Worship and Evangelization Outreach / Andrew Motyka

Don’t just sing at Mass; sing the Mass

One of the most important liturgical emphases at the Second Vatican Council and since has been the fully conscious and active participation of the laity in the Mass. An important liturgical principle of the 20th century is the call for the laity to become more than “mute spectators,” as Pope St. Pius X would say. For the most part, priests, parishes and musicians make a conscientious effort to promote participation by the people, especially by singing.

This makes sense because singing is one of the ways in which everyone can engage the liturgical action. Common prayer, posture and singing are the main ways that we externally connect to the liturgy. Regardless of the quality of our voices, every one of us is able to join in prayer through recitation and song. The effort required to pray through song is reflected in St. Augustine’s famous adage, cantare amantis est: singing is for one who loves.

Sometimes, however, we can become so focused on participation that we forget just what it is we are supposed to be participating in. Music, separated from the liturgical action, can become busy work. We are given a song to sing while the altar is prepared, or while we are waiting to receive holy Communion, but either the text is lacking in richness or the tune to which it is set is uninspired. Lacking beauty in form or substance, such music is unsuited to the liturgy and disconnected from worship.

So what, then, are we to sing? The “General Instruction of the Roman Missal” answers, “In the choosing of the parts [of the Mass] actually to be sung, preference is to be given to those that are of greater importance, and especially to those which are to be sung by the priest or the deacon or a reader, with the people replying, or by the priest and people together” (#40).

What constitutes parts “that are of greater importance?” “Musicam Sacram,” an instruction on music issued by the Vatican in 1967, divides the music of the Mass into three degrees.

Music in the first degree consists of the chants sung by the priest or deacon in dialogue with the people, such as “the Lord be with you,” or the introduction to the Gospel. The second degree is what we call the Mass Ordinary: the Kyrie, Gloria, Holy, and Lamb of God. The third degree is the music sung during the entrance procession, responsorial psalm, offertory, and Communion procession.

Most parishes sing music from this third degree, and probably much of the music from the second, but the first is often neglected. This gets things backward, and while it is permitted to replace the designated texts of the third degree with appropriate songs, those proper texts are frequently ignored entirely. This means that our musical emphasis of the Mass is often on the parts that are less important than that which is not sung.

Notice that music in the first and second degrees of importance are the actual texts of the Mass. This is what we are called to sing in “fully active participation.” We are to engage in the words of the Mass itself in song. It both reflects and edifies our interior devotion to offer our voices in the liturgy, especially those parts which are the liturgical action.

Don’t just sing at Mass; sing the Mass.
 

(Andrew Motyka is the director of Archdiocesan and Cathedral Liturgical Music for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis.) †