+JMJ
Dear Parishioners,
Here is another excerpt from Bishop Olmsted’s teaching on music in the Mass. (See his whole presentation at http://www.adoremus.org/0512SingingtheMass.html). This time he offers a short history of music, so that we can get a glimpse of where our music in the Mass started. It is profound that Vatican II calls liturgical music “the treasure of sacred music," and says that it is to be “preserved and fostered with great care." Also worthy of meditation is how music in the Mass has its roots back in the singing of the Psalms in Judaism before Christ. Finally, if you consider all the art that the Catholic Faith has inspired, it is quite impressive to read below that “the Second Vatican Council boldly proclaimed that her treasury of sacred music is of more value than any other of her artistic contributions." At the root of the formation of this treasure of sacred music was the Old Testament times decision not to adopt the wild music of the pagan cults of the day. Here are Bishop Olmsted's words.
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A short history of liturgical music
The Second Vatican Council proclaimed that “the musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 112). This led the Council fathers to decree that “the treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care” (ibid. 114).
Sacred Music in Judaism before Christ
The dual task of preserving and fostering sacred music remains a crucial one for the Church today. But to understand what the Council is asking of us, we must not only know what sacred music is in general but also how the Church has carried out this endeavor in history.
The Church inherited the psalms of the Old Testament as her basic prayer and hymn book for worship. With these sacred texts she also adopted the mode of singing that had been established during the development of the psalms: a way of articulated singing with a strong reference to a text, with or without instrumental accompaniment, which German historian Martin Hengel has called “sprechgesang” — “sung- speech."
This choice in Israel’s history signaled a concrete decision for a specific way of singing, which was a rejection of the frenzied and intoxicating music of the neighboring and threatening pagan cults. This way of singing the psalms, traditionally viewed as established by King David (cf. II Sam 6:5), disrupted only by the Babylonian exile, remained in use at the coming of Christ. Sung with respect to and during sacrifice in the Temple in Jerusalem, the early Jewish Christians assumed this tradition into the sacrifice of the eucharistic liturgy.
Sacred Music in the Early Church
After Pentecost, the first centuries of the Church’s life were marked by the encounter of what was a Jewish-Semitic reality with the Greek-Roman world. A dramatic struggle ensued between, on one hand, openness to new cultural forms and, on the other, what was irrevocably part of Christian faith.
For the first time, the Church had to preserve her sacred music, and then foster it. Although early Greek-style songs quickly became part of the Church’s life (e.g., the prologue of John and the Philippians hymn, 2:5-11), this new music was so tightly linked to dangerous gnostic beliefs that the Church decided to prohibit its use. This temporary pruning of the Church’s sacred music to the traditional form of the psalms led to previously unimaginable creativity: Gregorian chant — for the first millennium — and then, gradually, polyphony and hymns arose.
In preserving the forms that embodied her true identity, the Church made it possible for wonderful growth to be fostered, such that centuries after that original restriction, the Second Vatican Council boldly proclaimed that her treasury of sacred music is of more value than any other of her artistic contributions
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Have a blessed week!
In cordibus Iesu et Marie,
Fr. Poggemeyer