St. Andrew's Day



Today is St. Andrew's Day! Visit a church named for him, participate in cultural activities of places under his patronage (Scotland, Russia, Greece, Ukraine, Romania, among others), and don't forget to start your St. Andrew Novena for Christmas!

Say fifteen times a day:
Hail and blessed be the hour and moment when the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God, to hear my prayers and grant my desires, through the merits of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother.

Musings
(page from a Latin grammar, copied c. 800)


There was a session on chant in the Carolingian era at AMS. All four papers were awesome. I very much enjoyed Peter Jeffrey's discussion of the dissemination of the Roman liturgy in France. Apparently, the gradual chant was not, in that period, sung from the steps from which it gets its name (gradus=step), but from the same lectern as the Gospel and Epistle; singing from the step was a Frankish innovation, and it stuck. I love details like that.

I have been musing a bit on the last paper read in the session, which dealt with the Carolingian principle of "correctio," that is, correcting errors and doing things in the right manner--from education to liturgy to singing. Textbooks tend to give the impression (at least to me; perhaps others don't read it this way) that the Carolingians were obsessed with standardizing things. Not so, says Susan Rankin. The Carolingians didn't spend much time talking about standardization or making everyone do things the same way--their concern was to do things the right way.

The more I think about it, the more I think that the obsession with standardization comes later, much later. Trent was somewhat problematic in the matter of allowing for growth in the liturgy, but it seems to me that things got worse in the 19th century. The Vatican Gradual might be seen as emblematic of correctness at the expense of legitimate variety. I do not mean to denigrate the monumental work of Solesmes--chant scholarship would hardly exist without them, and certainly the present sad situation would have been (if possible) even worse. Yet there are some small issues with the current Gradual that ought to be addressed, and I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

I am straying from my main point. What I really wanted to say was that hearing about the Carolingian idea of correctio really rang some bells in my head in regard to the new English translation of the liturgy. In ninth century France, scholars and clergy were concerned about correct texts in prayers because they worried about transmitting incorrect ideas if the prayers were not correct. A change in wording might bring a different theological nuance--one that might be wrong. This was probably especially important in an era with relatively low rates of literacy, because people relied on hearing prayers said rightly. We supposedly have high literacy rates now, but so many in our society are accustomed to passively receiving information that they lack critical faculties for filtering out incorrect information. This makes having a better translation of the liturgy very important: if we do not pray rightly, we will forget how to think rightly about liturgy and theology.

We're not changing the liturgy, but like the medieval monk Gottschalk* who complained that a chant text for the feast of St. John the Baptist was not true to the actual scripture passage, we want to make corrections and improve things so that we can pray rightly. Incidentally, the next generation of students at Gottschalk's monastery did fix the chant text in the next manuscript copies.



*Please note that I in no way endorse some of Gottschalk's other ideas (he was an early advocate of predestination). But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, right?

Philadelphia

Over the weekend, I was in Philadelphia for the national meeting of the American Musicological Society. I heard some really excellent papers, and generally had a good time. The AMS is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, and there were some special events involving people who had been members for 50 years. On Saturday evening, as the hotel elevator rushed downward toward the lobby (from whence I intended to head across the street for Mass), the one other person in the elevator turned around and looked at me. He was wearing clerics, and a red ribbon attached to his AMS name tag proclaimed him a 50-year member. The name tag read, "Rembert Weakland." I didn't say anything to him, and he didn't say anything to me, but I felt all the oddness of it.

I exited the elevator, and the lobby. Thankfully he was not also headed to the basilica for Mass--that would have been even more awkward. The beautiful Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul was directly across the street from my hotel, and had a Mass time that fit very conveniently with my schedule. (My flight on Sunday did, in fact, get me home in time to sing at the 5:15 Mass, but I was hedging my bets. And I wanted to see the church.) The service itself was Mass, more or less as you'd expect a Saturday evening Mass to be in any church across the country, although I was a little surprised that there were no altar servers. The music was unremarkable, but the organist and cantor rather better than you'd get in most places. Also, the organ was beautifully in tune--most organs, even some cathedral organs, suffer from sad neglect in terms of tuning.

There was an announcement before Mass about the USCCB bulletin insert regarding the healthcare bill. Apparently, the insert had been handed out the previous week, but they wanted to announce that for those who hadn't seen it, there were extra copies available. Mentions of healthcare access for all and protection of the unborn and the most vulnerable among us were included in the general intercessions. I also noticed that the Cathedral Basilica has its main Sunday Mass in Latin twice a month from October through June. I would have gone, if my flight time had not precluded it. Overall, I was quite impressed with the church. I wonder if Cardinal Rigali knew that Weakland was in town....

I didn't have my camera, but for those who don't know the church, I found a couple of pictures online. Note the tabernacle shrine behind the altar, made relatively recently by St. Jude Liturgical Arts.

How I Killed That Hour I Gained Tonight


DomoNation.com: Domo and the Bat-that-Wasn't by greenharpist


Like it? Create your own at DomoNation.com. It's free and fun!

Not too bad, eh? Some of the transitions are a little abrupt, but I think I did pretty well. Now run along to the website and animate your own, and be sure to leave a comment here with the link. I've got term paper deadlines soon and need as many procrastination aids as I can get.

Footnotes, Anyone?

I love footnotes. My love of footnotes is not confined to those glorious sorts of articles, thrust upon the world by medievalists as often as not, in which the text of the article occupies only the top third or so of each page, the rest being taken up by footnotes. No, even some of my favorite fictional books have footnotes; the epic Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell has some of the most beautiful footnotes I think I've ever read.

When doing research, however, it is easy to become mired in the footnotes. I believe I have referred to this before as the "footnote spiral of death." The footnotes in a book chapter lead you to an article, which leads you to another article, which leads you to a further book, which leads you to the composer's collected works, but the collected works notes are all in German, so you cling to the only thing mentioned in English, which leads you to a book that will take two weeks to arrive through inter-library loan...

And so on.

I had that problem last weekend, when I entered a footnote spiral of death centering on Thomas Becket, the Holy Innocents, Chaucer's "Prioress's Tale" and a grain of wheat. Maybe I'll explain some time, or maybe you've already heard that one.

Today I saw Andrew Cusack's lovely post on Joost Swarte. At first, I saw the picture with the car and trailer full of books and thought, that looks like me when I go on vacation. Then I saw this:





And I thought, I wonder if Joost Swarte was ever mired in a footnote spiral of death. Because that's what it feels like.

Liturgical Weirdness from Before the Council

My university library happens to have a copy of the St. Gregory Society's 1954 White List of approved liturgical music--it also contains a short black list. While mostly it's all the stuff you'd expect, including things I (and the present pontiff) would disagree with (they exclude everything by Mozart, Schubert, Haydn, and Weber!), there was one particular paragraph in the black list that amused and horrified me:

"The attempt of certain publishers to 'hoodwink' a gullible public by using in an indiscriminate manner the caption 'In accordance with the Motu Proprio'* deserves the condemnation of every friend of liturgical art. A flagrant example of this attempt to pull wool over the eyes of the innocent is found in the publication of the popular song 'Silver Threads Among the Gold' as an 'Ave Maris Stella' under the caption 'In accordance with the Motu Proprio.'"


Seriously? "Silver Threads Among the Gold?" I can't even imagine how that would work as an "Ave Maris Stella." Do the syllables really line up? If anyone has access to this side-show curiosity of liturgical music, please will you scan it and send it to me?

For those of you who don't know the popular song:



*The Motu Proprio mentioned is, of course, that of Pius X, which in the 1950s was still THE Motu Proprio when it came to sacred music.

Opinions?

What do you all think about the recent spate of folks openly carrying guns outside the Town Hall meetings?

I'm of two minds on it. First of all, disregard this man:

He is obviously well beyond the bounds of charity or good taste, and is advocating the shedding of blood. He is not the kind of person I mean. I am talking about the man in Arizona carrying a rifle (which, when there was a federal definition of "assault rifle," would not have fit that term--that's just scare-mongering on the part of the media), and the others like him. They are well within their rights to open-carry, and carrying a weapon with you doesn't mean that you intend to fire it or that you're trying to scare people.



However, most of us are not accustomed to seeing people openly carrying guns, and whether or not the gun-owner intends to look intimidating, some people will be intimidated by the sight of a gun. The gun-carrier needs to be aware of this, and to be aware that he or she will likely cause a stir (except, perhaps, a very few places). The gun-carrier ought to evaluate whether openly carrying his weapon in any individual circumstance is likely aid or harm his cause. Personally, I think that if the cause, as stated by the gentleman with the AR-15, is to accustom people to seeing guns openly carried and to encourage others to exercise their constitutional right, perhaps he ought to have considered that some guns look scarier than others, and it might be better to start small. Perhaps leave the AR at home, and bring, for example, a Marlin lever-action (totally classic Americana)?



That's Annie Oakley with her Marlin, by the way. See? Just as good for self-defense in the right hands, but not so scary-looking to us 21st-century types.

My Nephew Fights a Bull

Ok, it's just a baby really, and more likely pulled in from the field rather than a bull that's trained to fight. Still, he stepped into the ring and was charged by a beastie larger than himself! He's obviously having an even more exciting vacation in Peru than I had in New York. (Yes, there are two men in the ring in drag, and one of them is in blackface. It's apparently traditional, and they have different ideas of political correctness than we do.)

Sunset Canoeing

My husband and I were visiting my parents' place in New York last week. While there, we cleaned out our neighbor's canoe and took it out on the lake. The second picture was taken from my folks' back deck--what a view! There's been a lot of rain in the Northeast this summer, so everything is green and lush. Not like L.A.--we were sad to return to the dry heat and palm trees.

Urgent Prayer Request

A very dear friend of ours, who lives in our building and hitches a ride to Mass with us almost every Sunday, was mugged and shot in the chest last night, about half a mile from where we live. She was house-sitting for a friend, and had gone out to run an errand. She is in the hospital in critical care--the bullet punctured her esophagus and one of her lungs. Pray for her speedy return to health, and for the man or men who perpetrated this crime against her.

Women and girls--I beg you, do not go out alone at night! We live in a good neighborhood. A lot of people walk around at night. Children live here. But it is not safe, especially for a petite young woman who was alone after dark. We were with her just an hour before--she could have asked us for a ride, but she didn't. Again, I beg you, no matter how safe you think your neighborhood is, do not go out alone at night!

Our friend's name is Rosario. It might be appropriate to ask her patroness, Our Lady of the Rosary, to intercede for her faithful daughter.