Tea at Trianon: Let’s Bring Back Gregorian Chant

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, February 19, 2022

Let’s Bring Back Gregorian Chant

From Dr. Esolen at Crisis:

When most Catholics hear the phrase “Gregorian chant,” they either have no recollection of it, or they think of the only chants they ever hear: the Kyrie, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei for the single Cantus Missa that appears in the hymnal and missal Worship. These are stark, exceedingly simple, quite unlike any other common chants for those prayers, and utterly inappropriate for Mass on any feast day or during the great octaves. That is because they come from the old Mass for the Dead.

You have read that correctly.

Mrs. Wilfer, in Charles Dickens’ Our Mutual Friend, casts a pall upon her family’s ordinary daily life by doing all things as if to the “Dead March” in Handel’s Saul. When she welcomes her husband home from work, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. When she serves dinner, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. When she comments upon how the children have been, it is to the “Dead March” in Saul. (Read more.)

Also from Crisis:

The parish Mass is the central spiritual activity for Catholics; it’s literally the most important thing a Catholic does each week. Yet most Catholics have to endure some form of a priest’s personal preferences at their parish’s Masses. (Ironically, celebrating ad orientem would likely decrease the priest’s temptation to insert his “private choices” into the Mass.) Masses at different parishes—and even in the same parish with multiple priests—can vary widely, and often Catholics have to search far and wide for a priest who just “says the black and does the red.” Catholics are there to worship God and they don’t want to be distracted by whatever Fr. Feelgood thinks might be fun or interesting.

Yet for decades Church leaders have ignored this reality. One of the biggest howlers in Traditionis Custodes was Pope Francis’s statement, “I am saddened by abuses in the celebration of the liturgy on all sides. In common with Benedict XVI, I deplore the fact that ‘in many places the prescriptions of the new Missal are not observed in celebration, but indeed come to be interpreted as an authorization for or even a requirement of creativity, which leads to almost unbearable distortions.’” For the average lay Catholic who has had to endure these abuses on a regular basis for decades, such concern sounds hollow indeed, considering leaders have had decades to correct these abuses and have done nothing.

And it would be one thing if prelates simply ignored the abuses—that’s bad enough. Now they seem intent on demonizing and politicizing any attempt to bring reverence to the New Mass as an “attack on Vatican II” and shutting it down. Even though Vatican II never forbid ad orientem (I’m sure the Council Fathers would have been shocked to see later bishops deem ad orientem “anti-Vatican II”) and ad orientem has been the norm for over a millennia in both East and West, it’s now seen as an attempt to go back to the “bad old days” of pre-Vatican II Catholicism. That’s not just benign neglect of the liturgy anymore; it’s an aggressive attack on Catholic tradition.

As anyone paying attention knows, the traditional Latin Mass, as well as the Ordinariate Mass, has seen a surging of interest in recent years. While there are many factors involved, surely liturgies like Fr. Jerry’s are near the top of the list. Catholics don’t want groovy 1970’s retreads forcing their personal preferences into the liturgy; they just want basic reverence. If they can’t find it at the local parish, they will find it elsewhere. To work to root out any attempt at reverence is, frankly, diabolical. Henry VIII didn’t even go as far as some of these prelates are going to rework the liturgy in their own image.

Faithful Catholics, whether they attend the traditional Latin Mass, the Ordinariate Mass, Eastern liturgies, or the New Mass, should be united in asking, even demanding, reverently-celebrated liturgies consistent with Catholic tradition. Each attack on tradition, whether it be against the whole TLM or traditional aspects of the New Mass, is an attack on the fundamentals of Catholicism. Hopefully, the contrast of outdated 1970’s influences on the liturgy and the perennial traditions of the Church will inspire a lay-led movement that will encourage priests and bishops to make reverent liturgies the norm, rather than the exception. (Read more.)

In the Anglican Church. From Tim Wyatt:

Almost everything about services at St Bartholomew the Great church is old-fashioned. Purple-robed choristers process through clouds of pungent incense. The priest, the Rev Marcus Walker, brandishes an ornate golden King James Bible above his head before reading from the 1611 text. The liturgy is a mixture of 16th-century prose and sung Latin. The medieval priory church, which sits a stone’s throw from the central London hospital of the same name, was founded in 1123.

However, the congregation watching on at a recent service were younger than most would expect; at least a quarter were under 35. They had come to observe a handful of men and women, mostly in their late twenties, be baptised into the Anglican faith. Afterwards the millennials gathered inside the stone cloisters to explain why the archaic drama of traditional worship still appealed.

Several said they relished the connection to past generations of believers through reciting the Book of Common Prayer, which English Christians have been using since 1549. Others valued the beauty and history of the choral music and Shakespearean liturgy. They were not simply “young fogeys”, they insisted. Three of the group had separately found their way to St Bartholomew’s after becoming friendly with Walker on Twitter.

For years most of those longing for revival within the church have placed their hopes in the energetic evangelical wing exemplified by megachurches such as Holy Trinity Brompton (HTB) in west London. However, the baptisms at St Bartholomew’s were part of what some regard as a similar resurgence among the young within the Church of England’s Catholic wing.

Westcott House, a traditionalist theological college in Cambridge, has welcomed a steady stream of ordinands in their twenties and thirties. The two churches in the region sending the most young ordinands were Anglo-Catholic, the Rev Anna Matthews, a local vicar and diocesan official, said. Her church has produced six candidates in the past four years.

Some millennials raised in the more informal evangelical tradition are crossing over to the older style of worship. They describe the lure of a Christianity that does not aspire to be relevant or fashionable. The Rev Fergus Butler-Gallie, a 27-year-old priest in Liverpool, said churches did not need to “pretend to be your nightclub” to appeal to the young. “It can be church and have an air of mystery.” (Read more.)