You will find this video quite interesting. Larry Chapp interviews Bp. James Conley of Lincoln about the reform of the liturgy.
Please let me know your high points. For me: communion rails, communion on the tongue, the Roman Canon. They talk about MUSIC. There are great points about “New Evangelization”. Toward the end, “liturgical principles” and “sentimentality”.
Listening to these guys talk … one would think they’ve been reading this blog.
They got the issue about “concert Masses” dead wrong, but that’s about the only place where they put their feet wrong.
BTW, you two, you got the quote of Augustine about music wrong. Augustine did not write, “He who sings prays twice”.
He wrote something similar: “cantare amantis est… Singing belongs to one who loves” (s. 336, 1 – PL 38, 1472). This is the citation for qui bene cantat bis orat in the primitive edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) 1156.
In the edition of the CCC we are sent to footnote n. 26 (oddly, this is note 21 in the newer English edition, which adds a confer reference to Col. 3:16 – which is not in the Latin CCC). Latin CCC 1156, note 26 reads: Cf. Sanctus Augustinus, Enarratio in Psalmum 72, 1: CCL 39, 986 (PL 36, 914).
The Corpus Christianorum Latinorum (CCL – a vast series of volumes of Latin authors) vol. 39 shows us what Augustine really said:
Qui enim cantat laudem, non solum laudat, sed etiam hilariter laudat; qui cantat laudem, non solum cantat, sed et amat eum quem cantat. In laude confitentis est praedicatio, in cantico amantis affectio…For he who sings praise, does not only praise, but also praises joyously; he who sings praise, is not only singing, but also loving Him whom he is singing about/to/for. There is a praise-filled public proclamation (praedicatio) in the praise of someone who is confessing/acknowledging (God), in the song of the lover (there is) there is deep love.
Augustine is saying that when the praise is of God, then something happens to the song of the praiser/love that makes it more than just any kind of song.
The object of the song/love in a way becomes the subject.
Something happens so that the song itself becomes Love in its manifestation of love of the one who truly is Love itself.
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Knew Bishop Conley when he was the Auxiliary Bishop in Denver and the Apostolic Administrator when Archbishop Chaput was transferred to Philadelphia. He was the celebrant for the first Pontifical Solemn High Mass at the Cathedral Basilica in Denver in over 40 years back in November 2008. Many of us were very disappointed when he was not chosen as the successor to Charles J. Chaput.
I found one late 17th century sources ascribing the proverb “qui cantat bis orat” to St. Bernard. More interestingly, I found this 17th century printing of a Sermon ascribed to St. Norbert where the proverb is quoted as “tritum,” commonplace:
“Magnim vim habet communis precatio, sine cantu: majorem adhuc, si cantus adhibeatur. Tritum est illud “qui cantat, bis orat.”
(S. Norberti Archiepiscopi Magdeburgensis … Sermo ad eosdem Praemonstratenses Filios quondam dictus & scriptus, p. 740)
The proverb doesn’t appear to be associated with St. Augustine till about the 19th century. Everyone’s favourite century for incorrect citations.
If there was an opportunity to make one change. What would be more impactful: to have communion rails or eliminate receiving in the hand?
I think communion rails. The Dominicans at Holy Rosary PDX convinced me by their liturgies…
And after a more beautiful liturgy, two men or two women holding hands may approach a priest and ask to be blessed by the priests in the Diocese of Lincoln because a blessing does not require moral perfection on the part of the recipients. Woe to the priest who refuses to bless a gay couple.
[Rather… eternal woe to the priest who does!]
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Thank you, Father, for this post, and thank you to the bishop and to Mr. Chapp for the interview on this most interesting and important subject.
Little to disagree with, although it is my belief that, even here, from an obviously solid bishop, that the Council’s desire for (authentic) participatio actuosa is still far, far away.
The bishop indicated that he accepted the view that active singing is indeed a “chunk” of the true meaning of “active” participation in the liturgy. I believe this is totally and completely false, and I believe this error is proved by the teachings of both John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict.
The bishop may perhaps have misspoke…but then, perhaps not.
The two did speak, at the end, about music “lifting” the person, and this is more in line with the holy masters, JPII in speaking of the wide contemplative dimension of the liturgy, and Ratinger/Benedict directly refuting the concept of the “necessity” or “obligation” of singing at various times.
If they misspoke, fine — but such a subject demands care and precision, and thinking totally with the Church, all the more so because it is so charged with error these days, even (one might say, especially) among those of episcopal rank.
The universal, individual call to holiness and thus every person’s call to deep union with Our Lord, and thus the ever deeper inner life of self-offering in union with Him — the life of saints — THIS is actual participation, offering oneself in union with His Sacrifice.
God cares about that. I really, really, really don’t think He cares if you do or do not open your mouth to sing.