Chant, Faith, and New Times
As the Colloquium choir sang last week from the Liber Cantualis in the Our Lady of Lourdes Chapel in the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, I wondered if this book might have been one of the books that I held some 20 years ago when the crypt of the Shrine held a weekly Mass in Latin (1:00pm). Stumbling into this liturgy so long ago—quite by accident—provided my first full encounter with the liturgy of the Catholic faith.
I did not believe the doctrine (so I told myself), and I recall feeling bad for the old priest saying Mass because I believed that he embraced an apparatus of myth and legend, but I adored the chant, which sounded to my ears like nothing on earth. I held the Liber back then, puzzled by the strange notation and offered in language I did not know, and marveled at the discipline it took to sing it, and wondered about its mysterious tones, structure, and meaning.
I returned the next week with a tape recorder in hand, putting the full liturgy on a cassette to listen to throughout the week. That hour on Sunday was such a time of beauty and holiness; it just struck me that it needed to be preserved in some form, if only for private listening. I returned the next week to do it again, and, over time, I developed a nice collection of tapes for my collection. I played them constantly. The jazz and baroque that made up my usual listening would just have to wait--wait for what I did not know.
All the while, I assured myself that I was not being converted (certainly not!) but merely consoled by beautiful music. So on it went for nearly a year but curiosity got the best of me and the reading began. The lessons began. The objections, once dogmatic and fixed, melted away. Three years later, I was a Catholic. In retrospect, it is clear that my conversion began from the first notes of chant that I heard in this space.
To be back to the same space, twenty years later, holding this little blue book in my hands, participating most fully in the liturgy and working toward making these musical treasures available and audible to all—well I was struck by the enormity of the irony and privilege. So much is owed to the CMAA for having put this program together for the ongoing preservation and renewal of this musical tradition.
I did not believe the doctrine (so I told myself), and I recall feeling bad for the old priest saying Mass because I believed that he embraced an apparatus of myth and legend, but I adored the chant, which sounded to my ears like nothing on earth. I held the Liber back then, puzzled by the strange notation and offered in language I did not know, and marveled at the discipline it took to sing it, and wondered about its mysterious tones, structure, and meaning.
I returned the next week with a tape recorder in hand, putting the full liturgy on a cassette to listen to throughout the week. That hour on Sunday was such a time of beauty and holiness; it just struck me that it needed to be preserved in some form, if only for private listening. I returned the next week to do it again, and, over time, I developed a nice collection of tapes for my collection. I played them constantly. The jazz and baroque that made up my usual listening would just have to wait--wait for what I did not know.
All the while, I assured myself that I was not being converted (certainly not!) but merely consoled by beautiful music. So on it went for nearly a year but curiosity got the best of me and the reading began. The lessons began. The objections, once dogmatic and fixed, melted away. Three years later, I was a Catholic. In retrospect, it is clear that my conversion began from the first notes of chant that I heard in this space.
To be back to the same space, twenty years later, holding this little blue book in my hands, participating most fully in the liturgy and working toward making these musical treasures available and audible to all—well I was struck by the enormity of the irony and privilege. So much is owed to the CMAA for having put this program together for the ongoing preservation and renewal of this musical tradition.
1 Comments:
Thanks, Jeff, for the beautiful conversion story! It just goes to show that the Catholic faith in all its traditional glory is fully capable of drawing people to Christ. I'm reminded of Pius XII's 1955 encyclical on sacred music, in which he says: "71. Missionaries should likewise be mindful of the fact that, from the beginning, when the Catholic Church sent preachers of the Gospel into lands not yet illumined by the light of faith, it took care to bring into those countries, along with the sacred liturgical rites, musical compositions, among which were the Gregorian melodies. It did this so that people who were to be converted might be more easily led to accept the truths of the Christian religion by the attractiveness of these melodies."
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