Plane chant
I boarded a flight to Houston yesterday, thinking I would arrive in a painless two hours, happy to be headed to the Cardinal Newman School to participate in a course introducing music directors and others the Ward Method of music instruction. High hopes were soon dashed by long lines at security checkpoints, extreme heat, an overly crowded plane and the flight attendant's finally telling me that there was no room for my bag in the overhead bins; I would have to turn it over to her so she could check it in. What could I do but offer up my bag and the greater part of my disgruntlement. In the last few seconds before bag was whisked away I was able to reach in and retrieve my laptop and my Gregorian Missal.
The plane finally took to the air, and after the seatbelt sign was turned off, I began to look around for things to do. I had already taken a couple of minutes to thumb through the magazine in the pocket in front of me, and was disappointed to have seen that the only classical offerings on the in flight menu were Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and something else just as forgettable. The young girl next to me, who had also managed to hang on to her laptop, was deeply involved in a beauty and shopping game of a virtual variety. Fascinating as it was, it didn’t hold my interest long. My pretzels were gone, and so was my plastic glass of water. What next? I had left my copy of Ratzinger's God and the World at home in order to save space and travel with a carry on only.
Then I remembered my Gregorian Missal.
I opened my well worn volume to the propers for Sunday next. Mode VII. This Communio should be a snap. Sitting near the back of the aircraft with engines roaring turned out to be the ideal place to sing. No one noticed. No one flinched. I was not heard.
Before long I had been swept into the beauty and mystery of the chant. Ten, or twenty minutes, or perhaps an hour had gone by, and I had sung through the all of the propers for that day, had returned to old favorites, and had even sung through some of the Credos to see which might be most viable in a small parish setting. One can open a book like this and become engaged and involved in each and every page, with no clear sense of starting or stopping; with no perceived need, in fact, to be saddled in any way to the time and constraints of our daily lives. Chant is prayer.
The captain’s voice startled me when he came on to announce the beginning of our descent into Houston. I raised my eyes from the book and became conscious for the first time of my right hand as it wound its way through the air around me, all in perfect imitation of the lines I had been singing. I looked out of the window and saw houses and streets below, and felt a sense of a reawakening to the physical world.
What had begun as an attempt at filling my time in a moment of inconvenience had become an occasion of Grace: one of the many offered us in our lives as Catholics and more specifically, in our lives as Catholic musicians.
The plane finally took to the air, and after the seatbelt sign was turned off, I began to look around for things to do. I had already taken a couple of minutes to thumb through the magazine in the pocket in front of me, and was disappointed to have seen that the only classical offerings on the in flight menu were Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and something else just as forgettable. The young girl next to me, who had also managed to hang on to her laptop, was deeply involved in a beauty and shopping game of a virtual variety. Fascinating as it was, it didn’t hold my interest long. My pretzels were gone, and so was my plastic glass of water. What next? I had left my copy of Ratzinger's God and the World at home in order to save space and travel with a carry on only.
Then I remembered my Gregorian Missal.
I opened my well worn volume to the propers for Sunday next. Mode VII. This Communio should be a snap. Sitting near the back of the aircraft with engines roaring turned out to be the ideal place to sing. No one noticed. No one flinched. I was not heard.
Before long I had been swept into the beauty and mystery of the chant. Ten, or twenty minutes, or perhaps an hour had gone by, and I had sung through the all of the propers for that day, had returned to old favorites, and had even sung through some of the Credos to see which might be most viable in a small parish setting. One can open a book like this and become engaged and involved in each and every page, with no clear sense of starting or stopping; with no perceived need, in fact, to be saddled in any way to the time and constraints of our daily lives. Chant is prayer.
The captain’s voice startled me when he came on to announce the beginning of our descent into Houston. I raised my eyes from the book and became conscious for the first time of my right hand as it wound its way through the air around me, all in perfect imitation of the lines I had been singing. I looked out of the window and saw houses and streets below, and felt a sense of a reawakening to the physical world.
What had begun as an attempt at filling my time in a moment of inconvenience had become an occasion of Grace: one of the many offered us in our lives as Catholics and more specifically, in our lives as Catholic musicians.
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