When I was out of town a few weeks ago, I attended Mass at a local parish. At the beginning of Communion, the cantor approached the microphone and told us, "Our Communion hymn will be 687 and 686 if we need to."
I laughed on the inside at the absurdity of this statement in regard to its attitude towards silence in the liturgy. What need is there for hymn 686? Obviously, it is in case Communion takes too long, and we need more music to fill up the time so that there won't be any silence. The same concept is played out in my home parish, where sometimes verses of a hymn are repeated or omitted, to make sure the song is the length required to take up all of the available space.
In the old Mass, passed down to us from the Fathers, there is no music to take up space. Everything that has to be sung is sung. Omissions are not allowed and repeats are unnecessary. If the priest takes "too little" time with his actions, he'll have to wait for the music to end before he can continue. At a polyphonic Mass, this may mean that the priest sits down and listens for a few minutes. On the other hand, if the priest's actions take longer than the music lasts, there is just stillness and silence. And that's okay.
In the old Mass, passed down to us from the Fathers, there is no music to take up space. Everything that has to be sung is sung. Omissions are not allowed and repeats are unnecessary. If the priest takes "too little" time with his actions, he'll have to wait for the music to end before he can continue. At a polyphonic Mass, this may mean that the priest sits down and listens for a few minutes. On the other hand, if the priest's actions take longer than the music lasts, there is just stillness and silence. And that's okay.
For all of its ancient and medieval holdovers, which refuse to submit to the rationalism and pragmatism of post-Enlightenment, Modern man, the old Mass is remarkably simple in many ways. One of these is that there's nothing there just to take up space, nothing spoken or sung for the purpose of ensuring a constant influx of noise and movement. Sometimes one finds oneself sitting still with no noise and nobody moving around or talking or anything. And that's okay.
I was reminded of this when I was reading from Romano Guardini's Meditations Before Mass, written before the liturgical reforms:
Lengthy, unbroken singing is objectionable, as is continuous organ music, which drives stillness from its last possible refuge. In the course of these meditations we shall see that the periods of silence are not mere interruptions of speech and song, but something essential to the sacred act as a whole and almost as important as the periods of speech.
The Holy Mass was, at one time, the last vestige of stillness and sacredness left in the communal life of Western Civilization. Even now this has corroded into more noise and more moving about - the last thing we needed more of.
I think it was perhaps Fr Z who opined once that the modern mass - even when celebrated reverently - tends to be a lot of "la la la la THUNK la la THUNK la la". I notice this most right at the introductory rite, when the priest might chant the greeting, and then abruptly change to his normal voice for the bit leading to the penitential rite. Music is obviously a whole separate factor. My point it that the old mass feels much more organic.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think little interjections of casual or colloquial speech throughout the liturgy stifle the mind from entering a sense of the sacred. When it happens side by side with more solemn elements, such as chanting, it can be quite jarring!
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