By DON FIER
As we began our consideration of “how the liturgy is celebrated” last week, we first saw that its expression “is interwoven with signs and symbols whose meaning is rooted in creation and in human culture” (Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 236).
Furthermore, we observed that it is also determined by Old Testament events that prefigure what was fully revealed in the Person and works of Christ. In other words, the sacramental signs that are integral to the liturgy find their foundation in created things (e.g., candles, fire, water, bread, wine), human social life (e.g., washing, anointing, breaking of bread), and elements of Old Testament salvation history (e.g., sacrificial offerings, the rites of Passover).
The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) beautifully articulates the end toward which the sacred signs and symbols of liturgical celebrations tend: “Integrated into the world of faith and taken up by the power of the Holy Spirit, these cosmic elements, human rituals, and gestures of remembrance of God become bearers of the saving and sanctifying action of Christ” (n. 1189). They are, for the faithful, an anticipation of the life of Heaven.
Just as signs and symbols are essential to the liturgy, so are the words and actions that accompany them. They not only reveal the wonders of God and provide instruction, but nourish the faith of believers. The Vatican II fathers stressed the prominence which the Liturgy of the Word should have in liturgical celebrations in the following statement:
“The Church has always venerated the divine Scriptures just as she venerates the body of the Lord, since, especially in the sacred liturgy, she unceasingly receives and offers to the faithful the bread of life from the table both of God’s word and of Christ’s body” (Dei Verbum, n. 21). Similarly, Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC) aims to establish an “intimate connection between words and rites” (n. 35), for familiarity with God’s inspired word cannot help but contribute greatly to liturgical participation.
The Catechism now turns its attention to the preeminent place that is reserved for music and singing in liturgical celebrations. Their importance is so great that the council fathers unreservedly assert: “The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art….As sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy” (SC, n. 112; as cited in CCC, n. 1156).
What are the historic roots of sacred music? Both vocal and instrumental music in the worship of God reaches back to the Old Covenant. According to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his superb work entitled The Spirit of the Liturgy, the significance of music in biblical religion is aptly demonstrated in that the verb “to sing” (and its closely related derivatives) is one of the most common in all of Sacred Scripture: “It occurs 309 times in the Old Testament and thirty-six times in the New” (p. 136).
“We find the first mention of singing in the Bible,” says Benedict, “after the crossing of the Red Sea.” Delivered from slavery and having overwhelmingly experienced God’s saving power, the Israelites “believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31).
Their spontaneous reaction soared up to the heavens with elemental force: “Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord, saying, ‘I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him’” (Exodus 15:1-2).
Mere speech was insufficient to express their exaltation and praise. Even to this day, it is a song that Christians repeat each year in celebrating the Easter Vigil.
The importance of sacred music in divine worship grew under the kingship of David. Recall how he led the members of the house of Israel in dancing before the Ark of Covenant and worshipping God, “making merry before the Lord with all their might, with songs and lyres and harps and tambourines and castanets and cymbals” (2 Samuel 6:5).
Likewise, as principal author of the Book of Psalms, it was most likely David who composed the delightful words of Psalm 150: “Praise [the Lord] with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp! Praise him with timbrel and dance; praise him with strings and pipe! Praise him with sounding cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals! Let everything that breathes praise the Lord!” (Psalm 150:3-6).
“The Psalms remain for all time the great school of prayer,” says Christoph Cardinal Schönborn, “and the important thing about them is that they are songs in which prayer finds its expression” (Living the Catechism of the Catholic Church: The Sacraments, p. 34). Within the Psalms can be found all the forms of prayer-in-song that take shape “in the liturgy of the Temple and in the human heart” (CCC, n. 2588). Therein, to name but a few, are found prayers and hymns of thanksgiving and petition, praise and sorrow, songs of pilgrimage and meditations on the great works of God.
What about the New Testament? According to St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus Himself sang a hymn with His apostles after the Last Supper: “And when they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matt. 26:30). At a later time, St. Paul exhorted early Christians to “be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart” (Eph. 5:18-19).
The Apostle to the Gentiles similarly urged the Colossians to “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16). In a heavenly vision, St. John saw “those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb” (Rev. 15:2-3).
Three Qualities
What are the characteristics of sacred music? In 1903, Pope St. Pius X issued a motu proprio on sacred music entitled Tra le Sollecitudini (TrS) with the goal of renewing sacred music to its proper function in worship. His Holiness identified three qualities that are incumbent upon sacred music: “sanctity and goodness of form, which will spontaneously produce the final quality of universality” (n. 2 § 1). These were reinforced by Pope St. John Paul II in a 2003 chirograph he promulgated on the centenary of Pius X’s motu proprio.
In a 2006 monograph prepared by members of the Church Music Association of American (CMAA) entitled Frequently Asked Questions on Sacred Music (see www.musicasacra.org), each quality is addressed.
Concerning sanctity, or holiness, “For music to be sacred means it is not the ordinary, not the everyday. It is set aside for the purpose of glorifying God and edifying and sanctifying all the faithful.”
As taught by Pope Benedict XVI in his 2007 apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis: “Generic improvisation or the introduction of musical genres which fail to respect the meaning of the liturgy should be avoided” (n. 42).
Goodness of form, or beauty, explains the CMAA, “refers to the tendency of sacred music to synthesize diverse ritual elements into a unity, to draw together a succession of liturgical actions into a coherent whole, and to serve a range of sacred expressions.” According to Pope Pius X, sacred music “must be true art” (TrS, n. 2 § 3).
With regard to universality, “sacred music is supra national, equally accessible to people of diverse cultures,” states the CMAA.
While acknowledging that “every nation is permitted to admit into its ecclesiastical compositions those special forms which may be said to constitute its native music,” Pope Pius X further explains, “these forms must be subordinated in such a manner to the general characteristics of sacred music that nobody of any nation may receive an impression other than good on hearing them” (TrS, n. 2 § 4).
Among musical expressions that best respond to these essential qualities, the council fathers recognized Gregorian Chant “as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services” (SC, n. 116). However, they also stated that “other kinds of sacred music, especially polyphony, are by no means excluded from liturgical celebrations, so long as they accord with the spirit of the liturgical action.”
In closing, let us reflect on the profound effect that liturgical music had on St. Augustine: “How greatly did I weep in Thy hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of Thy sweet-speaking Church! The voices flowed into mine ears, and the truth was poured forth into my heart, whence the agitation of my piety overflowed, and my tears ran over, and blessed was I therein” (Confessions, book 9, chapter 6, n. 14; as cited in CCC, n. 1157).
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(Don Fier serves on the board of directors for The Catholic Servant, a Minneapolis-based monthly publication. He and his wife are the parents of seven children. Fier is a 2009 graduate of Ave Maria University’s Institute for Pastoral Theology. He is doing research for writing a definitive biography of Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ.)
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