Musica Sacra: Music at Mass A Liturgical and Pastoral Challenge

INTRODUCTION

In keeping with the previous Study Days organized on the anniversary of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium (December 4, 1963), the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments decided to focus attention in 2005 on the following theme: Sacred Music: A Pastoral and Liturgical Challenge.

The choice of topic was specifically suggested by the invitation contained in the Chirograph on sacred music Mosso dal Vivo Desiderio (November 22, 2003) promulgated by the Servant of God John Paul II, on the occasion of the centenary of the Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini by Saint Pius X. Indeed, John Paul II wrote as follows:

In the light of the experience gained in recent years, the better to assure the fulfilment of the important task of regulating and promoting the sacred Liturgy, I ask the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to increase its attention, in accordance with its institutional aims, in the sector of sacred liturgical music, availing itself of the competencies of the various commissions and institutions specialized in this field as well as of the contribution of the Pontifical Institute of Sacred Music. (13)

The fact that the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium expressly dedicated ten sections (112-21) in chapter 6 to sacred music testifies to the important role that should be reserved for music and singing in the celebration of the sacred mysteries. Here is the beginning of no. 112:

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy.

Over the course of the years, the Apostolic See has not failed to provide guidelines and directions in this regard, seeking to foster, at the various levels involved, careful attention to music and singing in liturgical actions. The Congregation, for its part, has sought to promote interest in sacred music in various nations while giving a kind of account of its efforts in the pages of its review Notitiae. A listing of the various interventions that it has made can be found in the July-August 2005 issue of Notitiae, which is entirely dedicated—including the editorial—to music for the liturgy.

Within this frame of reference, in which principles are accompanied by concrete experience, the Study Day organized by the Congregation took place on December 5, 2005, in the New Synod Hall [Aula nuova del Sinodo] at the Vatican; this volume is a collection of the papers presented on that occasion.

The speeches by renowned scholars from various countries and the testimonies of firsthand experience in this matter helped the large number of participants to become aware of what is at stake: the heritage received from the tradition of the Church, the questions presented by different cultures, the task that lies ahead on various fronts.

Starting with the reading of the Letter from the Holy Father Benedict XVI, the Study Day combined papers given by the speakers with comments from those in attendance; the audience listened also to liturgical music performed by the choir of the Diocese of Rome, directed by Maestro Marco Frisina, and to the hymn of the National Eucharistic Congress of Bari.

The Congregation cordially thanks the speakers and the many participants who came together to share their knowledge and experience in order to help make more fruitful the ministerial role of music and song in the ecclesial celebration of the mysteries of Christ.

+ FRANCIS CARDINAL ARINZE

LETTER

OF POPE BENEDICT XVI

To my Venerable Brother

CARDINAL FRANCIS ARINZE

Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship

and the Discipline of the Sacraments

I learned with deep pleasure that the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments has promoted a Study Day on sacred music that will take place at the Vatican on 5 December. I am therefore glad to express my spiritual closeness to you, Your Eminence, to your collaborators in this Dicastery and to the distinguished spokespersons and all of the participants, as I assure you of my special remembrance in prayer that this appropriate initiative will have the desired pastoral results.

The intention of this Meeting is to comply with the wishes of the Venerable Pope John Paul II, who asked this Dicastery, in the Chirograph he published on the occasion of the centenary of the Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini, to increase its attention to the sector of sacred music in the liturgy.

In making my beloved Predecessor’s request my own, I would like to encourage lovers of sacred music to continue along these lines.

It is important to stimulate reflection and comparison on the relationship between music and the liturgy, as the present Symposium also intends to do, constantly keeping an eye on procedures and experimentation in agreement and collaboration with the Bishops’ Conferences of the various nations.

I warmly hope you will have a profitable day of reflection and listening, and as I invoke the heavenly intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St Cecilia, I very gladly impart to you, Your Eminence, and to all who will be taking part in the Congress, the implored Apostolic Blessing.

From the Vatican, 1 December 2005

BENEDICTUS PP. XVI

SING TO THE LORD

His Eminence CARDINAL FRANCIS ARINZE*

Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship

and the Discipline of the Sacraments

     It is good to sing praises to our God;

     for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly.

—Psalm 147:1

The Second Vatican Council, which dedicated an entire chapter of Sacrosanctum Concilium to sacred music, begins by underscoring its value:

The musical tradition of the universal Church is a treasure of inestimable value, greater even than that of any other art. The main reason for this pre-eminence is that, as sacred song united to the words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn liturgy. (112)

From the great, historically important document Tra le Sollecitudini by Saint Pius X, dated November 22, 1903, to the Second Vatican Council and, most recently, to the Chirograph by the Servant of God Pope John Paul II, dated November 22, 2003, the Magisterium of the Church has recognized the great importance of the role of sacred music in the sacred liturgy. Sacred music should help to promote more active and intense participation in the liturgical celebration; it must be in keeping with the greatness of the liturgical act, which celebrates the mysteries of Christ; it must be characterized by a sense of prayer, beauty and dignity. In no way should it give way to frivolity, superficiality or theatricality.

In the Chirograph just cited, Pope John Paul II, the better to assure the fulfilment of the important task of regulating and promoting the sacred Liturgy, asks the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to increase its attention, in accordance with its institutional aims, in the sector of sacred liturgical music (no. 13).

This is why our Congregation is taking a step in this direction and today is inviting musicologists, choir directors, monks, liturgists and choirs to share with this qualified assembly some of the fruits of their rich experience.

The Congregation cordially thanks the speakers, the singers, all those who have made this day possible and all you who have accepted our invitation.

     Sing to the LORD a new song,

     Sing to the LORD all the earth!

               —Psalm 96:1

+ FRANCIS CARDINAL ARINZE

MUSIC FOR THE LITURGY:

OBSERVATIONS FOR A

FRAME OF REFERENCE

GIORDANO MONZIO COMPAGNONI*

On December 4, 1963, Pope Paul VI, in his allocution at the closing of the second session of the Council, made himself the spokesman for the joy of the whole Church over the approval of the Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium—which is commemorated by the present Study Day—as a result of a long path of renewal begun more than a half century before.

In that act the Pontiff not only rightly acknowledged the priority of the liturgy as an expression of the primacy of God and of prayer but, most importantly, declared its preeminence in training the people of God in the faith, for the unity of the Church and for the evangelization of the modern world.¹ These were the objectives that the revision of the rites was meant to promote; but even before that—given that operari sequitur esse² [doing follows being]—the Council had resolved to restore the authentic face of the liturgy:

Although we are now simplifying somewhat the expressions of our worship and are trying to make it more comprehensible to the faithful and more in keeping with contemporary language, we certainly do not want to diminish the importance of prayer, nor to make it secondary to other concerns of the sacred ministry or pastoral work, nor to deprive it of its expressive force and its artistic charm; rather, we wish to make it more pure, more genuine, closer to its sources of truth and grace, and better suited to become the spiritual heritage of the people.³

To achieve the restoration, progress, and adaptation of the sacred liturgy, the Council had therefore noted that warm and living love for scripture is essential,⁴ while for the purposes of reforming and revising the rites it pointed out that the original tradition of the Church Fathers should serve as a guide and a normative criterion—pristina sanctorum Patrum norma⁵—for understanding and interpreting the liturgy,⁶ a criterion that we find applied precisely as early as paragraph 7 of the Constitution⁷ concerning the various forms of Christ’s presence in the liturgical actions.⁸

The methodology in question was hardly innovative: the Fathers of the Council of Trent had already declared that they did not intend to declare anything new but rather to enunciate the doctrine contained in the Gospels as it was understood by the Church Fathers,⁹ underscoring in that way the agreement between the biblical and the patristic data, which studies today are increasingly bringing to light.

Difficulties were encountered in composing chapter 6 of Sacrosanctum Concilium,¹⁰ however, and so it was not possible to follow this approach explicitly in treating sacred music: on the one hand, it was recognized as an authentic heritage of the Church, the preservation and cultivation of which the Council intended to promote;¹¹ on the other hand, following the lead of Pius X, the Council introduced the hermeneutic principle that made sacred music a necessary and integral part of the liturgy, to which was entrusted a ministeriale munus in dominico servitio [ministerial function in the service of the Lord].¹²

In recent decades scholarly research seems to have focused on the how of sacred music: forms, functions, repertoire, praxis. A golden thread, however, seems to run through the more recent magisterial teaching of the last century:¹³ the theme of the ontological relation between sacred music and liturgy.

The Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini by Pius X (1903),¹⁴ which had foundational and altogether normative intentions on the subject of sacred music, was in fact based on a concept of true art as participation in a fundamental idea, and above all in God as the principle and cause of beauty: the true work of art is the suitable and effective manifestation of all this. When true art is placed at the service of worship and dedicates to God that which is most excellent and worthy of him, sacred art is born. In this sense it—unlike profane art—enjoys a ministerial status, because it is not merely ars gratia artis [art for art’s sake] but rather art that is shaped and enlivened by its character as an oblation and by its liturgical purpose.

To the pope’s way of thinking, singing and sacred music were the paradigm for all the arts: not only were they at the service of the liturgy, but they constituted an integral (Latin: necessaria) part of it; that is, they were ontologically connected with it. Therefore, they shared its ends—the glorification of God and the sanctification of the faithful—and its notae or characteristics: holiness and goodness of its forms (i.e., the congruence between those ends and its expressive qualities and modalities) and universality (i.e., legitimate diversity must be rooted within a koiné, or common standard language).

This outline would be the obligatory point of reference for all successive magisterial interventions until Vatican II and beyond, which in fact did not always reproduce the lofty ideals and sublime rhetoric of their source: the Apostolic Constitution Divini Cultus promulgated by Pius XI in 1928 on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Motu Proprio of Pius X;¹⁵ the Encyclical by Pius XII Musicae Sacrae Disciplina (1955), published to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Motu Proprio and the beatification of its author, which had taken place the previous year;¹⁶ and then, in 1958, the Instruction De Musica Sacra et Sacra Liturgia.¹⁷

A few years later the above-mentioned conciliar Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium—anxious that the faithful should go from being attentive spectators to active, conscious and devout participation per ritus et preces [through the rites and prayers] (no. 48)—would be a real cornerstone as far as liturgical music and song are concerned as well, especially their sacramental dimension. Starting from altiora principia teologica [higher theological principles], the reflection touched on a number of levels and aspects (some of which were then repeated by the Instruction Musicam Sacram),¹⁸ which a quick overview can only enumerate, thus bringing to light their depth and complexity:

a. the general aesthetic level of the relation between the liberal arts, understood as mimesis of God the Creator, and divine beauty, and also the ministerium [ministerial function] and cultic purpose of works of art, including music (nos. 122, 127);

b. the Christological level, which considers Christ as the real singer of the hymn of praise to the Father; he who through his Incarnation not only introduced on earth the hymn of praise that is offered in heaven but, most importantly, associates with him in this song the Church, which in this way becomes a continuation of him (nos. 83-84) and is called to preserve and enrich that hymn. Therefore within the Church that prays and sings, Christ is present (no. 7);

c. the ecclesiological level, which sees in liturgical celebrations—of which song and music are a necessary and integral part (no. 112)—a manifestation of the entire ecclesial body (no. 26) and in their ritual aspect (including song) the expression of the faith of the people of God (no. 59) and of the prayer of the Church (no. 112);

d. the liturgical level, which considers the ritual dimension not only as an introduction to an understanding of the mystery of faith—per ritus et preces id bene intellegentes—but above all as a form of mediation that makes the faithful participants in the sacred action, establishing an ontological relation between the two (no. 48), the salvific efficacy of which unfolds by means of the ritual form (although not exclusively in that way) (no. 49); for this