I was around during the liturgical upheavel of the 1970's, I remember vividly the first NOvus Ordo Mass on Palm Sunday 1970, and the disapointment of the people, as we had been told that the adjustments to the Old Rite made in the years between 1965 and 1970 would be the final changes, that THIS was the Liturgy that the Council Fathers wanted. THen came the Novus Ordo with the outlawing of Latin, the disapperacne of Chant, the enforced break-up of choirs, vestments, statues, communion rails, altars and of whole sanctuaries. Communion by laypeople, standing, even on the hand, followed. Professional liturgists and singers tried to force us to learn a new liturgy and new songs, but to no avail: catholics remained from then on forever silent. Kumbaya and HOsanna-hey-sanna just could not replace Et cum spiritu tuoa and Tantum Ergo in our hearts and upon our lips. I was 16 when the demise began - at least, when it hit my parish - and have seen thousands upon thousands leave the Church as a result of it. Troughout the world the same story can be told. It was the professionals against the parish preists and the lay faithful then too. Don't beleive the official version of the post-conciliar era. THe victors always write the official history to suit themselves.
albertus
09.18.09
#
Albertus, your account is pretty much as I remember things but the Novus Ordo actually was introduced on the First Sunday of Advent 1969 and not on Palm Sunday.
Many of the things you describe took place before the Novus Ordo came on the scene. From the first changes on the First Sunday of Lent 1965 until the Novus Ordo came there was a period of great disruptiom (to which you allude). The EF, as used in most churches on the Sunday before the Novus Ordo came in was, in fact, barely recognisable.
One major change that came on that same Advent Sunday was the replacement of the provisional english translation by the less accurate and more banal ICEL translation. One week we all said "And with your spirit" while the next week we said, "And also with you."
David M. O'Rourke
09.18.09
#
Thank you for this excellent article. The myth that you describe well is holding back many priests and parishes from improvements to liturgical music that would greatly help the life of prayer of the people.
Another factor I have found is that the " ching, ching-a-ching" Church music of the seventies is an embarrassment to the young people it is mistakenly intended to attract.
Fr Tim Finigan
Homepage
09.18.09
#
I am an old geezerette and I remember when the Mass was changed, the paper missals on the pew, the awful empty feeling in my heart. I was planning to become Catholic but walked away after that. I finally joined the Church about 15 years later and tried to live with the bland liturgy and music.
Now I am thrilled to be able to attend a TLM once in a while, and the parish and choir I belong to now sings some traditional Latin hymns and some chant.
I will be attending the pilgrimage and Gregorian chant workshop in DC. I have no doubt that it will be one of the highlights of my life.
cecilia
09.19.09
#
Indeed, the Novus Ordo was supposed to be introduced on the first Sunday of Advent 1969, but the Vatican allowed Ordinaries to delay this introduction until as late as Palm Sunday 1970, which was the case in my diocese. Before that date, Our parish ahd introduced only the strictly necesary minimum of mandated adjustments to the Old Rite. I remember Palm Sunday explicitly, because, for the first time something else was sung instead of Pueri Hebraeorum during the Palm procession: it was Hey sanna ho sanna (or something like that) our of Jesus Christ Super Star. I remember the horror and shock as the professional liturgists tried to practise this song with the faithful a half hour before the start of Mass. I remember also, that, perhaps in that same year or a year later, our beloved old augustianian priest, who for years regularly helped to distributed Holy Communion at the Sunday Masses, dressed in soutane, surplice and stola, went to the Tabernacle, but was pushed away by a woman in street clothes: the first lay person whom i ever saw at the High Altar, at the Tabernacle. She helped the pastor distribute Holy Communion whilst the old augustinian priest, humiliated, went back to the sacristy. We never saw him again. THe pastor later took up the strange habit of walking around the church during the homily with a microphone in hand, and of inviting random people to stand or sit around the Altar during the Canon. THe choir was disbanded, as only the faithful were supposed to sing: which meant, only the pair of professional liturgists with guitars and Jesus Christ superstar repertoire. THis was the most traumatic year of my life.
TO escape the Novus Ordo i entered the next year a traditional seminary where the Old Rite, with altar, communion rail, and chant, was still intact. I have schewed the New Rite ever since.
As for the eastern rites, most of them have a liturgical language too! old Church Slavonic, Byzantine Greek, Gheez, Coptic, Syriac. etcetera are not immediately understandable by the Russian, Greek, Ethipian, Egyptian and Arab faithful.
albertus
09.19.09
#
Excellent post. Thank you. This reminds me of something.
I'll never forget the time I attended (on behalf of a Catholic organization I worked for) a Catholic conference on preaching back around 2002. The organizers had arranged for a professional Catholic musician to give a talk and to provide entertainment before one of the evening banquet meals. She held (as far as I know, still does) an influential position at one of the big Catholic music publishers.
A colleague and I were astonished when, as pre-dinner entertainment, this woman (probably in her late 50's or so) sat at a piano and proceeded to play for the attendees brief snippets of older, more traditional English hymns (some of which are among my personal favorites). But why did she play them--to render a respectful nod to them? Absolutely not. She was outright mocking them. I wish I were kidding. She actually played bars from (e.g. "Faith of Our Fathers" I think was among them) wonderful old hymns and literally laughed at them. She was doing what she thought was comedy! The mere sound of the old hymns was, for her, a source of immediate and spontaneous laughter. She would say, "Remember this one?" play few bars, and giggle knowingly. The organizers were mostly clerics in their 60' or older. The audience was expected to laugh right along with her, as they took this stroll down memory lane from their childhoods. The mood was one of, "Gee, aren't we glad we can look back at those overly-naive, unenlightened days when we actually took such music seriously? We were kids--we didn't know better. Now, we have music of the people. Now, we can remember and laugh at those stodgy bygone days."
My heart absolutely sank as I realized this highly-placed member of the Catholic music publishing business was actually publicly mocking beloved old hymns that are actually singable and theologically robust. And my personal experience is that these hymns are making a come back, and that generally speaking, people sing them with more gusto and relish than the folk and pop-influenced drivel coming out of the 70's and 80's that her publishing business crams into their publications. It was an experience I won't forget. I felt like I was among a group of people who were completely clueless about the authentic, popular attractiveness of more traditional musical forms. It was a group hermetically sealed-off from the opinions and attitudes of anyone who doesn't think like them. [And in light of my comments, I want to acknowledge that although I enjoy the older hymns, I completely agree that chant and chant-inspired music is the best musical form for the liturgy.]
Switching gears, I would like to comment that I seriously question whether the take-over of the Catholic music publishing business in the late 60's and 70's by the folk/guitar/tambourine crowd was truly a reflection of the preferences of a majority of Catholics at the time. [And I would like to say I don't have anything against good folk music; but I don't want it at Mass. Besides, that stuff is not good folk music anyway.]
I suspect that only a minority of Catholics truly preferred this contemporary folksy style of hymn music. But, those caught up in the juvenile, hippie spirit of the times gained control of the professional liturgical music industry and proceeded to force their musical tastes upon everyone in the name of "the people."
Scott Johnston
Homepage
09.20.09
#
Scott, you might be right that she was playing to an audience that shared her views, but lots of these performers do this in order to instruct people of the proper attitude to have toward the past. I've seen this with theology lectures when a person will mock confession behind a screen or the rosary or whatever. It's a way of broadcasting the "correct" disdain that one is supposed to have in order to be part of the in group.
jeffrey tucker
09.20.09
#
No comments:
Post a Comment