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Dear Friend of Sacred Music,

The first Sunday of Advent is soon upon us. For most of Church history, people at morning Mass would hear a glorious Gregorian melody sung to the text of the Introit from the choir's book, the Graduale. The words of the first chant of the new liturgical year convey the meaning and capture the purpose of all sacred music:

Ad te levavi animam meam.
To thee have I lifted up my soul.

If you are like most Catholics in this country, you will not hear this melody on Advent. Nor will a bright of "Puer natus est" greet you on Christmas morning. Nor will a plaintive "Invocabit me" mark the first Sunday of Lent. For many people, not even the most basic chants, such as seasonal Marian antiphons, are heard in their local parishes.

It is no secret that Catholic music is not what it should or could be, so I'll not continue with a litany of loss. What we need now is a clear path forward. More precisely, we need to walk the path that the Church has laid before us. Our generation must continue the restoration of sacred song.

Indeed, the Church has urged our parishes to adopt Gregorian chant and polyphony because the chant is an integral part of Mass. Pope Benedict XVI has said that even new music for the Church should share in the lineage of chant. Cardinal Arinze, head of the Congregation of Divine Worship, has called for a full Latin Mass with chant every week in all but the smallest parishes.

But how do we get from here to there? Musicians need training, singers need resources, priests need education, the Bishops who are working for change need support, and the faithful need to experience sacred music so they can come to love it and sing it with the angels and saints.

As a means toward that end, I like to ask you to join and generously support the Church Music Association of America. The CMAA is a nonprofit organization uniquely positioned to make a difference: through our journal Sacred Music, through colloquia and workshops around the country, through distribution of music and educational resources, and through expertise that we can share with musicians around the country and the world. We've put together an ambitious plan to make this a reality in our parishes and in our lifetimes.

We have already seen results. People around the world are using the CMAA's authoritative editions of Gregorian chant, via our website (musicasacra.com). We've published some of the most scholarly--and practical--writings on sacred music to appear in many years. Our summer colloquium, the most well attended in years, has produced fruit in parish after parish around the country.

The activities of the CMAA have been written up in Catholic World Report, The Wanderer, and Catholic World News, as well as many secular venues that are taking notice of the change in the air. Journalist Amy Welborn credits the CMAA for sparking a revival of sacred music that it impossible to miss.

When the US Bishops' subcommittee on music and the liturgy met in the Fall of 2006 to draft a new document on music, the CMAA was there to present a perspective that reflected the true intent of the Second Vatican Council, which called for Latin chant to be given primacy of place in the liturgy.

Our journal Sacred Music is the oldest continually published journal of music in the United States. A new generation of writers, composers, conductors, and editors have infused its pages with an impassioned zeal for beauty and truth. Circulation is rising rapidly. It is now a 60-page quarterly and has been warmly received in parishes around the country.

The CMAA is not a new organization. It was founded in 1964 in the closing days of the Second Vatican Council, as the coming together of the St. Cecilia and St. Gregory Societies. It quickly gained an affiliation with the Consociatio Internationalis Musicae Sacrae in Rome, founded by Paul VI to protect and propagate sacred music after the Council.

In a real way, the CMAA was made Rome's voice on matters of music in the United States. Our journal made the case for continuity with our sacred musical heritage. The CMAA helped publish the Liber Cantualis and the Adoremus Hymnal--two collections that have done so much to restore a sense of dignity and solemnity to modern worship.

Thanks to the efforts of its presidents, officers, members, and benefactors, the CMAA worked quietly and behind the scenes from the late 1960s onward. But music publishers began to promote styles and approaches that reflected popular and secular trends, rather than the true wishes Council. Even in the midst of upheaval, the CMAA maintained its high standards and ideals, and prepared for the future that is now upon us.

Times have changed again. Rome is becoming more explicit in its demands, and many US Bishops are prepared to help. A generation of new priests is determined not to repeat the mistakes of the 1970s. Many young people today are learning chant and Latin, and they want to help bring them back. New scholas are being founded all over the country, and they are singing at Mass. Diocesan Catholic newspapers are noting the change, and running more stories about exciting developments in sacred music.

The CMAA today is helping to make the difference. The restoration of the music of the Church requires a large investment of time and energy. But it is worth our every effort.

As John Paul II said in his St. Cecilia Day message, Gregorian chant and choral music based on it has "a special place" because it "corresponds best with the qualities demanded by the notion of sacred music, especially liturgical music."

Pope Benedict XVI, too, has been a magnificent defender of sacred music, speaking on the subject in many formal and informal talks. He has given a much-welcome tribute to the organ, which he said "gives resonance to the fullness of human sentiments, from joy to sadness, from praise to lamentation. By transcending the merely human sphere, as all music of quality does, it evokes the divine."

It is for this reason that the annual CMAA Colloquium on Sacred Music features organ at Mass and in recitals. This coming year, we will introduce new tutorials for organ as well, along with the best training in Gregorian chant and polyphony available. This conference alone--we have reserved enough space this year for 125-plus attendees--can transform Catholic music in America.

Now, let me let share with you a striking truth: the CMAA has no paid staff. Not even the outstanding contributors to Sacred Music are compensated. Maybe that can change someday, but, for now, anyone who does anything for the organization directly is contributing time and talent purely out of love for beautiful liturgy.

There are nonetheless expenses, and they are mounting by the day. There are website costs, printing costs, typesetting costs, promotional costs, travel costs, and so much more. It is gratifying work but it is also rather alarming to do what we do on such an extremely thin budget.

This system works for now, but I look forward to the day when the CMAA can be more financially stable and thus expand dramatically our workshops, publications, and educational efforts.

Thus do we need your help.

Please keep your membership in the CMAA up to date, or, if you are not a member, join today. Musicasacra.com uses paypal to make joining and contributing easy. Or you can write the address below.

How much should you give? Year-end gifts of $50, $100, $200, and $300 are very much welcome. If you can give more--$500, $1000, or $5,000—please do, and know of our deep gratitude.

Also, please consider giving a gift subscriptions to Sacred Music to every Church musician you know. We also provide an option for a full parish membership for $150.

We do not have the resources to undertake expensive mailings with color brochures, much less hire writers to make just the right pitch. We have to rely on you to forward this note to other friends of sacred music. You know people who understand how critical this issue is. Help us to get to know them too.

Finally, I would like to ask you to say a prayer of thanks for those who have led this cause through difficult times, and pray for the future success of the CMAA and the restoration of the sacred in the liturgy and of excellence in its music.

Sacred music is a cause that affects all our lives as Catholics. It should be beautiful, holy, and universal, like the faith itself. The quality of our liturgy is also linked with the quality of our prayer. A revival in the Catholic Church will also have an impact on our culture. It will encourage conversions. It will help rebuild the practice of our faith after so many years of wandering.

Perhaps not this year, but maybe next or the next and then forever after, we can all be greeted on the morning of Advent to a rebirth of music that causes us to lift our souls to the Lord our God. A renaissance awaits. Please help make it possible.

Sincerely


William Mahrt
President


P.S. Can you please forward this letter to others who might help? Write if you have questions or comments.

Excerpt from Keynote Address
Gateway Liturgical Conference
St Louis, Missouri
November 11, 2006
by Francis Cardinal Arinze, Prefect for the Congregation of Divine Worship

4. Gregorian Chant

"Liturgical action is given a more noble form when sacred rites are solemnized in song" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 113). There is an ancient saying: bis orat qui bene cantat, that is, "the person who sings well prays twice". This is so because the intensity that prayer acquires from being sung, increases its ardor and multiplies its efficacy (cf Paul VI: Address to Italian Schola Cantorum on 25 Sept, 1977, in Notitiae 136 (Nov 1977) p. 475).

Good music helps to promote prayer, to raise the minds of people to God and to give people a taste of the goodness of God.

In the Latin Rite what has come to be known as the Gregorian Chant has been traditional. A distinctive liturgical chant existed indeed in Rome before Saint Gregory the Great (+ 604). But it was this great Pontiff who gave it the greatest prominence. After Saint Gregory this tradition of chant continued to develop and be enriched until the upheavals that brought an end to the Middle Ages. The monasteries, especially those of the Benedictine Order, have done much to preserve this heritage.

Gregorian Chant is marked by a moving meditative cadence. It touches the depths of the soul. It shows joy, sorrow, repentance, petition, hope, praise or thanksgiving, as the particular feast, part of the Mass or other prayer may indicate. It makes the Psalms come alive. It has a universal appeal which makes it suitable for all cultures and peoples. It is appreciated in Rome, Solesmes, Lagos, Toronto and Caracas. Cathedrals, monasteries, seminaries, sanctuaries, pilgrimage centers and traditional parishes resound with it.

Saint Pope Pius X extolled the Gregorian chant in 1904 (Tra le Sollecitudini, 3). The Second Vatican Council praised it in 1963: "The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as proper to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116). The Servant of God, Pope John Paul II, repeated this praise in 2003 (cf Chirograph for Centenary of Tra Le Sollecitudini; 4-7; in Cong. for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments: Spiritus et Sponsa, 2003, p. 130). Pope Benedict XVI encouraged the International Association of Pueri Cantores when they met in Rome at the end of 2005. They give a privileged place to the Gregorian chant. In Rome and throughout the world the Church is blessed with many fine choirs, both professional and amateur, that render the chant beautifully, and communicate their enthusiasm for it.

It is not true that the lay faithful do not want to sing the Gregorian chant. What they are asking for are priests and monks and nuns who will share this treasure with them. The CDs produced by the Benedictine monks of Silos, their mother house at Solesmes, and numerous other communities sell among young people. Monasteries are visited by people who want to sing Lauds and especially Vespers. In an ordination ceremony of eleven priests which I celebrated in Nigeria last July, about 150 priests sang the First Eucharistic Prayer in Latin. It was beautiful. The people, although no Latin scholars, loved it. It should be just normal that parish churches where there are four or five Masses on Sunday should have one of these Masses sung in Latin.

5. Did Vatican II discourage Latin?

Some people think, or have the perception, that the Second Vatican Council discouraged the use of Latin in the liturgy. This is not the case.

Just before he opened the Council, Blessed Pope John Paul XXIII in 1962 issued an Apostolic Constitution, to insist on the use of Latin in the Church. The Second Vatican Council, although it admitted some introduction of the vernacular, insisted on the place of Latin: "Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 36). The Council also required that seminarians "should acquire a command of Latin which will enable them to understand and use the source material of so many sciences and the documents of the Church as well" (Optatam Totius, 13). The Code of Canon Law published in 1983 enacts that "the eucharistic celebration: is to be carried out either in the Latin language or in another language, provided the liturgical texts have been lawfully approved" (Canon 928).

Those, therefore, who want to give the impression that the Church has put Latin away from her liturgy are mistaken. A manifestation of people's acceptance of Latin liturgy well celebrated was had at world level in April, 2005, when millions followed the burial rites of Pope John Paul II and then, two weeks later, the inauguration Mass of Pope Benedict XVI over the television....

8. What is expected of us?

As we seek to conclude these reflections, we can ask ourselves what is expected of us.

We should do our best to appreciate the language which the Church uses in her liturgy and to join our hearts and voices to them, according as each liturgical rite may indicate. All of us cannot be Latin speakers, but the lay faithful can at least learn the simpler responses in Latin. Priests should give more attention to Latin so that they celebrate Mass in Latin occasionally. In big churches where there are many Masses celebrated on a Sunday or Feast day, why can one of those Masses not be in Latin? In rural parishes a Latin Mass should be possible, say once a month. In international assemblies, Latin becomes even more urgent. It follows that seminaries should discharge carefully their role of preparing and forming priests also in the use of Latin (cf October 2005 Synod of Bishops, Prop. 36).

All those responsible for vernacular translations should strive to provide the very best, following the guidance of relevant Church documents, especially Liturgiam Authenticam. Experience shows that it is not superfluous to remark that priests, deacons and all others who proclaim liturgical texts, should read them out with clarity and due reverence.

Language is not everything. But it is one of most important elements that need attention for good and faith-filled liturgical celebrations.

It is an honor for us to be allowed to become part of the voice of the Church in her public prayer. May the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Word made flesh whose mysteries we celebrate in the sacred liturgy, obtain for all of us the grace to do our part to join in singing the praises of the Lord both in Latin and in the vernacular.

For those of you who knew her, Lois Kane passed away on Tuesday, November 21, 2006. Her funeral is set for Saturday in Northern Virginia. She was evidently in a nursing home after suffering a fall, was recovering, and was suddenly called home. She was a CMAA member who regularly attended the Colloquium, and a great lady who will be missed. Please pray for the repose of her soul.

Here is the magnificent Christus Vincit chant for the Feast of Christ the King.

Antiphonale 1912

Vesperale 1913

(If you appreciate the dedication, work, and expense it requires to put these and other treasures online, please consider a year-end donation to the CMAA)

Presenting: "Frequently Asked Questions on Sacred Music"

In the coming months, this will be widely distributed in several formats.

Newly online from Sacred Music (Fall 2000): "The Question of a Choral Sanctus" by Duane Galles.

The Department of Sacred Music at Ave Maria University (Naples, Florida) is hosting Father Samuel Weber, OSB, as guest lecturer and sacred music clinician. Fr. Samuel, a Benedictine monk of Saint Meinrad Archabbey, is currently Associate Professor of Early Christianity and Spiritual Formation at Wake Forest University Divinity School in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He is also on the summer faculty of The Liturgical Institute, located at the University of Saint Mary of the Lake, Mundelein, Illinois.

In answer to the call of Vatican Council II to sing the Mass and to provide new music in English, Fr. Samuel has been working on a number of projects. He has been commissioned by parishes and religious communities throughout the United States to compose simple settings of the Proper chants of the Mass—Entrance Antiphon, Responsorial Psalm, Alleluia, Offertory Antiphon, and Communion Antiphon—and of music for the Liturgy of the Hours. In addition, Fr. Samuel has set the celebrant’s chants for Mass, with congregational responses, to the proposed new English version of the Roman Missal.

SCHEDULE

Wednesday, November 8th
4:30pm: Public Lecture, “Sacred Signs and Religious Formation: An Application of the Teachings of Romano Guardini.”

Thursday, November 9th
7:50am: Novus ordo Latin Mass (Feast of the Lateran Basilica). Celebrants: Fr Joseph Fessio, SJ; Fr Samuel Weber, OSB; Fr Matthew Lamb. Gregorian Introit, Offertory, Communion chanted by Men's Schola Gregoriana and Women's Schola Gregoriana; Bruckner's Locus iste sung by the AMU Chamber Choir. Gregorian Ordinary sung by scholae, choir, and congregation.

7:00-9:00pm: Fr Samuel will conduct a Gregorian chant workshop with the Men's Schola Gregoriana and Women's Schola Gregoriana.

Saturday, November 11th
9:00am: Mass (Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours). Celebrants: Fr Matthew Lamb, Fr Samuel Weber, OSB. The Ave Maria Boys' Choir will sing English Proper chants by Fr Samuel.

After Mass, coffee and doughnuts will be available to workshop participants.

10:30am-12:30pm: Liturgical Music Workshop. "New Resources for Singing the Mass in English" Fr Samuel will work with participants on his simple, chant-based Proper chants in English.

Sunday, November 12th
10:00am: Novus ordo Latin Mass, Main celebrant Fr Samuel Weber, OSB. Gregorian Introit, Offertory, Communion chanted by Men's Schola Gregoriana and Women's Schola Gregoriana; Gregorian Ordinary sung by scholae, choir, and congregation. Polyphony sung by AMU Choir

Admission to all events is free. For further information, please contact Dr. Susan Treacy at 239.280.1668 or susan.treacy@avemaria.edu

The CMAA is pleased to announce a major milestone in the Communio Project: the communion chants for Sundays and holy days are now completed and ready for instant download and printing.

Thank you for all your notes of thanks for these editions. Some have noted the paradox of using 21th century means to disseminate and promote timeless music that dates from the first millennium of Christianity.

We can't but think of the exuberance of Dom Andre Mocquereau at the production of the chant editions in the early years of the 20th century.

He was a man of remarkable intellectual power and artistic inspiration. But he was also practical: he worked to produce chant editions for the whole Church to sing. He was alert to every technical innovation in hopes of driving down costs and making the chant ever more accessible.

In that same spirit, the CMAA is pleased to offer this and many other resources to parishes around the world. See the Communio Project.

There is much more to come. Please consider supporting this work with your tax-deductible contribution to the CMAA.

The CMAA is please present another online resource that you will find invaluable: Dom Johner's Chants of the Vatican Gradual, published first in German in 1934 and then in English in 1940. It is an imaginative and inspiring commentary on many chants from the Gradual. All 500 pages are now online.

If you are pleased by the work of the CMAA in making such resources available, consider making tax-deductible contribution

St. Mary Oratory, Rockford , IL is searching for an organist/choir director. We are a "full service" church staffed by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest with the gracious permission and support of the Most Rev. Thomas G. Doran, Bishop of Rockford. We follow exclusively the Classical Latin Rite. Knowledge of traditional liturgy and Gregorian chant is ideal, but not necessary. Salary is negotiable. Please contact Sue at 815-965-5971 or e-mail.

As many have noted, the CMAA has outgrown its previous status as a member organization with an esteemed journal.

It is now in addition taking full responsibility for the Summer Colloquium at The Catholic University of America, engaging in ambitious educational efforts, providing the highest quality online resources, publishing resources for parish use, and sponsoring workshops around the country. Indeed, the CMAA finds itself at the very center of the work to restore the sacred in Catholic liturgy.

To the end, the CMAA is pleased to announce that it has acquired the status of a 501(c)(3), and hence contributions toward our efforts on behalf of sacred music are now tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

Please consider a donation of any amount. Use the Join Us button on the site. Thank you !