Regina Doman reports here on the tragic drowning deaths of a father and his son. Both were connected with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate and the son was preparing to enter as a postulant.
Go and read about the family, their hardships and their nobility. Say an "Ave" for the father and son. And if you can, make a contribution to help the surviving wife and other children.
God's ways are mysterious, but they are His ways.
I substituted as choir director yesterday at a church I know fairly well. Before Mass, the choir members complained bitterly about the lack of congregational singing. I clucked sympathetically and resolved to listen during the Mass.
Well, I belong to the "if I've got them started, I don't have to keep singing at full volume" school of leadership. And when I pulled my voice back (still singing lightly), I heard quite an acceptable level, especially on what I regard as the "core singing" - Sanctus, acclamations, Our Father, etc.
So what's the problem? The problem is that if you're singing at the top of your lungs, you can't hear anyone else who's more than 5 feet away. And you erroneously assume they're not singing.
I love this picture from the CMAA Summer Colloquium. Actually, I loved all of Roseanne Sullivan's photos. Go over to Musica Sacra to find out more about the Colloquium. Of course, I've already got next year's announcement up.
Yes, instead of $15, you can enjoy 400 years of music in 40 minutes for $12 (plus the usual shipping and handling).
Will this last? No, of course not. But I didn't put this album together for me. I did it in honor of a city that's getting ready to celebrate its 450th birthday. And I did it for all the people I know. And aren't you one of them?
So order now - and save some bucks! This album is as good as a vacation in St. Augustine - and you'll save on gas.
Ancient City Harp: Songs of St. Augustine appeared on my doorstep yesterday afternoon. Thirteen tracks devoted to the wonderful diversity of St. Augustine, Florida. The music spans over 400 years and is a blend of relaxed and playful - just like this town. Going from a medieval Spanish dance through Stephen Foster and spirituals to the Pachelbel Canon, you can travel through time without leaving your front porch. In a couple of days, it will be available online – and trust me, I'll let you know where to go for it.
Recording an album is an amazing process – you plan and research, you arrange, you re-arrange, you look for the occasional collaborator, you lose faith in the project, you record (repeat this step over and over), you edit, you recover your faith, you mix, you write notes, you lose faith in the project, etc. At one point when your faith is recovered, you write a large check to the manufacturing house and send them your precious master. It's the sonic equivalent of writing a novel – and all novelists everywhere have my sympathy.
Just to give you a taste of the album, here's a clip from the Fromajadas, a Minorcan folk song. This song is in honor of the Virgin, but it was traditionally sung by groups going door-to-door on the evening of Holy Saturday. The payment for the serenade was pastries (which took their name from the song).
I had the melancholy task of removing the lovely announcement of the CMAA Colloquium from this blog today. The party's over. The angel with the harp is resting until next year. I'll let this saint play here.
While I loved every moment of the Chant Intensive, I didn't do the Colloquium because of bookings. Well, when I know next year's dates, it's a "black-out" unless Madonna wants me to play.
Right now, I want to thank everyone at the Church Music Association – the people I know and the people I don't – for all they have done to make a couple of exceptional events happen. Jeffrey, Arlene, Scott, Dr. Mahrt, and everyone else. You don't know what these times mean to people who work and live in parts of the country (and the world) where change is coming more slowly. Maybe you do know.
Again, thank you.
You can follow the adventures of this pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela at http://whizz-kidz-pilgrim.blogspot.com/
He started in Worcester, England, in May and now has finished his walk down through France. And he's also raising funds for a mobility charity for children. Read his entries and perhaps become motivated to make a pilgrimage yourself. Learn about Whizz-Kids and consider (then make) a contribution.
Here's wishing Gareth Thomas a safe journey along the pilgrim route.
I've got a million things to do this afternoon. Am I doing them? No, I'm playing with Wordle. You feed the program text and it generates "word clouds." You can then change the fonts and colors and orientation.
No need to explain just go and fool around. I copied in a huge chunk of Psalm 119 for my first. Anyway, if you enjoy a bit of a break with this, I won't feel so guilty.
Aha! The harp! One of the charming features about the Gregorian Master Class was hearing the pitch for the women's chant sounded on a harp. I remember seeing a good-looking lever harp in a photo of the choir at Regina Laudis. Hurray for all of us harpists who love chant!
And it's an excellent instrument for pitching a schola – not percussive, unobtrusive, and with enough duration for the slightly inattentive to realize the pitch has been sounded and grab it.
I just received an order from the Abbey of Regina Laudis – and I strongly encourage everyone interested in chant to follow my example in supporting them.
I bought the Recordare CD and Dr. Marier's Gregorian Master Class. The former is a delightful recording. And one of the most delightful aspects is that it isn't the perfect schola. Great audio engineering and hand-picked choirs have made for some great music. At the same time, it can be rather overwhelming to those of us whose scholas occasionally "slip." On this CD, you have excellent singing by a very dedicated group of women – but it's not absolutely perfect; it's human. And that's rather refreshing in the age of self-critical perfection.
The Master Class will help enormously with a structured approach to chant. It's very nicely produced with a spiral binding, so you don't have to stand on the book to keep it open. It's also very high-quality paper and printing. If you were at the CMAA Chant Intensive, this will help reinforce your learning. If you weren't there, this will make you smarter, although it will in no way substitute for Scott Turkington.
I love buying things from monasteries. I know that my money is important to them and encourages their work. Go thou and do likewise.
While researching the proper use of the ison in chant yesterday, I came across the Monastère de la Théotokos et de Saint Martin in France. Why not pay the monks a visit? (And yes, there is an English version of the website.)
Particularly interesting are the recordings of Byzantine chant and the efforts of this monastery to adapt this very fluid and complex form to the French language. There are also some great frescos.
Travel is so broadening.
From the Akathist Hymn to the Mother of God - uses the word we can't understand twice in a single stanza.
Hail, O hidden Sense of the Ineffable Plan!
Hail, O Belief in Silence That Must Be!
Hail, O Forecast of the Marvels of Christ!
Hail, O Fountainhead of truths concerning Him!
Hail, Celestial Ladder, by whom God came down!
Hail, O Bridge leading earthly ones to heaven!
Hail, O Wonder, ever-thrilling to the angels!
Hail, O Wound, ever-hurting to the demons!
Hail, O you who gave birth to Light ineffably!
Hail, O you who told no one how it was done!
Hail, O you who surpass the wisdom of the wise!
Hail, O you who enlighten faithful minds!
Hail, O Bride and Maiden ever-pure!
I'm grateful that this hymn beloved of the Orthodox and Eastern Rite Catholics hasn't been turned over to official translators. Apparently in the 6th century, "big words" weren't a concern to Romanus the Melodist. As one commentator points out,
The word "akathistos" literally means "not sitting," i.e., standing; normally all participants stand while it is being prayed. The hymn is comprised of 24 stanzas, alternating long and short. Each short stanza (kontakion) ends with the singing of "Alleluia." Each longer stanza (ikos) ends with the refrain: "Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded."
The majority of the hymn is made up of praises directed to the Mother of God, always beginning with the salutation of the Archangel Gabriel: "Rejoice." In each of them, one after the other, all the events related to our Lord's incarnation pass before us for our contemplation. The Archangel Gabriel ( in Ikos 1) marvels at the Divine self-emptying and the renewal of creation which will occur when Christ comes to dwell in the Virgin's womb. The unborn John the Baptist (Ikos 3) prophetically rejoices. The shepherds (Ikos 4) recognize Christ as a blameless Lamb, and rejoice that in the Virgin "the things of earth join chorus with the heavens." The pagan Magi, (Kontakion 5) following the light of the star, praise Her for revealing the light of the world.
As the hymn progresses, various individuals and groups encounter Christ and His Mother. Each has his own need; each his own desire or expectation, and each finds his or her own particular spiritual need satisfied and fulfilled in Our Lord and in the Mother of God. So too, each generation of Orthodox, and each particular person who has prayed the Akathist, has found in this hymn an inspired means of expressing gratitude and praise to the Mother of God for what she has accomplished for their salvation.
You can find the complete Akathist several places online. Here's an Orthodox source and a Catholic one. It's a treasure for meditation and devotion.
In the midst of all my other projects, I came back from the Chant Intensive convinced of the need to work with Gregorian notation.
After poking around, I settled on Grégoire. All the documentation, of course, is in French. (I could also get it in Dutch or Spanish.) And remembering that French was one of my "reading languages" in graduate school, I was undaunted. Do I have a contemporary French vocabulary for text editing on a computer? Of course not, but the same computer that brought me Grégoire also conjures up translations quite handily.
Further, the explanations are quite charming. All thanks to Fr. Eric from Solesmes. (Fair warning – if you're running Windows Vista, there will be some challenges. The usual "run as administrator" requirement and a download is needed to see the help screens. But the royal road is never easy, is it?)
And I had resolved earlier to review my French.
In my wanderings on the Internet, I stumbled across this most interesting pastoral letter. The author is Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Canberra-Goulburn, Australia. Issued on Pentecost of this year, it is well worth the read. And thank to Adoremus for the link.
I was particularly impressed with the clarity of this paragraph:
A final more general consideration concerns creativity in the liturgy. At times, there is the impression that creativity means that we have a freedom to change and adapt the liturgy as we see fit. But this is not the Church's understanding. Creativity in Catholic worship means that we do as well as possible what the Church sets down in the liturgical books. People coming to Mass have a right to a celebration of the liturgy according to the norms set down by the Church; anything else can be unsettling and distracting. Without changing anything, we are to bring as much prayer, intelligence, imagination and sensitivity as we can to the act of worship. Creativity concerns the quality of our participation, not an adaptation of the ritual in an attempt to improve it or to make it more relevant.
To speak of participation is to raise the question of what the Council meant when it stressed the need for "full, conscious and active" participation in the liturgy. At times, this is taken to mean that everyone has to do everything all the time. But this is not the Church's understanding. The Roman Rite presumes that everyone has his or her particular role in the liturgy and that participation means that each performs his or her own role as well as possible. To listen in silence to the Readings is certainly "active" participation, as are all the great silences that are built into the liturgy. To speak of "conscious" participation does not mean that every word, gesture and action needs to be immediately and easily accessible to all, since much of the symbolism of the liturgy moves at a more than conscious level. Creativity in the liturgy respects the different levels at which the language, actions and symbols move and the way in which they gather up the whole human person.
In other words, there's more to the liturgy that meets the eye. So respect what's there and do it beautifully. That will suffice.
Recorded live at the final Mass of the CMAA Chant Intensive in the Madonna della Strada Church at Loyola University, Chicago. Yesterday was the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua and may he help us recover the music that we misplaced for so many years. You'll find the mp3 over at my website, mjballou.com
Click on "Listen" over on the side and you'll see the Chant Introit. More will follow as I have time to clean up the files and extract them from the full recording of the Mass.
