In a complete turnaround from every point of view I’ve ever held, I believe we should cater to the dictatorship of the young when it comes to music in the liturgy. I think we’ve been stuck in the old ways for way too long. With mass attendance dropping and the younger generation feeling disconnected from the liturgy we need to do something drastic to bring them back into the pews.
Since we’ve been stuck with folk music for 40 years, I say we give a top ten album a try for another 40 years and let’s see how it works out.
We need something hip. Something trendy. Something kids can hear in their video games and on their FM radio stations. Something that’s big over in Europe.
Oh Ok. Here I found just the thing – The Cistercian monks of the Stift Heiligenkreuz Abbey are unlikely candidates to make pop music’s Top 10 list — but they did just that, debuting at No. 9 in the United Kingdom last week.
A CD of their prayer, “Chant: Music for Paradise,” (sold as “Chant: Music for the Soul” in some countries) has been called a “must-have” by reviewers.
Cistercian Father Karl Wallner, rector of the Benedict XVI Papal University of Heiligenkreuz, attributed the CD’s overwhelming welcome to the fact that “Gregorian chant spreads harmony, peace and consolation in the depth of the soul.”
You must admit it’s a little hilarious that the hippies threw out all the great music of the church in order to “connect” with “the people.” And all we got are a lot of pretty awful folk songs. And then video games go Gregorian chant crazy and people all over the place are seeking out this wonderful sound.
But do you think the old hippies will change their minds. Ask them with mass attendance dropping and the younger generation feeling disconnected from the liturgy do we need to do something drastic to bring them back into the pews?
Don’t bet on it.
June 24, 2008 at 6:54 am
If Ethel Merman can sing disco (and she did) the hippies can worship to the top ten.
June 24, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Something tells me they’d fight Gregorian Chant more than they’d even fight communion rails.
June 24, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Well if it gets my friends to mass then I say go for it I’m tired of being one of the few teenagers in my parish that isn’t being forced to go to mass
June 24, 2008 at 8:16 pm
I wish this problem were limited to just the aging hippies. The new organist at my parish is in her mid 20s and will not play the traditional hymns (even going as far as to replace our wonderful Collegeville hymnals with Gather Comprehensive, UGH). She truly believes this drivel appeals to the youngsters, her only concern. Of course, the “youngsters” don’t put money in the collection basket and collections dropped by 1/3 after her arrival. Big suprise there.
June 24, 2008 at 9:39 pm
I think that music lifts the soul. I think that a beautiful sunset lifts the soul.
Why not have a parish, in the parking lot or community building music festival for everyone with all kinds of music. This would bring out the best and the worst. It would get people talking and thinking about music. Not in church though…poor Jesus.
I got a feeling the best is yet to come. A bird told me.
June 25, 2008 at 4:25 pm
I’m all for chant. If it will quiet a wiggly toddler so that I can actually sit through Mass and benefit from the grace of participating in it, then why not.
In my parish we’ve had a temporary organist for nearly a year because apparently there isn’t much money to hire a professional music/liturgy specialist. That’s a whole ‘nuther issue in and of itself, but I think a lot of parishes suffer the same fate: no money to hire+no will from leadership to seek quality and beauty+more of the same schmaltz while we wait on the saint (or desperate fool)who will take the position +more annoyed people in the congregation+poor catechesis=fewer folks willing to drag themselves out of bed in the morning to suffer more of the same.
Very few folks are able to sustain their faith on sheer will and Christian charity unless they are saints….I go because I fear for my soul if I don’t and for the souls of my children. Believe me when they say we are assisting in the “sacrifice of the Mass” sometimes that is all it is.
I sincerely try to have hope, but having been a Catholic all of my 44 years…I get tired sometimes.
June 26, 2008 at 12:41 am
If only the functionaries over at the US Conference of Catholic Bishops would read the postings here! Those people just don’t get it; and what’s more, they don’t care that the don’t get it. They have turned their liturgical authority over to the publishers of the “Missalette” companies; and that, dear friends, is why the quality of our Sacred Rites has declined to a lower than pedestrian level.
William Anonymous