RAMBLINGS
Much, not many
Quo vadis? A few recommendations.
Yet the business of handing down the musical patrimony of the entire Latin Church rests on uneasy beams, at least in most communities in the provinces. I have already noted the top-down approach elsewhere — Rome, to the bishops and local committees, and to the laity.¹ Somewhere along the way, something gets lost in translation. Diverging emphases and limited manpower cloud a supposedly faithful reception. To err is human.
The bishop is the final arbiter of discipline in his diocese.² As its principal pastor, the task of implementing dispatches from the Apostolic See, distilled by the local bishops’ conference and its committees, rests squarely on his shoulders. This burden is so great that understandably, he cannot be expected to execute the minutiae of each decree in a timely manner. They might take several generations of bishops to be fully implemented after all. Besides, the daily administration of his diocese alone will strain him to death, sooner or later.
This is also true of priests under him. In 2023 alone, there is only one priest for every seven thousand Catholics in the country. Even in a relatively small parish, he might as well cut himself to pieces just so he can attend to every concern all at once. Just as the bishop is responsible for his clergy’s morale and his diocese’s discipline, coffers, assets and liabilities, so is the priest responsible for each and every liturgy, outreach, preaching, and the spiritual care of each soul in his parish.
Seen in this light, music and the language used at Mass pale in comparison to other practical, more urgent cares of their office. The temptation to relegate them to the background is so great not only because most of our priests might either be too busy or lack the necessary musical finesse to tinker with the liturgy, or that the vernacular largely helps in catechesis and makes it easier for people to participate more fully in the celebrations. Most importantly, bishops and priests need not fret because various national institutes and groups have been doing the necessary legwork in the care and proliferation of their brand of Filipino sacred music since the seventies.³
With the clergy’s hands full, the onus rests on parishioners who are willing to invest their time, money, and energy to keep the parish running smoothly. As I’ve said before, volunteer work is the bedrock of Catholic piety. In small communities, the ministries of altar servers, lectors, lay ministers, ushers, choir, and catechists all depend on pro bono labor. My home parish in Masbate, for example, operates like this: besides the two Sunday Masses held in the parish church, the priest and the choir have to travel to each far-flung barangay chapel to celebrate Mass there as well. They go alternately to one barangay at a time, which means some Sundays my chapel won’t even have a priest and a choir present, only an extraordinary minister of Holy Communion to distribute the Eucharist and the churchgoers to sing hymns on their own.
With such a wide area of responsibility, how can a priest realistically encourage his parishioners to participate, say, in the daily communal recitation of the Divine Office,⁴ or, regarding the topic at hand, the singing of Gregorian chant? Sound catechesis is already hard as it is. With apologies to Chesterton, the Council decrees have not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.
Practical steps
From the laity comes a fresh vigor that’s always brewing; the work of God springs first in the intimacy of the village. I myself learned the basics of the liturgy from my parents and teachers whose liturgical training is at best rudimentary. But today, for whatever reason, more and more young people around the world are rediscovering the Church’s rich treasury of melodies and texts that have been withheld from us in the last sixty years, deliberately or otherwise. What Pope St John XXIII allegedly said about opening the windows of the Church and letting in fresh air is at last coming to pass, little by little.
No less than the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music is spearheading this important work today, spurred by Pope Leo XIV’s example of chanting the Regina caeli in his first public address and several times thereafter. With Let’s Sing with the Pope, the Institute makes accessible tutorials of basic chants through social media. I was pleasantly surprised when one of their reels showed up on my Instagram feed. I think this is one instance where the Church is coming to meet us young people where we’re at. Theirs is a wonderful example of pastoral concern intersecting with the carrying out of the Council’s original intentions.
In imitating the Pope, the parish choir would be less burdened by the deluge of novel pieces and instead come to emulate the noble simplicity of Gregorian chant. They can start with the most basic ones (e.g., Pater Noster, Kyrie, or Adoro te devote) according to Iubilate Deo, singing it in at least one Sunday Mass per week for its gradual introduction to the whole parish.
The only problem, says the critic, is the language barrier. Singing songs with lyrics that are hard to understand or that which requires translation undermines the faithful’s active participation. But this sorely underestimates the power of the Filipino youth when it comes to bridging linguistic divides and assimilating new languages, especially now with the force of online technology. Hangul rap is basic to a K-Pop stan, for example. Am I to believe that I, whose mother tongue is Minasbate, am a mere spectator at Masses celebrated in Chavacano or Ibanag simply because I cannot understand the priest or say the responses in those languages? Again, this is infantilizing absurdity. It’s not like missalettes and teleprompters aren’t readily available. Worship, as I’ve come to understand it, comes in two movements: first interior, then exterior. Yet the sacrifice of the Mass is beyond the constraints of human and angelic language. All it requires of us is our full attention.
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In a country rich with more than a hundred local languages spoken by multilingual citizens, wouldn’t it be helpful if, alongside indigenous melodies, we also have a common musical reference that is impervious to individual tastes, fickle translations, and regional particularities? Set in an immutable language, Gregorian chant provides doctrinal clarity whose melody, text, and meaning can be memorized with repeated use. Indeed, this can become our sign of unity as proposed by Pope St Paul VI. What we only need is a nod from the local authorities and enough willpower to make it happen. As the saying goes, “Kung gusto, may paraan; kung ayaw, maraming dahilan.”⁵
Besides, no one here is advocating for a complete return to Latin-only celebrations. I am not saying that reverence is exclusively within the purview of the Latin language or Gregorian chant. Nor am I saying that this is merely a generational divide. The notion of reverence transcends age, gender, and culture. No doubt there are excellent vernacular hymns that proclaim the truth of what we believe.
What I’m interested in is justice. The Council envisioned a great renaissance of the Church’s musical heritage. What we received are hollow echoes of the same. The ghosts of dead hermeneutics still cling heavily in the air. Most of those who intend to keep the Church’s windows open shutter it close as soon as a whiff of spring air is detected. Whatever happened to Pope Francis’ principle todos, todos, todos?
There is a case to be made for legitimate variety. The Church, after all, cannot tolerate the ossification of this art.⁶ Instead she welcomes true development within reasonable bounds and in her generosity provides multiple options befitting the various spiritual compulsions of each of her flock. Some of us are edified with guitar-strumming, and indeed it rouses us in honest worship. Let people enjoy this. But the Christian faithful also have a right to their heritage! As part of our sacred inheritance, Gregorian chant must not be denied to us. Catholics have the right to know plainchant like it’s the back of our hands. Justice compels local authorities to eschew rigidity by giving us the option to sing the Mass with its rightful accompaniment as the Council demanded. This is true accommodation in its barest minimum.
Because singing is proper to the one who loves,⁷ it is hoped that by making plainchant known to the faithful once again, we bring to fruition the Council’s vision of the faithful consciously and actively taking part in the celebrations using the best instrumentalities the riches of the Church has to offer.
It is time to dust off the unused hymnbooks and wrest them from the chains of seminaries, archives, and museums. Let the light of day shine on them!
Sancta Caecilia et Sancte Gregori Magne, orate pro nobis!
This is the final installment of my sacred music series. Read Part 1 here.
¹ See for example Pope St Pius X’s 1903 motu proprio, Tra le sollecitudine №24, cited in Pope St John Paul II’s 2003 Chirograph №13.
² Christus Dominus, №15; Sacrosanctum concilium, №41.
³ Their works, it seems to me, have an almost obsessive bent on inculturation, eclipsing whatever the Council had to say about the primary musical accompaniment of the Roman liturgy. For a brief overview of the evolution of Filipino sacred music, see the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines’ undated report Sacred Music: Fifty Years after the Council.
⁴ Sacrosanctum concilium №100.
⁵ I’d translate this as: If there’s a will, there’s a way. If you refuse, there’s always an excuse.
⁶ Pope Benedict XVI, Address to the Pontifical Institute for Sacred Music, 13 October 2007, “[T]he ecclesiastical Authority must work to guide wisely the development of such a demanding type of music, not ‘freezing’ its treasure but by seeking to integrate the valid innovations of the present into the heritage of the past in order to achieve a synthesis worthy of the lofty mission reserved to it in divine service.”
⁷ “Cantare amantis est,” St Augustine. Sermo 336, 1 (Patrologia Latina 38, 1472).
