Where Language Ceases

William Mahrt, President of the Church Music Association of America, posted a message on Musica Sacra this past Monday speaking of the traditional Gregorian chants of Advent and Christmas, which will not be sung in most U.S. parishes this year, and seeking support for the Church Music Association of America and the training and support it provides for church music.  He wrote:

"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."

The New Liturgical Movement has the full text of Cardinal Arinze's keynote address at the Gateway Liturgical Conference, November 11, in St. Louis, Missouri.  That is the recent address in which he spoke of the advantages of liturgy in the Latin, and encouraged parishes to have at least one Mass each week in Latin.  From that address comes this expression of reverence:

"The liturgy does not exhaust the entire life activity of the Church (cf Sacrosanctum Concilium, 9). There is also need for theology, catechetics and preaching. And even when a good catechesis has been delivered, a mystery of our faith remains a mystery.

"Indeed, we can say that the most important thing in divine worship is not that we understand every word or concept. No. The most important consideration is that we stand in reverence and awe before God, that we adore, praise and thank him. The sacred, the things of God, are best approached with sandals off.

"In prayer, language is primarily for contact with God. No doubt, language is also for intelligible communication between us humans. But contact with God has priority. In the mystic, such contact with God approaches and sometimes reaches the ineffable, the mystical silence where language ceases.

"There is therefore no surprise if liturgical language differs somewhat from our every-day language. Liturgical language strives to express Christian prayer where the mysteries of Christ are celebrated."

Ignatius Insight recently  posted online portions of Pope Benedict XVI's book, written as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (The Spirit of the Liturgy) on the subject of Music and the Liturgy, including these:

"The singing of the Church comes ultimately out of love. It is the utter depth of love that produces the singing. "Cantare amantis est", says St. Augustine, singing is a lover's thing. In so saying, we come again to the trinitarian interpretation of Church music. The Holy Spirit is love, and it is he who produces the singing. He is the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit who draws us into love for Christ and so leads to the Father. . . . Whether it is Bach or Mozart that we hear in church, we have a sense in either case of what gloria Dei, the glory of God, means. The mystery of infinite beauty is there and enables us to experience the presence of God more truly and vividly than in many sermons." (The Spirit of the Liturgy, p 142, 146).