “The Devil’s Advocate” schooling his “son” about how each of us thinks we’re each and solely “God’s special creature” and that we’re immune to the lure and stench that is Gehenna.

This café is about LOVE, LITURGY and LIFE. It is about our Lord’s work. And though we may still be a needle stuck skipping on the turntable of the Fall, we must never forget that Jesus was present then, before then, and is present now and evermore. And it doesn’t serve Him or us well to turn that reality into a pathetic parody of Bosch’s “Garden of Earthly Delights” because we have forgotten about approaching His Father with “fear and trembling.” Oh, and after reconciling with each other. Yes, really.

I’m getting up there. Yesterday was my eldest’s 35th birthday. Before going to dinner, I re-watched the film “The Book of Eli.” No spoiler alert necessary, but I hadn’t quite caught in previous viewings the explanation that Eli offers his companion of why he yielded his noble quest and treasure- “I lost sight of what the book had taught me- to help someone else rather than myself.” So, now that I’m trying, real hard, to become more circumspect in my thoughts, words and actions, I ask myself a theoretical question about one of my elders: “What is more valuable to me, Professor Mahrt the man, or Professor Mahrt the oracle?” (You can substitute your own mentors’ names.) Of course, that question is absurd. Jesus Christ obliterates that question as utterly meaningless. Our integrity as God’s special creatures is made manifest only by His Incarnation. If we name Him as Lord, then what are we to then do? Feed His lambs, tend His sheep.

I was very well fed at Colloquium. Near as I could tell, so were many others so tended. Even after a quiet, profound exit from the flock, there apparently were many other Christs who, without knowing me, awaited our meeting so that they could tend to me and feed my soul with blessed assurance that Christus Vincit et Regnat. I’m speaking of one of our member’s daughter, the most beautiful child I’ve ever seen. This little cherub couldn’t quite run the two hour race of the closing Mass and her amazing mother sacrificed her goal of “being there” in the midst of the assembly of heavenly hosts and God’s faithful preparing for COMMUNION. I’m speaking of my wife, who, a day before at that same Mass subsumed her spirit and voice among those same hosts under the angelic direction of Wilco Brouwers, sprinted over fifty feet with 17 pins in a still-healing left ankle to get to her husband’s side as I groaned on a wet Pittsburgh street in agony. I’m speaking of a burly delivery man who came to her aid, helped her to raise me up to a sitting position, called 9-1-1, and when he asked “What brought us to Pittsburgh?” we answered “a Gregorian Chant retreat” said, “Cool!” I’m speaking of EMT’s, nurses and physicians at Mercy Hospital ER on a mid-day Monday who never lost sight of me and my needs though level one traumas were streaming through the doors minute after minute. I’m speaking of a couple of nuns at Mercy who gravitated towards us amid the maelstrom with nothing more than calm, open smiles and pithy conversations while I mantra’d the heck out of the Rosary awaiting any meds. I’m speaking of regular, faceless folk at two hotels who, without pause or annoying caveats, re-arranged our lodging because of the accident, and did so gladly. (One knows these things, because when it happens in this era, it seems oddly unexpected that people are actually accommodating and humble.) And so on and so forth.

I’m still feeling a bit alien posting on this site. The “I’m NOT WORTHY” insecurity that so easily rises like bile in my mind. Yes, my name’s Charles, and I have self-esteem issues. ‘Hi, Charles!” I may not be capable of grasping the quantum physics of the isolated punctum, but like my new best crazy bud, Ralphie, I know it’s the coolest thing I acquired this last week at colloquium. It’s better than Gatorade, for sure. Magnificat anima mea…

This is the Chant Café. This is not the Cat Café. As I said (to the eternal consternation of my beloved) I’m getting up there. The older I get, the less trivia I know or remember. But the older I get, more is my desire to emulate our Blessed Mother’s humility and acceptance. But as beatific as her visage is depicted by Michelangelo’s marble monument of her “Pieta,” I cannot but think that at that real moment in time, weariness also would have been recognized in her eyes as she cradled her lifeless son’s corpus. But her humility and trust in her God, her eternal heavenly Spouse prevails always.

So, can we meet in the little loges of this blog without the tedium, the trivial, the weariness? I am the last person who wants this little enterprise to be some sort of liturgical Disneyland. But if we choose to park our gluteous maxima’s in a comfy chair with either a latté or a triple espresso in the comboxes, how difficult would it be, really, to sit back rather than lean forward? To listen rather than to “hold court?” To tend, rather than direct? To share, rather than to contradict? To laugh with each other, rather than to take pleasure from the scorn of others? To celebrate “love, liturgy and life” rather than to roll in the slimes of our own making?

I’m talking to myself while my angel never stops singing joyfully to my deaf ears.

“If my people, which are called by my Name, would humble themselves…..”

PS. As I finished this post, one of our vicars called and informed me that my bass section leader, Frank, fell from a ladder this morning with significant head trauma and possible vertebrae issues. He’s been transported to the regional trauma center for surgery. Please offer prayers for my friend, Frank.

Sunday evening, post-Colloquium- Wendy and I are happily exhausted. Finished Pittsburgh proper the way we began, with a dinner at the Pittsburgh Steak House on Carson,Southside.We cannot conceive of what it takes for Arlene OZ to “decompress” from one of “these.” I might propose that AOZ is one of the greatest people breathing air on this planet at this moment; she reconciles the Martha/Mary dichotomy with a smile and a couple of hairpins. Make no mistake though, she knows that every glass of the assembled is clean, then filled, then washed. And all the while she’s never left His side, absorbing every graceful word from His heart. And as Frogman eloquently opined, she don’t take a backseat to anybody when it comes to lovingly, nurturingly letting her baby doves fly with the wings of plainsong. She would shy away were that said in public from a dais microphone. Well, Arlene, I’m seconding Noel here and now, you’re front and center, enfolded in Christ’s arms.

And now the then: In the last three years, if there needed to be a clear sign that the tide is turning, it was attested to in this last week. “Then” is to be thought of as “what is to come,” not “what has gone.” “Then came……”

Jessica Happold is 25. In this era 25 doesn’t equal a quarter-century as we all know that the infected media Fr. Pasley spoke of at the final Sunday Mass have mitigated the concept of 25 as a “quarter-century.” Jessica, in any case, comprises all we need to know about the future of the liturgical leadership of our beloved Church. She hails from a one stop-sign (they had a blinking red-light, but then determined it was exorbitant) little burg in Nebraska containing less than 400 souls, some who attend the one Catholic parish, the others a Methodist church. She was born a golden child, according to her mother, who prayed for and received her musician when Jessica emerged singing in the delivery room. (Okay, I made that up.)Cut to Colloquium XX. It’s almost “incontheiveable” that the ripoff, tres cool slogan, ‘Stay Churchy, my friends,‘ is actually attested to by this young woman from a town that Google Earth has trouble locating.

She is finishing her MMusEd at UNebraska, Lincoln while teaching at the parochial school personally overseen by Bsp. Bruskewitz. Jessica was “deemed” to assume the duties of “Choir Director” of Bsp. Fabian’s cathedral as soon as she returns to Lincoln. And, that may not have even yet happened of this writing; her flight was delayed by the Murphy’s Law of modern Air Travel this morning. She could’ve stayed for the final Mass if all the dominos of the chaos theory of travel had fallen her way. But I digress.

Jessica wasn’t quite sure what she was in for when her principal sent her to Colloquium. She knew it couldn’t be bad, but she also knew that she was going in the midst of summer session classes for her MMusEd. She took at least two online exams in the midst of the impossible scheduling of Colloquium, and came out smiling. I think that is the point: she, like AOZ, will always come out smiling.
We, Jessica, Wendy and I, mutually adopted each other Monday morning as parents/child when we checked into Vickroy. She’d arrived Sunday and had gotten the lay of Dusquesne Land. We saw her in the little commons room after getting checked in, and she offered to guide us around campus. The rest? ‘Twas and ’tis a “God-thing.”

Basically, Wendy was her wing-gal when it was obvious she had to sing with Wilco. I just got to be funny-Dad all week. But I assure you, in the wee small hours of the morning, Jessica can hold forth about “being Catholic” with the likes of her sisters and brothers of the post-Resurrection church of people, followers of The Way. She faces challenges, both professional and personal, that she will navigate only, by her own confession, with the Light of Christ.

I can’t really go on further describing the miracle that Jessica is. I can promise that she will be a brighter star among the galaxy of disciples I mentioned as regards Jeff O.

But she, like AOZ and all the wondrous women of CMAA that were here this week or couldn’t be, save in spirit, represents not only the discipleship of the Magdala, and Mary and Martha, but also the bond between Naomi and Ruth, “faithful to you is my name.”

This is the enigma of Colloquium. “To spend exorbitant amounts of personal funds, time, and energy that one might gain opportunity to endure the queues and petty torments and rituals of the TSA/Airline/Airport politburos, to sing “I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain, I’ve seen humid days that I thought would never end….” (©Jeffrey A. Tucker), so as to increase one’s abilities and skills in an ancient form of G*dspeak which provides great joy to yourself, your peers and the tired, meek and lowly PIPs at home, knowing that you will return to the bosom of the parish, ennobled and emboldened to “push back” the nattering nabob sheep when they attack, or to nudge the elephant in the room that is clerical disinterest or resistance………………………..or not?”

That is the question, dear Yorick!

But yet, “here we are, altogether as we chant our chants, joyfully!” (Even though some might wonder if we don’t “take off” from an isolated punctum with absolute perfection in all concerns of musicality and ritual meaning, will the top of Jeff Ostrowski’s perfect Marine’s buzz-cut head pop off like an animated feature in “Monty Python?”) Yes, here we are!

And as we’ve broken bread with three squares-a-day during this week at Dusquesne, I’ve informally determined that this event amounts to the only substantial “vacation” time most of us will afford ourselves for the entire work year! Who else does this? Do the illuminati and plebes of the corporate world go down to Hilton Head or up to Cape Cod to hob-knob for brief moments with the Clintons and Kennedy’s on their official retreats, and then plop down into their clubhouses, pencils in hand to pour over the writings of Fan Li, Adam Smith, John Maynard Keynes, Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan? Heck, who knows? Maybe they do. Or maybe they’re out on the links, or flaying their squash racquets, or worse, blurrily watching the vagaries of the Dow Avg. with their little friend, Ketel One, nearby. Who knows? Who cares?

In my dictionary, you look up “Passion,” you see an icon of Christ collapsing a third time under the weight of the crux. Now, in my revised dictionary, you look up “passionate,” you see zoetrope sequences of the various facial expressions of one Jeffrey Ostrowski!
Those CMAA folks who know me, know I’m partial to great movies. “Whaddya mean “great movies?” Well, mostly weird stuff. “Whaddya mean “weird stuff.” Uh, off-beat, compelling, sometimes life-altering, sometimes off-the-charts bizarre. Okay, Jeff Ostrawski IS…..the “Buckaroo Banzai” of our life and times in chant. (You have to do the cinema math, one can’t explain “Buckaroo Banzai.”) This whipper-snapper (and I DO MEAN “whipper-snapper!) probably pulled out the Excalibre of chant at age five, found the peep-stone spectacles which compelled him towards endless libraries of autographs, manuscripts, facsimiles and uhrtexts at age nine, and so forth until now we have the chant version of the offspring of Stephen Hawking and Indiana Jones.

For you partial to cartoon caricatures, Jeff could be likened to a cross between the Tazmanian Devil and that Enfante Terriblé kid in “Family Guy.” I simply think he’s our own Buckaroo Banzai in a barong, performing brain salad surgery one moment, choosing well the true Holy Grail among many the next, and taking the chant world into the eighth dimension, despite the contrariness of the many evil Dr. Emilio Lizardo’s around the world. (See the film, I ain’t got time to ‘splain.)

Still and all, Jeffrey Ostrowski is a serious, devoted, and reverently earnest man. And he has, among others in leadership roles, literally transformed the notions of many other serious…..earnest chant proponents of how to effect the chant from conception to acquisition to rendering to its spiritual culmination. If I had to liken his methodology to a sport, I’d say that would have to be Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA to you cage-fighter enthusiasts. On Monday we’d learn via TaiChi; Tuesday it’d be Karate, Wednesday-Kung Fu, today more like Leonides versus the whole of Persia! One moment he will liken a chant phrase to an airplane’s takeoff, cruising and then landing, and the next he might stomp a foot and aim a death stare off into space should our schola not intuit a cadence in the manner which he had already drilled into our brains a great many times. It was funny today when Jeff mentioned Msgr. Bartolucci in passing. I remember distinctly thinking to myself on our second day’s session, “Bartolucci wishes he were Ostrowski!” (Though, of course, that would be a cultural impossibility.)

Well, our band of real men in tights may not achieve the elegant thrust and effortless landing of a stealth jet fighter, but we’re awfully close to singing with the precision of a really good metro train moving from station to station. You know, that clean whoosh of initial thrust, the smooth ride between terminals, and the perfectly measured braking into the next stop, ahhhhhhh. And Jeffrey smiles, somewhere between Dennis the Menace and the Dalai Lama, knowing that he charted the course and his matey’s brought her safely to harbor.

But Jeffrey, according to his own testimony, has difficulty sleeping through the night. One night he claimed the declamation of the word “are” kept him awake. He was serious! And many other perplexities vex his REM time. So, what do you think Jeffrey and his beautiful bride do for vacation? COLLOQUIUM I’d wager; in a heartbeat.

Sundown in Pittsburgh on a Friday peers through the skyscrapers from my dorm room.

That was almost as bad as, “It was a dark and stormy night….”

And coming from a Vesper Service to almost literally die for, all I can think of about these wonderful vacationers, every one of whom likely gives more time, talent and treasure to their parishes, and who receive the ack-ack of flak cannons from all quarters with a side dose of grace now and then, is “Well done, good and faithful servants.” Oh, and “when you get back you have three funerals and a wedding that Father’s fitting in on Friday night after confessions. You okay with that?” Sure, you think?!? I sang with Jeff Ostrowski. I can do anything!

That is the only association with Broadway musicals that might be considered appropriate for Colloquium 2010. At the conclusion of the always expected, yet ever fresh and invigorating, extemporaneous welcome address given by the ever erudite Bow Tied One Monday evening, necessity called him to don his gym teacher whistle and clipboard, and do the S-A-T-B headcount for each of the five polyphonic choirs. And, of course, the headcount eventually turned into a cheery auction- “Can we get a few more tenors for the Palestrina? Howabout a few more tenors for Vespers, guys? Guys?” Of course, it seems that by Tuesday every choir had a requisite, if not ideal balance.

I have tried to describe my first two colloquiums to my choristers, to internet fellow travelers and friends, and per usual my words (the oh-so-many and run on words) have failed. But, maybe this comparison, outlandish as it may be at first blush, might just clarity my feelings and experiences. When the great John Paul II returned as the Holy Father to his motherland, the streets and main square of Warsaw overflowed with three million catholic souls, and by all accounts those 3M souls were of one mind, one heart, one spirit and of one purpose. That being the relentless truth that Jesus Christ is Lord, He alone, with His Mother and countless saints and angels points the Way, the Truth and the Life that is here and to come with His Father through the power of the Spirit. And those Poles gathered that day with a dignity, integrity and will exemplified by our Lord’s Vicar.

Here in sultry Pittsburgh, CMAA has convened an assembly of a mere 250 souls. And we, too, are one with Christ as on that day in Warsaw. Our purpose is apparent and really never needs explanation. We are to honor God, we are to share in his suffering and sacrifice at the altar of remembrance and reminiscence. And we are one by explicitly and implicitly recognizing that by bringing to the table only that which is, of its nature, sacred, beautiful and universal, we are honoring the truth through submission and humility to the worship traditions of Christ’s Church. Dr. Ed Schaefer brought this to the fore in his address last evening: those who stubbornly decree that to restore musical and liturgical legacies that are fifteen centuries proven amount to nothing more than museum worship cannot comprehend (ineffably?) that by traveling along this organic path, we cling lovingly to our Church’s apostolic succession. “This,” Schaefer says, “frees our souls (priests and lay alike) from the licit, understood but nevertheless, self-oriented possibilities that vary from parish to parish around our country and world. If Christ is Truth, and the Truth sets us free, then we can only be free by submission to His Will.”

The Polish faithful hoping to catch a glimpse, or hear a phrase, or take up a chant that day in Warsaw were a truly persecuted people under the thumb and scrutiny of Polish Communist authority and its Soviet masters. But on that day, nothing could starve those millions from rejoicing, from prayer and praise, from thanks and renewal, and eventually from freedom. And, as Dr. Schaefer, Dr. Mahrt and so many have echoed before them, “the continuity of tradition includes the realization that we are a persecuted church.” And all of us baptized, not just R2’s or SoV2’s, or others between those enclaves, constitute the body of this persecuted church. We are, or should be, celebrating the joy of being counter-cultural, according to Dr. Schaefer.
Well, the up-and-down-and-up-and-down again geography of Dusquene has this soul’s arches, blisters, quads and knees profoundly suffering. But, this year, exactly as it has been over the last two years, finds me joyful in extremis!

Alleluia, Amen.

More pragmatist than philosopher, I let an itinerant thought take root in m’ noodle and according to one’s POV, this thought is ovulating or metastasizing.

It’s likely that a vast majority of parishes either make the one time investment in a hardbound hymnal, or they subscribe to seasonal and yearly newsprint hymnal/missal products. The vast minority of parishes choose to self-publish weekly orders of music or “permanent parish hymnals” culled from various copyright-governed, common license or public domain sources. Some others make use of the “overhead projection” of power-pointed lyrics, licensed or, uh, otherwise.

So, let’s backtrack to the vast majority and focus upon the subscription-based parishes, such as mine. Here’s the germ idea: We are fortunate to live in a world where if you leave your 50 page, three color, glossy pictured proposal in the cab, you can use your smart phone and have one waiting for you by the time you arrive at the corporate reception desk, at least according to the advert I saw on the TV.

Okay, stay with me. For a modest surcharge, couldn’t the major RC American corporate publishers offer their core market parishes/dioceses a premium offer that allows the crafting of, essentially, boutique hymnals whose content is drawn from the publisher’s existing repertoire holdings, public domain sources and the creative commons sources that are sprouting like dandelions?

Still with me? Okay, let use our parish as a model and I’m the local editor. I’ll try to cut to the chase. First, I lose items in the ordinaries, psalter section (not from the missal section) and the hymnal that, after “pastoral consultation” among my peers and clergy, we concede to be dead-weight. We communicate those itemized decisions to the publisher’s agent and agree upon how many pages of content are now made vacant with a certain percentage of margin for error. Let’s say that I know that I want to include a number of additional chants from the publisher’s stand-alone product that contains such, ie. OCP’s “Laus et Tibi.” Let’s say that over the years the parish has purchased and maintained octavo versions of choral hymn concertatos, liturgical songs and ordinaries that once were included in former yearly editions of their missals, all of which have congregational version plates archived. Couldn’t they be accessed easily and added to the vacant pages?

Let’s say that we still have a surplus of pages and we desire to include hymns, psalms, propers or whatever from either public domain sources such as the ICEL resource hymnbook, or the hymns found in the commons listed on the Musica Sacra website, or other sites similar to the Choral Public Domain Library (a wiki source) of works we find worthy of inclusion that the composers or license holders put “out there” gratis. Once content and layout are finalized, the publisher adds their surcharge to the amended yearly product, and the parish signs on the dotted line, and the publisher sends the master to their printer, and the custom hymnal shows up, bill gets paid, everybody happy!

I realize that all of this could simply be mounted at the parish level. But, I’ve been there. Once. One time. Back in the Seventies. I don’t care how accessible license permission can be obtained now, self-publishing is not in my future. But the Biggies have their protocols and printing companies already tooled-up. If I can order my Chevy Malibu with a heavenly host of options on Monday and it’s ready for delivery the next Monday, can’t the publishing market consider re-tooling for a still lucrative boutique hymnal market. I don’t see a downside for the publishing houses. Now, if I opt not to include Sebastian Temple’s “Take My Hands” in our boutique parish hymnal, maybe there will be a miniscule loss of royalty revenue to his heirs. If I take out all of one composers’ songs, such as that goofball Charles’s tunes, would the revenues lost by our parish subscription amount really affect Charles’ yearly income drastically. Doesn’t Charles have to churn out new product to keep building the profit pyramid? And if that’s good product, won’t my parish want that included in next year’s boutique hymnal?

I’ve been made aware by a publisher’s representative there are many complexities that seriously would apply specific problems to this proposed idea. The pioneer publisher Friends of the English Liturgy (FEL) once had a program wherein parishes could purchase loose-leaf versions of select songs culled from their library in large amounts that would constitute a “parish hymnal.” Also in the early 70’s. Can you say “Edsel?”

But if we cannot ever reach consensus that either a national hymnal (with its own set of issues) will supplant the free market publishers, or that the Graduale Romanum or Gregorian Missal will be mandated by the USCCB/FDLC/BCL – PTB’s, then cannot there be a reasonable, affordable and profitable (in many ways) alternative to the narrow monopoly of options with which we currently contend?

I am approaching the seventeenth anniversary of accepting the duties of Director of Music for my parish. As I retired from teaching choral music at one of our four excellent public high schools (excellence in choral programs particularly) in 2005, I have served the parish as a full-time director for five years now. In the last two and half years our parish and pastor articulated the merger of three other local parishes and missions into the only clustered parish I’m aware of in our diocese. And we’re scheduled to open a fifth, large capacity parish worship facility sometime next year. Because of our central geographical location in the diocese, both the bishop and pastor have articulated plans that will designate the new parish to serve as a venue for diocesan liturgies.

In the last two years plus, my job description has been augmented greatly. And in the last two weeks, after consultations with the pastor, it now has expanded to include being the director of liturgy as well. Our parishes’ administration and organizational flow chart have, out of necessity, been reorganized into departments with cabinet members; Liturgy being one of six departments, and myself as the top of that “food chain” who reports to the pastor.

What has been a striking result, to me, of this administrative change, is that it has already provided me with more substantive collaboration time not only with the pastor, but our parochial vicars and deacons than I’ve ever enjoyed prior. For example, I casually initiated a conversation with “the boss” about various concerns- the progress of fixing a faulty PA system here, the development of new and younger organists and cantors there, Spanish-language music ministry needs, etc., pretty standard stuff. In the conversation I had mentioned to him I had posted an article in our parish website about the Proper processional antiphons that we employ at three of our nine Vigil/Sunday Masses at our “mother” parish. The pastor, who’d previously expressed much appreciation for the choral homophonic settings in English by the great Richard Rice, mentioned his interest in my other Proper sources for the Introit and Communio. He commented that he noticed occasionally that the tessituras and “ornamentation” of the melodies seemed “complex.” And he contrasted that thought by mentioning his personal appreciation for the Owen Alstott Respond and Acclaim “method.” (I’m sure if we’d had Chabanel 17 years ago, he’d have the same sort of appreciation for those.) The importance of this, to me, is that my pastor was opening channels of conversation that previously were taken for granted. He and I discussed other approaches, such as “By Flowing Waters” (he went to seminary with Dr. Paul Ford) and “Psallite” (not a favorite for me personally.) My pastor is not in the least a disinterested liturgist, nor musically prejudiced or under-exposed to all forms of sacred/liturgical music. His regard for Respond and Acclaim’s ethos doesn’t clash with his appreciation for our choir’s performance of the Allegri “Miserere mei” or the chanted Reproaches by Bruce Ford.

What I’m most encouraged by is that we both seem much more at ease with engaging in specifics. From that informal talk yesterday I was provided an opportunity to show him sources of English chant that we use by Fr. Kelly, Fr. Weber, Bruce Ford and the Anglican Use Gradual. I was able to demonstrate their distinct qualities and approaches by comparison to the Latin originals from the GR. He was interested in systematically understanding the different approaches that are evident between Bruce Ford’s text and melodic interpretations and those of Fr. Kelly. He was similarly struck by the “new chant” modalities of Fr. Weber and the AUG. From there we discussed the future of all of our merged parish Masses utilizing Propers, not only from these sources, but by teaching our congregations the basic Psalm tones, and perhaps by the creation of a home-grown gradual that is utilitarian, accessible upon hearing and not banal, such as how he regards much of the Respond and Acclaim product.

We also discussed in these last two days an upcoming Solemn Vespers on the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He showed great enthusiasm when I showed him Byrd’s “Ave maris stella” for three voices, and an “Ave Maria” by a Philadelphia composer who lived and worked there at the same time our parish’s founder was in seminary and then assigned to St. Ann’s, Philadelphia, before he emigrated west and founded our parish in 1861. And we “sketched” out some musical approaches within the breviary framework together.

This is almost a totally new experience for me, this “freedom” that invites collaboration that reflects more of the “paradigm” ideal that I first heard explained by Professor Mahrt in my first colloquium three years ago.

Of course, I’m supremely aware that there will be many colleagues who would rightly challenge the very notion that Respond and Acclaim is even viable, much less worthy in practice and concept. But this post is not about merit, it is about two veterans (the number of years of my marriage are the same as those of his ordination) who’ve been working with each other for over six years, but have now entered a new, nascent relationship that can only bode well for the “brick by brick” future of our parish worship.

Te Deum laudamus!

Last week my wife and I took the opportunity to meet with a couple of dear friends from CMAA who are also Directors of Music in their parishes; two of us in OF parishes, and one of us at an EF parish. We afforded ourselves as much time as possible to reminisce and share our experiences, offer each other encouragement and advice, and more importantly, celebrated the reality that our jobs afforded us opportunities to know and embrace so many virtues. A lot of “gaudete” was going on, and it was no mere “lattice of coincidence” that produced our optimism. (I’ll give a bottle of Mondavi Reserve Cabernet to the soul who first correctly cites the cinematic reference to that last quote!)

One fact we celebrated was the providence the Holy Spirit gifted the Church when the conclave elected Benedict XVI. For me, this pope exemplifies (with his predecessor) the true humility and joy within the organic optimism that we call Christian faith. But he also manifests a lifelong emblematic assertion of the axiom “lex orandi, lex credendi.” John Paul II turned the lenses of the Church unflinchingly towards the world, and, as with the nine days he walked his motherland among his fellow Poles as the Holy Father, our world was overturned virtually on a widow’s penny and the dignity of humanity had its champion. We could only move forward. Could it be said that Benedict has now refocused the Church’s vision, turning it inward by calling into question the meaning of “lex orandi, lex credendi” as the pre-eminent model for evangelizing our own faithful as well as the world to witness for Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord? “Theology as expressed on our knees in worship,” to paraphrase Baltasar.

“Save the Liturgy, save the world” means many different things to many different people. The cliché’s coining seemed to correspond to the pithy television series “Heroes” and its catchphrase slogan, “Save the cheerleader, save the world.” But Benedict’s legacy just may be that of a heroic priest/professor who, during a hellish and horrific decade among many within and outside of the Church, has invigorated the Church to reconciliation by nudging us back to the real “center of our lives,” the rich traditions of our ritual forms and elements that demand our adherence to the Real Presence of Christ among us at the Altar of Sacrifice, including the clear exhortations to re-orient ourselves, in the language that is chant and polyphony, towards the Eucharistic worship of God, and not an abstract celebration of ourselves as a community of believers.
It was Liturgy that called me to the Church forty years ago this year. It is Liturgy that has been the best and only suitable expression of a naïve child’s innate knowledge that God has, is and always will be “here, there and everywhere.” It is Liturgy that has humbled me so that I may taste and see the existential optimism of salvation and union with my Maker.

Here in blogdom, the culture of pessimism is well nurtured. How could it not flourish here when in real time we’re enduring the omnipresent assault of our reason and senses through the “miracle of media?” But I believe that what erodes the moral certitude of our Holy Fathers current and of recent memory isn’t pessimism but cynicism. The egocentric and narcissistic trademarks of our post-modern societal norms find their power magnified by the evolution of social networking that is inorganic and intoxicating. Cynicism can appear overtly and benignly. When it’s confrontational, which I find more common within the internet venues, there is no real community. There can only be facsimiles of community or communion. When it’s benign, we can sometime find it couched in the manners and niceties of “do they like me?” or “do they like what we’re singing at Mass” or worse, “do they like what we sing at church?”

My prayer for this new blog endeavor is that cynicism never finds lodging here. I also pray that we musicians at service to the Church’s worship and in that ideal charity of serving the Faithful, consider emulating the optimism of our current Holy Father, who has always answered “yes” to the Lord, even if that answer was to a question that he did not anticipate ever hearing addressed to him.

Musicians, consider saying “yes” to a particular parish calling and, being immersed in optimism and steadfast of spirit and perseverance, stay as long as you can within that parish to infuse your talent, knowledge and your own faith in the “mind of the Church” so as to take root through many seasons and years.

Let us, indeed, join our voices with choirs of angels and saints in an unending hymn of praise that, really, in our hearts we know to be not only in concert with our patrimony, but also we know are truly sacred, beautiful and universal.