Catholic Liturgical Ditties and Sacred Music

Music can trigger a wake up call for my better angels. The softer side of our selves is what makes us respond to our place here on earth and our understanding of that delicate and brief posture we show to the universe and the face of God. We might not know all about the art, the words, the tone, or the ritual taking place but we know that something we are experiencing takes us out of ourselves to someplace wonderful. We can only experience this mystical journey if we put ourselves exactly where it is possible: a library, a museum, a monument, a place of worship. We gotta go there.

Last night, I was swept up by the Nine Lessons and Carols Concert at St. John Cantius, where the works of Canadian Comper Healey Willan were performed. Healey Willan was commissioned to compose sacred music for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The St. Cecilia Choir performed his Hodie Carol. Hodie, Cristus Natus Est. Today Christ is born- declarative, simple and elegant. Sacred.

Catholic liturgy should use music with greater care and it does not. St. John Cantius is a parish on the north side of Chicago where the stated mission is to return God's people where they belong via the sacred. St. John Cantius is the Catholic Church many of us Baby Boomer and older Catholics remember. The entire atmosphere is reverent, beautiful and sacred. The music is exquisite and the performance by the St. Cecilia Choir under the direction of a non-Catholic, Dan Robinson more than matches the musical manuscripts.

The Sacred is rare in our culture. The sacred is parodied or dismissed in public life, education, politics, conversation and child care. Why else could we as a culture embrace everything anything as disposable - books, razors, friendships, and life itself. We seem to have replaced the Sacred with Sanctioned. I am as guilty of that most hours of the day.

My friend Jim Bowman, a dedicated career religious journalist, posed this issue at Blithe Spirit quoting from an article he read on Catholic Liturgical Music and the empty pews in the light of the recent Catholic Campaign to Return Home:

A long time Catholic of bourgeois sensibilities, a man who trying to hold on to his faith but doesn’t attend Mass on a regular basis, decides that it is time to try again. He goes to a parish not far from his house. The processional says to him: nothing has changed from the last time I tried this. He grinds his teeth throughout. By communion time, he is nearly losing his mind. The recessional hymn puts him over the top. He goes out to the parking lot cursing under his breath, mad all over again, recalling why he doesn’t go that often.

The problem is the music. It is bad pop music, shabbily done by people who nonetheless seem to be pretty proud of their performance. The entire Mass, the man keeps asking himself: how does it happen that the most beautiful liturgy, the product of 2000 years of tradition, could be reduced to this? More importantly, isn't there something that can be done about it?

There is, but, like everything else, the problem is more than fifty years of neglect that needs to be addressed. The Masses composed around the Big Six (Kyrie,Gloria,Credo,Sanctus,,Benedictus and Agnus Dei) by Cavalli, Bach, Mozart,Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt,Schubert,Verdi, Rossini and Antonin Dvořák, became as irrelvant as Latin, the Memorare and the Prayer of St. Michael.

The music became the property of Sister Sally and the Electric Prunes ( yes, the lads who brought us "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" composed an electric guitar Mass in F Minor) and local kids who played the guitar very badly. The Mass became relevant as Hell. It was profaned. I know profane inside and out, God help me. I do and get profane, much more than necessary, and it has its place.

There have been many modern compositions that are sacred and fitting to liturgy, but these are ignored, because parish liturgists have been trained to do their own thing.

Again, from article cited by Jim Bowman:

The number one issue, in my own view that has been formed over a decade of close study, is that the musicians themselves do not know better. Most people doing music in the Catholic Church do not even have a rudimentary understanding of the musical demands of the Roman rite. They do not know what parts of the Mass constitute the ordinary structure of the Mass. They do not know that the propers of the Mass exist. They have no idea how the music is related to the word or the calendar (apart from Christmas and Easter). They have no idea what is mandatory, what is an option, what is the Church’s choice, what is the publisher’s choice, what tradition consists of, or how to tell genuine liturgical music from nonliturgical music.

This is because they have never been told. And a reason that they have never been told is that very few people actually have this understanding at all. You can attend ten national conventions, read ten books, subscribe to all the major liturgy publications, troll websites all day, talk to your pastor and grill your predecessors, and still never discover these basic points about the Catholic liturgy and its musical demands. Yes, you will come away with some slogans and with the knowledge that “the people” need to participate but do not (it’s always easier to focus on the sins of others), but that’s about it.

The core information about the role of music is not known because it is not known, and this problem is not only serious at the grass roots; it goes straight to the top. Again, it is not malice that is preventing this knowledge from leaking out; it is just that so much information has been lost during these confusing decades that there are very few around that truly get it.

Want to get it?

Here is a pretty good tutorial that helps us understand the difference.

Can you tell the difference?? from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

That's a baby step. We need to walk into Sacred Places to experience the Sacred. You'll know it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healey_Willan
http://www.chantcafe.com/search/label/Jeffrey%20Tucker

http://blithespirit.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/read-this-and-weep-ye-pewsitting-catholics/

Lessons and Carols at St. Cantius -Saturday December 10, 2011

St. John Cantius’ Service of Nine Lessons and Carols brings you the classic carols of Christmas. Voices uplifted in song, the spirit uplifted with tradition and reverence. Blending Scripture readings and Sacred Music, this century-old tradition has become a cherished event not only for our church, but for the people of Chicago.

St. John Cantius Parish is a parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago which offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Roman Rite in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. The Ordinary Form of the Mass, often referred to as the Novus Ordo, is offered both in Latin and in English according to the Missale Romanum, issued by Pope John Paul II in 2003. St. John Cantius Parish is also privileged to offer daily the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, commonly referred to as the Tridentine Latin Mass, according to the Missale Romanum of 1962.

Located in the heart of Chicago one mile directly west of the famous Water tower on Chicago Avenue, Saint John Cantius Church is easily accessible by car, bus, or subway. The historic baroque church is one of the best examples of sacred architecture in the city and is home to many works of sacred art. The solemn liturgies, devotions, treasures of sacred art, and rich program of sacred liturgical music have helped many Catholics discover a profound sense of the sacred, thereby permeating their lives with a renewed faith.

Throughout the year, St. John Cantius offers a diverse selection of presentations and classes in Latin, Greek, church heritage, religious education, catechetics, and Catholic culture.

Founded by Polish immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century, the parish today represents a broad cross-section of every ethnic, socio-economic and age group. Located in the heart of Chicago, St. John Cantius Church is easily accessible by car, bus, or subway.

St. John Cantius Church is also the home of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, a religious community of men dedicated to the Restoration of the Sacred.

If you Google Quotations on the The Sacred, you will not find any quote by a Catholic, until you reach Teilhard De Chardin the Jesuit Paleontologist and writer. Leading off with Albert Einstein, you will get quotes from Johnny Depp, Oprah, Ganghi, Mohammad, Jim Morrison and always self-absorded Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Really, Ralph? My own mind I hardly a sacred stopping off spot and is at best PG 13 on a good day. I always want to cuff the cheeks of Transcendalists and Brook Farm ninnies with a roll of dimes in my chubby palms; alas, they are a mouldin' the grave.

See? I am profane.

The Sacred is precious. The Sacred is accessible. Saturday, the St. Cecilia Choir and orchestra conducted by Mr. Dan Robinson will follow Father Frank Phillips in the Nine Lessons of Christmas and Carols.

If you have not witnessed the devotion to the Sacred through the liturgy, the music and rituals of traditional Catholic devotions, you should.








Get some Sacred.

December 10, 2011
at 7:00 pm


Time:
Doors open one hour
before performance


Location:
St. John Cantius Church
825 N. Carpenter St.
Chicago, Illinois 60642-5499


Lessons & Carols Program
Adult $15
College Student/Senior Citizen $10
Child/Youth (6-18 years) $5
Gourmet Dinner and Lessons & Carols Program
$100 per person (includes Lessons & Carols)

1-800-838-3006

http://www.cantius.org/go/nine-lessons-and-carols

Roses in the Snow - Hickey Christmas Party, Nine Lesson/Carols and Our Lady of Guadalupe

Praestet fides supplementum/sensuum defectui -faith for all defects supplying,
where the feeble senses fail.Tatum Ergo Scaramentum by St. Thomas Aquinas

Last night, I attended two great events and witnessed another at 1919 S. Ashland Avenue.

The first was the annual Hickey Christmas Party at Cork and Kerry. This event began in the basement of my grandparents house at 75th & Marshfield in Little Flower Parish. My Dad's family was huge -thirteen children of Lawrence and Nora Hickey ( seven men and six women of whom only my Aunt Helen Brennan survives). The Hickey Party featured corned beef, Italian beef, cookies, cakes, and a ceili. Santa made an appearance often encorpified by the beefier males of the clan. Irish step dancing to the button accordion in the thick mitts of Granpa Hickey accompanied by some of the best Irish musicians in Chicago - Cuz Teahan, Jimmy Neary and Tom Masterson on fiddles and tin whistle.

Years later the party moved to Wally's Last Stop at 85th Kedzie, a bar that was closing for decades and owned by Polish Polka Museum Hall of Famer Wally - Leader of Wally and the Fat Boys. Subsequently, this movable feast journeyed to such halls and watering holes as could accommodate the massive extended Hickey Clan.

The Clan swells. With two of my three children, I entered the hall section of Cork and Kerry. Like Wally's, Cork and Kerry has a mini stage. This seems to be the key feature necessary, as the platform gets swarmed by toddlers who dance, gambol, cavort, tease and generally strut their tiny stuff. There was a tide of tiny Hickeys, Winters, Walshes, Brennans, McNamara's, & etc. darting and weaving among the taller legs and limbs like Roses in the Mantel of Our Lady. It was magical.

I had to leave in order to attend the Nine Lessons performance at St. John Cantius, where the woman I love sings with the St. Cecilia Choral. This annual festival that runs over two nights, is a presentation of music and faith centered on the miracle of Christ's birth. Each reader opens a Lesson about the Nativity of Christ with a passage of Scripture from Old and New Testament followed by a Carol from the greatest Christmas themed music in Western Civilization.

St. John Cantius Church is Chicago's link to Catholic culture in its devotions that are traditional and universal - rites are conducted in Latin and English in the Novus Ordo and Tridentine forms. I immediately went to Confession, because I am topped off with sin and folly.

Then, I applied myself to a full spiritual soaking of sacred texts rich in message and mystery and music that purges the petty from a very petty man. One Carol in particular hit home a 17th Century Carol by Thomas Ravescroft (c.1582-1635):

Remember God's goodness/Othou man, O thou man,/And promise made:/Remember God's goodness,/HOw his only Son he sent,/Our sins for to redress:Be not afraid.. . .In Bethlem was he born,/for mankind dear:/In Bethlem was he born/for us that were forlorn,/And therefore took no scorn,/Our sins to bear.

I have a terrible memory. God's goodness has given me more moral mulligan's any sinner deserves.

I took Ogden Avenue to Ashland home to Morgan Park and at 1919 S. Ashland witnessed the hundreds of devout and proud Mexican Americans crowding the icy corners around St. Pius V Church where the Dominicans still lead the devotions to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared to a peasant named Juan Diego in the 17th Century, two centuries after Spain conquered the people of Mexico. Our Lady appeared not to a Spanish grandee but a humble native and directed Juan Diego to build a Church on the place of that apparition. Juan Diego told his bishop, but like any good company man the Prince of the Church wanted due diligence - go get a miracle.

Juan Diego was directed by Our Lady to gather flowers in the snow. Juan Diego found the flowers where Our Lady had placed them in her cloak and when Juan Diego returned the image of Our Lady had replaced the flowers in her blue mantle and that image remains in the Church built upon the flowers in the snow and the Faith of a man.

Three hundred years of Peace followed the miracle of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I don't require that many years, but do need to bone up on my faith and devotion to my family, my Church and my God.

Stabat Mater (Dolorosa) at St. John Cantius Catholic Church

St. Cantius Catholic Church offered the Stations of the Cross last evening. God knows I need as much Church as any sinner can get and I sin like a Congressman on junkets.

One of the most beautiful pieces of music from the Baroque period was performed - the Stabat Mater by Pergolesi. Click my post title ( Katia Ricciarelli and Lucia Valentini sing the final movement of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. 1979. Conductor: Claudio Abbado.)

Stabat Mater means - the Standing Mother - Mary Mother of Christ. It is the heartbreaking depiction of a mother witnessing the last breaths of her Child - think of Childrens Memorial Hospital at any given time.

St. John Cantius Catholic Church celebrates the magnificence and te simplicity of Faith. In our zip-lock culture, Faith is sneered at and shouted over. Faith engines our efforts and taps on the shoulders about our obligations to those we love and those we are commanded to love - that's the tough one, boys and Girls.

St. John Cantius
825 N. Carpenter St.
Chicago, IL 60642

http://www.cantius.org/

About the Stabat Mater

Date 1736

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710 - 1736) was born in Jesi, Italy. His name became known thanks to his comic opera La Serva Padrone. He was slightly handicapped and had a weak constitution. He probably died of tuberculosis. A lot of confusion exists about which works Pergolesi did or did not compose. As his work came more and more in demand, some publishers tried to make a little extra by taking an anonymous composition and attaching the name of Pergolesi to it. However, about the Stabat Mater there is no doubt. It is known that in his early years he composed a Stabat Mater in A minor.
Probably the Stabat Mater in C minor was Pergolesi's last composition. The commission for this work was given by the same Order in Naples for which Alessandro Scarlatti 20 years earlier had composed a Stabat Mater. Though the score of the compositions is almost identical, the melodic lines of Pergolesi are more sentimental and highly ornamented.The piece was widely acclaimed and it seems to have inspired many composers to imitate, paraphrase and adapt (see Brunetti, de Nardis and Paisiello). Joseph Eybler (1764 - 1846), who was a friend of Mozart and who became Court Kapellmeister in Vienna after Antonio Salieri, added a choir to replace some of the duets, and extended the orchestra. Others were John Adam Hiller/Johann Adam Hüller (1728 - 1804) and Alexy Fyodorovich L'vov (ca. 1830). The musical setting of Psalm 51 "Tilge, Höchster, meine Sünden" of the great Johann Sebastian is another example.

Performers Soprano, alto, three violins, cello, organ
Length 41.44 minutes (CD 1), 41.30 minutes (CD 2), 37.27 minutes (CD 3), 40.03 minutes (CD 4), 34.58 minutes (CD 5), 39.38 minutes (CD 6), 33.12 (CD 7)
Particulars The work is divided into twelve sections, varying from one to five stanzas. Very moving melodies, which led to some criticism because they were thought to be too cheerful. Interesting is the line "dum e-mi-sit" which is sung intermittently, as a musical picture of the last breaths of Jesus. This is found also with some other composers.
Some interpretations deviate from the composer's score, as a choir has been added to the two voices (see the second Colorbar, based on CD 2). This is probably based on the Eybler adaptation.

"Let me get through today, and I shall not fear tomorrow." - St. Philip Neri

The Roman Catholic Church was on the canvass in the late 16th Century, because the clergy had become secularist - priests, bishops, and even Popes more interested in promoting political action than in Doctrine.

Martin Luther threw the hay-maker when he challenged the Church theologically by nailing his 95 theses for debate on the Church door of Wittenberg.

All of the smart money was on the Protestant reforming factions and the Islamist threat posed by Suleiman the Magnificent.

The Catholic Church was not knocked out, but it did hear the ref doing the counting.

Before the ten count, it got off the canvass. The Church went back to its corner, swished some holy water around its choppers and spit the bad blood in the bucket - at the Council of Trent. The Church returned to its roots.

However, Catholics more so than the Red Hats seemed to make the practical difference - Ignatius Loyola - a Dog Faced Wounded Vet - formed the Jesuits and set about actually doing what the Apostles were told to do.

Another gent, Philip Neri worked up the lay people.

Neri was a rich kid from Florence. He decided to put business aside and work to help the Church and moved to Rome. For three years he toyed with idea of being a priest, but determined to work with lay people.

He amassed a group of like minded lay people and through conversations during the business day sought to live lives that would strengthen the Church. It worked. He developed a concept called the Oratory - a place where lay people could pray and discuss their Faith.

Philip Neri's Oratory became so popular that Neri's Confessor urged him to get himself ordained a priest - he did.

Neri used humor to poke fun at false assumptions doctrine and the practical life of most people.

There are Catholics out there concerned with the sad state of Church and continued lap-dogging of some in the clergy - like the President of that PR Driven School in Indiana, gutless 'catholic' politicians who go to Pancake breakfasts with the Knights of Columbus and then do the bidding of Planned Parenthood to kill more kids.

John Powers and Tom Roeser are two of the most public Philip Neri's in Chicago.

My neighborhood is packed with people who live the Gospel, while the chaps being paid to say Mass act like bitchy little girls.

There are priests like Father C. Frank Phillips,C.R. of St. John Cantius Parish at Chicago Ave. & Sangamon on the north side who have sparked devotion through the beauty, grace and dignity of the Traditional Latin Mass ( Novus Ordo & Tridentine) and he has helped attract more Americans to Holy Orders than any seminary. Go to St. John Cantius and witness a Church alive! Packed. Every Mass.

http://www.cantius.org/

The Catholic Church has been on canvass many times in history.

There always seems to be a Philip Neri to help the Church spit out its busted teeth and get back in the fight.


http://stbarbara.blogspot.com/

http://tomroeser.com/

So, I Said 'Drop Dead Sister, I'm Dating a Swell Dish!' . . .and the Silly Skirt Did -On the Spot!

It's Spy Wednesday, See?

So, I'm out side waiting for the lovely Terry to finish her Alto chores with the Cantate Domino Choir's Tenebrae services at St. John Cantius Catholic Church. This young skirt with doe eyes approaches me on the steps of the Church. A real Peach Cobbler. I ain't looking,see, but I ain't blind.

'Please, Mister, I need help.'

I thumbed the brim of my Optimo grey Stetson up above my thick greying eye brows to take in a full eye-gulp of this Pastry Doll with a red patterned cotton dress clinging to the quality flesh, muscles and bones beneath the rounded cup of her chin holding the reddest lips this side of a transvestite review at the Admiral Theatre.

'Don't we all?'

' Please all I need is a ride to my cousin's apartment on Ogden, my flip flops broke.'

'Where you from, Apple Tart, this is Chicago - The Big Wind - Weather from Alaska, Hawaii.'

'I'm new in town and Tom Skilling said that it would be unseasonably mild.'

'Skilling sold you, Peach Cobbler, like he did to the grand jury when his little brother looted Enron. I'm raising three kids already.'

' Please, Mister!'

I thought hell, it's Holy Week and Tenebrae is longer than a Studs Terkel Tribute on Channel 11.'

The weeping elf gave me the address and we Chevy Malibu's it down Ogden to Race Street.

'Out you go.'

'Please, come up with me? The vestibule has poor lighting.

Agatha Christie she ain't, but she'll do, as the Vestibule had worse lighting than my tired fifty-six year old eyes. The rusty rose paint covering the dry wall that stood in for lathing and plaster was as attractive as a fat bar-fly ex- Mount Carmel Cheerleader topped off with a few litres of warm Carlo Rossi Rose and perfumed by a pack and half of Pall Malls and half a dozen Slim Jims.

'Please, come up - it might not be safe.'

I volunteered for John McCain; nothing scares me anymore and up I went.

We got into the cousin's apartment which was a room and Murphy Bed -down and unmade. The cousin probably celebrated the end of Operation Desert Storm by making up the rack.

'Please hold me I am so alone!' The Gooey Confection with the pan of a fattened up Lara Flynn Boyle leeched onto me.

'Listen, Sister, I don't know your game but the whistle's been blown. Hit the showers.'

'Don't be cruel. You are so much older and nicer than the men who have made me do things . . .make robocalls for Mike Quigley. He's in Congress now'

' Where Quigley belongs - that or a midget basketball team. Sing it Sister, but you are the audience. I'm bouncing.'

'I can Make you happy.'

'I am Happy. See me grinnin'?'

She held up both arms to me. 'Take me or I'll just die! I'll do anything you say.'

'Look, Rhubarb Pie, this particular Hair-pin is stuck deep in another Babe's bonnet. The Real Deal. This schooner don't cruise, see? I'm chained to my Baby's Boardwalk and She's singing in Church and hugging my arm for keeps. Drop Dead.'

I only meant it metaphorically.

The Pretty Pop-Over snapped up off the deck; kicked her quality gams to One Eighty and flattened out in mid air and drooped like a three by five foot -three quarter inch cut of plywood and pancaked on the floor. Dust bunnies danced for what seemed an eternity.

The Fruit Strudel in cotton and busted flip-flops was as stiff as a poker, and more rigid than an Obama Press Conference.

She was deader than Pat Quinn's tax plans. I called the cops. Told them my story. They told me to blow. I Malibu'd back to St. John Cantius. Tenebrae was about a third done. I stood on the steps of the beautiful old Polish Church and listened to blend of angelic voices calling up the sins of this sad planet. Tenebrae - shadows.

That Fruit Pie could flop.


H/t Blather.com great photos!