Wednesday, May 28, 2014

On church music

Yesterday we saw the news of the publication of this new missal & hymnal. It came to gladden this amateur church musician's heart. For many years now, if not a lifetime, I have been involved with church music. I had parents who loved good music, brothers who play and sing, a husband who has no patience with mediocre music, and now children who have been involved in liturgical for years--and will likely be for the extent of their lifetime.  


As a child, as the music in the nearby parishes became banal and of little richness, my parents carefully chose our Sunday masses. For most of my growing up years we attended the Benedictine convent for Sunday mass in Rio where the nuns still chanted the Gregorian Chant, easily inserting the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei into the Novus Ordo. To this day I long for them, and the opportunity to sing Chant is what takes us to attend the Extraordinary Form one hour away sporadically. Our children, thankfully, and to great credit to Husband, are also admirers and lovers of good music. 

It is wonderful to see a new missal & hymnal being published, filled with beautiful music. I believe the worst has passed--the era of church music written in sappy tunes and iffy lyrics. I am optimistic and see our children taking their own children to mass to enjoy again the timelessness and sacredness of Gregorian Chant mass parts, and hymns that draw from sound theology and musical richness!

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