Saint Cecilia, Patron of Music
by VP
Posted on Tuesday November 21, 2023 at 11:00PM in Saints
Saint Cecilia, Public Domain
"Let's pray to Saint Cecilia on her feast day, so that music in our churches will once again be an instrument of elevation to God, not a profanation of the sacred." Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Nov.22. 20200
"In the early Church. We known very little concerning the music of the primitive Christian Church. On account of many circumstances that Church was restricted in its religious manifestations, for the greater part of the first three centuries was a time of bitter persecution, when Christians worshiped God in t and in peril of their lives. Tertullian tells us, however, that in his day psalms were sung in the divine service, and the pagan Pliny knew that Christians honored their God before dawn by the chanting of hymns. The extensive use of music in church ceremonies came later, and is to be largely attributed to St. Ambrose, the great Bishop of Milan, who introduced the singing of psalms "after the manner of the East." Under the fostering care of our Church sacred music developed most wonderfully during the succeeding centuries.
St. Jerome, who seldom failed to criticize when criticism was needed, speaks of singers of his day in words to which some of our modern choirs and church soloists may well hearken: "Let the servant of God sing in such manner that the words of the text rather than the voice of the singer may cause delight, and that the evil spirit of Saul may depart from those that are under its dominion, and may not enter into those who make a theater of the house of the Lord." Can it be possible that the prophetic soul of the Saint foresaw the evils of some of the church music of today, wherein hymns to the Blessed Sacrament are chanted to the dulcet strains of "Juanita," and the sublime words of the Credo are sung to the liveliest melodies of Offenbach?
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The Gregorian Chant: This is the distinctive song of the Church, the interpreter in melody of her prayerful devotion. It is so called from its great founder, St. Gregory the Great, and is also known by the names of Plain, Roman or Choral Chant. It is a grave melody, usually solemn in nature, sung in unison, that is, without harmonizing parts, set to the rhythm of the words, and without strictly measured time.
As a prayer is an utterance by the believing heart, expressing its faith, so the chant, which is the more solemn mode of liturgical prayer, owes to faith its power and its beauty.
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The Beauty of the Chant: As regards the tone used, the ecclesiastical chant is full of variety, for it was created for the purpose of beautifying the Church's services, which are of many kinds. Adoration, thanksgiving, supplication, sorrow, joy, and triumph find in the Gregorian tones their fitting expression. The melody accommodates itself to the word and phrase, to the spirit of the Church, and to the nature of the prayer and praise which are being offered to God. Whether it be the Gloria, the jubilant song of the Angels - The Sanctus, in which we here on earth join in adoration with the celestial spirits - the Agnus Dei, the appeal for mercy addressed to Him Who has taken away sin - the Libera, which is the intercessory prayer for the faithful departed - in each of these the spirit of the words and the devotion of the Church are brought out clearly by the grand and simple melodies of the Gregorian Chant. How beautiful in its solemn and reverential strains is the Preface of the Mass, in which the priest offers the Church's thanksgiving and homage before the throne of God! How replete with sadness and sorrow is the chant of the Lamentations in the office of Holy Week! How expressive of fear and desolation are the mournful notes of the "Dies Irae"! All there varying moods of the Church's praise and prayer are portrayed in the Gregorian Chant without any of the artifices of vocal or instrumental harmonizing that are employed in secular music. Its melodies have sprung from the minds of Saints, singing from the Spirit of God."
Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
by VP
Posted on Tuesday November 21, 2023 at 07:26AM in Saints
"Parents should remember that the offering of a son or a daughter is not all pain and sacrifice. Of course the parting is difficult when the boy or girl bids farewell to family and departs for seminary or convent. It seems almost as though the child has been claimed by death. But the hurt that the heart sustained eventually heals. Time takes care of that. And then the blessings that a religious vocation brings down upon the home and particularly upon the parents in that home make themselves felt.
First of all, there is the feeling of assurance that mother and father have that their daughter could hardly be in better hands than in the hands of Our Lord. She has become the spouse of Christ. She has been especially selected by Christ to be His bride. Surely He will take care of her both in time and in eternity.
Good parents sometimes worry about their children. They know that they are responsible for their welfare in eternity. They have often heard that on the day of the last Judgment children who are lost because of the negligence of their parents will point a finger at their mother and father and demand that Christ condemn them for the awful sin they committed in not seeing to it that their children saved their souls.
Some parents have reason to worry, not because of anything that they have done that was wrong in the training of their children but because the children refused to follow their training and involved themselves in invalid marriages and sinful practices that drove them out of the Faith into which they had been born and baptized. Mothers and fathers worry in cases like these lest their children lose their souls.
They do not have to worry about their daughter in the convent. Her habit of prayer, the good example all around her, the spiritual exercises of her daily life will carry her to heaven when her time comes to die. Mother and father can be sure that at least one of their children is safe and that they need have no fear of giving an account to God on how her life was lived and how she was brought up from her youth.
The second blessing that follows upon the sacrifice of a son or a daughter to God is the promise of Our Lord that He will provide for the temporal and the eternal welfare of those who willingly make the sacrifice. In the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel the following words are to be found: 'Every one that hath left house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for My name's sake shall receive a hundredfold and shall possess life everlasting.
It is not stretching the meaning of the text too far to maintain that it refers to all the members of the family who consent to a son or a daughter, a brother or a sister leaving home in order to enter the direct service of God at altar or in the convent.
Thus, a brother who gives up his sister can apply Our Lord's words to himself. And so can a mother in regard to her daughter. And so can a father in regard to his son. The consoling part of Our Lord's words consists in this that a girl who has renegade Catholics in her family - a father who has fallen away from the practice of his holy religion, a sister who has sinned deeply through an invalid marriage, a brother who has become a confirmed alcoholic - that girl by giving up her life to God in religion can save the souls of all these unfortunate relatives of hers no matter how far they have fallen. Our Lord says that he who gives up a sister or a daughter as well as a mother and a father will possess life everlasting. Isn't that what all the members of the family do, even the bad members of a family, when they see one of the girls of the family leave home in order to enter the convent? They give her up. And God promises a great reward."
