As Sally and I do a lot of road travel I have the opportunity to visit many churches on our journeys. Even after 50 years doing liturgical music and being closely involved in liturgy, I still learn things whenever I visit a new church. In this blog I will share my experiences and observations. My main experience has been in the Catholic tradition, but I’m spending more and more time with other traditions and have adapted Cathedral to Chapel® to accommodate a number of other denominations. While I’ll probably share more experience in the Catholic vein, I’m finding certain similar issues with other denominations, so I hope that everyone finds these reflections useful.
Cathedral to Chapel® didn’t just happen in a vacuum. Sally and I are very fortunate to own two homes. Our primary residence is in Horseshoe Bay, TX, in the Hill Country, about 1 hour’s drive west of Austin. Our other home is in the California Sierras, near Arnold, CA. This area in the Sierras is home to many huge Sequoia redwood trees, and our house is surrounded by tall pine, fir and cedars. It sits right at 5,000 ft. altitude, so it’s naturally air-conditioned in the summer. The small Catholic church in Arnold is Our Lady of the Sierra. It is a mission church, served by St. Patrick’s Church in Angel’s Camp, CA, about 45 minutes “down the hill.” This mission church has a beautiful small Allen Protégé organ, but nobody to play it. The organ has a MIDI interface, and someone had created digital midi recordings of a number of hymns, saved to a thumb drive. They were of very poor quality. I started working with Phyllis, who was the cantor at the Saturday evening mass, reverse-engineered the organ, obtained a keyboard and the appropriate software and began producing much better MIDI recordings. Since then, I broadened the music to work for piano, developed the software to be more rugged, moved the music and the database to “the cloud” and developed the process to obtain compulsory mechanical licenses for copyrighted music.
My brother-in-law is a Methodist minister, and when he saw what I was doing immediately said “I need this.” Bert Roper (now retired) was the pastor of Madera Methodist Church in Madera, CA. This was early on in the COVID 19 pandemic, and he wanted to protect his (older) musicians from infection. It was a wonderful experience modifying my software to accommodate additional denominations and developing that repertoire.
I produce all my own music for Cathedral to Chapel®. It is specifically designed and pitched for congregation singing. Almost all of the songs were produced “on request.” It is quite interesting how different churches using the same hymnal can develop significantly different repertoires. As a new congregation subscribes they often have a list of songs and I quickly add those songs that are not already in my repertoire. Usually, if someone requests a new song on a Tuesday I will have it available for them to use by Thursday. I produce most of the traditional hymns in both organ and piano voice. The more contemporary hymns I produce in piano voice only.
Why the need? Simply put, there are fewer and fewer pianists and organists, especially in the more remote areas. Current keyboardists are generally in their late 70s or 80s, and there are few replacements “in the pipeline.” In more urban environments, relatively close to universities and schools of music, keyboardists are generally available. My ministry is specifically focused on supporting congregations that cannot find the talent. It is not to be used to displace an available live musician.
When we travel between Texas and California, we rarely take a straight route. For example, in fally, 2019, when we came from California back to Texas, we went by way of Maine! This has allowed me to visit many, many churches. I’ve had some wonderful experiences, and some not so wonderful. So, what makes wonderful experiences wonderful? I’d say three things:
1. a welcoming community
2. a thoughtful and well-delivered sermon or homily, and
3. well-presented theme-specific music conducive to congregation participation.
One church that Sally and I visited in 2019 was Little Flower, in Browning, MT. It’s on the Blackfeet reservation. At first, we didn’t know what to expect. We were two of the very few non-indigenous folks there, and at first it seemed a little crazy - kids running up and down the aisles, etc. BUT it became quite apparent that we were as welcome as if were had been 50-year parishioners. And it’s not what they said, but how they acted and how it made us feel. For example, the kiss of peace involved what appeared to be every person connecting with every other person in the church, and while processing to Communion, I shook every hand on the way. And it felt very genuine. That whole church was glowing with love, and I still feel it to this day.
I’m not an expert on sermons. Being able to speak for a significant number of minutes on a topic based on the readings of the day is well outside my wheelhouse. That said, it appears that, as a rule, Protestant sermons are generally superior to Catholic homilies. There may be several reasons for this but I won’t try to delve into it here. But I can tell you that a good sermon or homily sticks with you long after the service is over. Before we retired in 2016 and moved to Horseshoe Bay, we lived in San Antonio, a wonderful city. We routinely attended outdoor mass at the Lourdes Grotto located on the grounds of the Oblate Seminary, in near-north San Antonio. The presiding celebrant there at the time, Fr. Leo was an excellent preacher. Even Sally, who is probably much more analytical on these matters than I, was occasionally really engaged with his homily. She once e-mailed Fr. Leo with some thoughts based on his homily that day. His first response was “Gee, someone is really listening to me!” He really appreciated the feedback. If you are really engaged or touched by a good sermon, tell them, and be specific. Say what touched you so it doesn’t sound like a platitude.
Then there’s music. This is a tricky subject because there are so many dimensions to this issue. I can recall times when the music was so poor I’d want to run away screaming. That said, have you ever considered the possibility that sometimes the music is so good that it discourages congregational singing, which is the primary purpose of music? Yes, there are anthems and preludes, but these are not primary.
Now there are two significant differences between congregational singing in the Protestant tradition vs. the Catholic tradition:
1. In Protestant services, singing is the event, and as a general rule, all the verses of the song are sung. In the Catholic mass, the hymns are sung while another event is happening. When the event is over, the singing is expected to stop.
2. In Protestant services, “everybody” sings. In the Catholic mass, participation in congregational singing is generally sparse, but this can vary some from church to church.
Why such a difference? Perhaps a little history would help.
I lived through the transition from the Tridentine Latin Mass to the current English (or vernacular) form. In my grade school days, all Sunday masses but one (no Saturday vigil mass back then) were “low” masses. No music, and you were supposed to follow the proceedings (that you couldn’t hear) by reading along in your missal. One of the purposes of the altar boys (no girls) was to quietly say the responses. The one “high” mass would have a choir, and they were to be listened to. In short, pre-Vatican II liturgies did not involve congregational singing. It was the definition of a passive environment, and lots of traditionalists loved it because it was quiet and reverent. Looking back on it now, it was also significantly cold and unwelcoming to an outsider.
Then in the mid-1960’s came Vatican II. Over a period of a couple of years many changes occurred to the liturgy. The altar was turned around facing the congregation, the liturgy transitioned from Latin to the vernacular, and the congregation was encouraged to participate, both in spoken response and in music. In the beginning, in many churches, there was the temporary role of “Response Leader” to encourage the congregation with the spoken responses. People caught on rather quickly and this function went by the wayside. Also, there was the introduction of the temporary role of “Cantor,” or song leader, which still exists. The problem was that the congregation did not necessarily feel the desire to participate (Real men don’t sing?) I think that this is because there’s a fear of giving up control and one’s individualism when singing. The result, though, is that those who don’t participate in singing are really losing out on a very important aspect of the liturgical experience.
We’ll explore this challenge in future blog posts. In the meantime, keep singing!
Blessings!
Dan