In response to Jeffrey Tucker’s complaint of
the report that The Mass of Creation by Marty Haugen will be used
during the Pope’s visit. Well maybe it is a good thing that the Pope
will be forced to endure the liturgical impoverishment that we so long
have suffered under. You certainly get the idea
that Thomas Stehle, who is reported to be responsible for music
during the Pope’s visit, by what he has written has never read the
Pope’s book Spirit of the Liturgy since he basically contradicts it.
27 comments
I’m so glad that our dear Holy Father will finally be able to see and understand what we endure, although I’m sorry he has to suffer in order to do so.
I would argue, though, that it can’t be worse anywhere than here in the Twin Cities, MN. We are home to Marty Haugen, David Haas, and Michael Joncas. Their idea of “participation” and “liturgy” and “liturgical music” has such a stranglehold on the local “sacred music” scene in the colleges that the graduates come out of there thinking that their ideas are good, their music is good, and in fact…they’re all Haugenites. It’s shocking if they ever take a departure from the self-worshiping “sacred music” from that genre.
I had initially planned to go to school for a degree in music, and it’s possible I would have focused on Sacred Music. However, in Minnesota, that mostly means “Haugen-Haas-Joncas”. Thank GOD I didn’t get that scholarship1 If I were to truly pursue such a thing, I’d leave the state to do it…I’d have to. Any legitimate sacred musician must do so for the sake of the Church.
To be fair, I don’t think EVERYTHING they do sucks, (Even a broken clock is right twice per day), but let’s just say that our Lord deserves better. So do we all.
Holy Shlamoly. Doesn’t the Pope have a liturgist who is supposed to take charge of these things (as I recall, last summer or fall he finally replaced JPII’s liturgist with a new one)?
I have never understood what the problem with the Mass of Creation is. I have always thought it was the best out of the standard options. I’ve asked every time it’s come up, and nobody’s ever told me what’s wrong with it. Anyone care to help me out?
Dear Jeff,
You’ve a typo in the first sentence. You’ve “compliant” when you want “complaint.”
Dear Shane,
Mass of Creation is, in my opinion, overdone. Very easy to sing, but there is a great variety of Mass settings out there that are not sung because this one has a stranglehold like kudzu.
My preference is Steven Janco with his “Mass of the Angels and the Saints.”
To Shane:
Mass of Creation is basically an extension of the style that Pope St. Pius X denounced in his motu proprio Tra le sollecitudini of a century ago (my emphases in bold):
“Profane” in this sense doesn’t mean R-rated; etymologically it means “outside of the temple” or “outside of worship”. Bringing a style that has been cultivated outside of worship into worship does not in itself make it suitable for worship, even though it may have been intended for the purpose.
I was highly disappointed that Steven Janco’s Mass setting mentioned above didn’t make its way into more mainstream hardback hymnals.
Mass of Creation is way overplayed. What ever happened to the priest intoning the Gloria, Sanctus, etc. ;)?
Puhhhleeeeze!
The Holy Father has no one to blame but himself, and his predecessor, for the poor state of liturgy in 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of parishes in the Catholic world. He needs to start practicing what he preaches, and start governing, in addition to teaching and sanctifying.
Especially for an upcoming Papal liturgy for which there is SO MUCH advanced notice, there’s no excuse for the Holy Father not to insure that his liturgies are not the most reverent, solemn, and traditional possible. They ought to resemble the Tridentined Novus Ordos offered at, say, Chicago’s John Cantius, not the smorgasboards that are the liturgical equivalents to pigs-in-lipstick.
I pity Catholics for belonging to a church that subjects them to this poor excuse of a liturgy on 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of liturgical occasions.
For the Pope? No sympathy whatsoever. He’s not an innocent bystander, but an active and willing participant in liturgies like this.
Agreed, the Mass of Creation is not the worst music ever, but it is terribly overused. They should the “Missa Ubi Caritas” which is repetative but is semi-based on Gregorian chant.
I’m floating on the cloud because the for the last few days I’ve been going to mass at a place with the Latin Novus Ordo and Gregorian chant. The passion reading today was done entirely in traditional chant.
There’s an excerpt of the what the liturgy is like here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNSnYfvgqIg
Now, everyone be fair. B 16 is visiting what is to him (and to all but 300 million people) a foreign land. When JP 2 went to African countries, he didn’t send a phlanx of Swiss Guards before him to suppress all the drummers and dancers, did he? No! So possibly B 16 recognizes “the Mass of Creation” as a quaint American local Church custom. He will no doubt consider it rude to make faces until afterwards, when he is alone in his chamber. The man is an elderly German. How is he supposed to know American culture goes beyond hamburgers, Marilyn Manson and the Mass of Creation? So give him a break, y’all, and have a nice day.
Seraphic:
The Holy Father cannot possibly be as stupid, naieve, and/or out-of-it as you suggest. If so, he ought never to have accepted his election to the papacy. Or maybe he was too absent-minded to exercise discernment then, too! Maybe it would have been impolite!
Seriously, there’s nothing rude about enforcing Church doctrine and liturgical principles. All the hot air, and 500000000000 page documents issues from Rome mean nothing if they’re not enforced, and the Pope’s primacy of jurisdiction over the church means nothing if he’s never meant to use it.
Eric,
You’re forgetting that the state of liturgical music in Germany and Italy is as bad, if not worse, than that of North America. The US does not hold a monopoly on guitar-strumming hippies and insipid pop melodies.
If the Holy Father could fix things by simply “cracking the whip” and disciplining a few liturgists and musicians, I’m sure he’d deal with the speck in his own eye before attempting any trans-Atlantic plank-removal.
Besides, parents sometimes like crappy gifts from their children. I remember when I once when I was young, I bought my mom a kitschy ceramic soap dish at a garage sale once, and she loved it. I would have been quite upset if she had criticized it for being tasteless and poorly crafted. (That doesn’t absolve us from giving such awful gifts, but give our Papa a break here)
I totally missed the 500000000000 word document out of Rome proclaiming Marty Haugen Anathema.
Clave, I so love your ceramic soap dish analogy. I can just see B 16 smiling paternally at the choir and saying, “Maybe your country will also have great composers one day!”
Come to think of it, why don’t American Catholics commission a great American composer to write Masses and Mass music? If all the homegrown stuff you’ve got is Marty H and the California Jesuits, no wonder you’re doing “the Mass of Creation” for the Holy Father.
You know how you saw JP 2 on TV at colourful inculturation-conscious liturgies around the world? Tag, you’re it.
Incidentally, I once heard an all-white German choir in an all-white German Catholic church in Germany singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” I went into culture shock. It was bad, people. I was shaking. I tried calling home collect in the S-Bahn.
I have never understood what the problem with the Mass of Creation is. I have always thought it was the best out of the standard options. I’ve asked every time it’s come up, and nobody’s ever told me what’s wrong with it. Anyone care to help me out?
In addition to the other reasons cited, Mass of Creation imposes additional wording onto the Agnus Dei, which is expressly prohibited.
Perhaps if Pope Benedict sees what we Americans have to suffer through as far as liturgical music goes, maybe he will order it fixed.
Seriously though, aren’t the liturgical choices pertaining to the Mass up to the American bishops? I always understood that when it comes to these sort of things, popes tend to defer to the host countries’ local practices and customs. It’s too bad that our bishops (who have dragged their feet in fixing the mistranslations contained in the present Novus Ordo Mass) are willing to force their preferences on the Pope rather than show some obeisance. If I am mistaken in this understanding, please feel free to correct me.
Dear Aristotle,
Your comment has a double meaning. Does more mean “more numerous hymnals than, say, Gather: Comprehensive, 2nd. ed.” or more as in “closer to the mainstream”?
I find GC2 a better hymnal than its predecessor.
The Pope should just entone the Gloria, Credo, etc. Noooooooooooo Mass of Creation
In addition to the other reasons cited, Mass of Creation imposes additional wording onto the Agnus Dei, which is expressly prohibited.
I thought Mass of Creation suggests additional wording be added the Agnus Dei, not requires or imposes it.
(That said, I do prefer cantoring Mass of Angels and Saints to Mass of Creation.)
IMHO, though, if a music director is really only going to have four rehearsals with their full choir before such a major event, they would be wise to pick a Mass setting that the majority of the choir (and the majority of the congregation) knows already, so that they can spend more rehearsal time on the other music they are preparing.
The Holy Father has no one to blame but himself, and his predecessor, for the poor state of liturgy in % of parishes in the Catholic world. He needs to start practicing what he preaches, and start governing, in addition to teaching and sanctifying.
Especially for an upcoming Papal liturgy for which there is SO MUCH advanced notice, there’s no excuse for the Holy Father not to insure that his liturgies are not the most reverent, solemn, and traditional possible.
For the Pope? No sympathy whatsoever. He’s not an innocent bystander, but an active and willing participant in liturgies like this.
Posted by Eric G. email at March 16, 2008 11:42 PM
I don’t get as hot and bothered as some about the state of the liturgy. But I deeply appreciate Eric giving us a break from the usually neo-trad Catholic whine of “if only the Holy Father knew…” (sounds a lot like “if only the Czar knew what the Cossacks are doing to us Jews”). The neo-trad assumption that the Pope agrees with them on every iota they hold about the liturgy is getting tiresome.
However, all of this is minor compared to the firestorm coming in response to the Pope’s invitation to to a number of public officials including Speaker Pelosi to receive communion from his hand.
I know that is one of the mass settings our parish uses but I have no idea which one it is. They all sound kind of the same to me. Are there any sound files of the Mass of Creation on the web? I would like to know what everyone is talking about.
Gail Finke
Maybe the only thing in American church music more overdone than the singing of the Mass of Creation is the complaining about it.
I’m with Shane. I think Mass of Creation is just fine.
And thanks, Eric G, for your presence here. You do help in giving me an opportunity to practice penance and mortification.
Todd, good one!
Seraphic- Go look up the “Lux Aeterna” by Morten Lauridsen. The music exists.
Thumbs waaayyyyy down to “Mass of Creation”!!!
Even if it were beautiful and by a praiseworthy composer and had perfectly licit words … even then I’d say, “ABSOLUTELY NOT,” because it has been so horrifically overused — week after week, for decades now, in so many, many parishes.
When a Mass setting is overused, it is an insult to almighty God, who gave great talent to OTHER composers, whose Mass settings sit on a shelf, gathering dust. How do you think those composers (and their families) feel, knowing that their settings are more beautiful than “Mass of Creation,” yet no one hears them?
Besides the overuse, MoC should be avoided for other reasons:
(1) It is by a Lutheran (Haugen) who has at least one heretical belief — that God is “Mother” (which he inserted into the lyrics of at least one of his hymns.
(2) I believe that MoC gets its name from the (shudder!) “Creation Spirituality” of the loony ex-Dominican priest (now Episcopalian witch-consort), Matthew Fox.
(3) Contrary to what someone said above, it DOES IMPOSE illicit wording in the “Agnus Dei,” through adding words — and inventing replacements — without the bishops’ and Holy See’s approval. Haugen not permitted to insert …
(a) the Name, “Jesus,” before “Lamb of God” …
(b) the phrase, “Prince of Peace” (and other invocations) in place of “Lamb of God” …
(c) the word, “your,” before “peace.”
[That’s right. We are NOT allowed to sing, “grant us Your peace” — but it has now been done so many zillions of times that some people are beginning to SAY “… your peace” when the “Agnus Dei” is spoken (not sung). It drives me wild!]
(4) The MoC has a certain boring and depressing (minor-key) sameness throughout all parts of it except one. The Gloria, Sanctus, Memorial Acclamation, and Great Amen are all the same boring chords. Only the Agnus Dei — with its unfortunately illicit words — has a beautiful melody.
I am so anti-Haugen at this point that I cannot even stand his name. Why would a composer want to be known by a nickname, instead of by “Martin”? Every time I hear, “Marty,” it reminds me of young “Father Relevant,” who wants to be called “Fr. Tim” (or worse, “Tim”) so that everyone will just love him. Fiddlesticks!
Oh, I forgot one thing. It’s tough enough to hear MoC played/sung when we go to Mass. But then the darned thing has to be prolonged by the UNNECESSARY AND UNPRECEDENTED repetition of the “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again” and the “Great Amen” (which becames the only SEXTUPLE “Amen” in captivity).
Then only thing that irks me as much as Haugen’s “Great Amen” is the endless and boring “Celtic Alleluia.” Each word of it is prolonged by multiple tones, and there are FOUR repetitions of the word (instead of the usual fewer) — EIGHT repetitions when the whole darned acclamation is repeated by the congregation.
Kelly Clarkson, Harry Connick, Jr., and Jose Feliciano are among many scheduled to perform at various events during Pope Benedict XVIs U.S. Visit from April 15 – 20, 2008. – OMG, the fringe Opis Dei are going to melt like wicked witches of the west?
Note: the Pope has a brain, he is the head of the whole church, even of those who are of the rabid fringe mindset who believe everyone should only sing and pray as do they. God have mercy!
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