Yesterday marked the last day of the Sacred Music Colloquium in Pittsburgh. What a glorious week it was. Our last Mass was on Sunday, and featured Schubert’s Mass in G for the ordinaries (Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, Agnus) and Gregorian Chant for the propers and Credo. It was absolutely splendid. Over the course of the week, I ran into several people from Rochester and its surrounding areas – several whom you would know, and several whom you wouldn’t. I hope to post photos of the people and Masses as soon as they are made available at Musica Sacra’s website. (I wasn’t able to take too many pictures – they kept us VERY busy.)

The one thing that really stood out to me at the Colloquium was how absolutely backwards the Diocese of Rochester is. Our vocations program is a shambles compared to other dioceses, our music programs are trash compared with what they could be, especially considering Eastman’s presence, our clergy are, for the most part, lukewarm, and our faithful lay people are, for the most part, clueless and uninformed. The priests who were present (and there were many) came from many different places, not all of them overtly welcoming to the cause of orthodoxy. However, their parishes and communities are all thriving. Why is this?

It’s because they do things right. And when things are done correctly, as they ought to be, our souls realize that. We are created by the Divine – why do we resist our urges towards rendering Him the glory due to His Holy Name? Why do we insist on lowering our liturgical standards? Why do we say that chant and polyphony are too hard? Why do we claim that our people are incapable of understanding the Mass? If people aren’t sure about something liturgical, you don’t change the Mass to suit their misunderstanding – you teach them. When a student says that 2+2 is 5, you don’t change the rules of mathematics to make his misconception a “reality.” You say, “No, it’s not. And this is why ‘4’ is the correct answer.”

The main thing that the Colloquium taught me wasn’t how to sing polyphony, or how to direct chant, or even how to sing in a choir of 250 people. It taught me to be unabashedly Catholic, not to tread lightly around liberals and erring children of God, but to confront their ignorance with clear teachings of the Church and with the utmost of charity. We must not let people rest complacently in their ignorance. We must rouse them from their liturgical slumber and show them that “this is what we’re all about.” We need to replace our banal hymns with the chants particular to that day, for the chants always and unfailingly capture the proper mood of the Mass. And there’s no reason not to – they have all been translated into English. There is absolutely no reason why you can’t have an English Chant Mass. In the words of Dr. Mahrt, “The people will love the chant, but they will love it even more when they realize how much more beautiful it is in Latin.” In Fr. Z’s words, “brick by brick,” people. We can’t just change everything we want to in one way, or in a direct fashion. But slowly, over time, we can win hearts and minds back to Holy Mother Church, even those hearts and minds which think they serve Her, but rather, serve to castrate Her message and Her liturgy.

I will be spending the next week or so on a mini-retreat in Buffalo. I’ll be posting some photos from Fr. Baker’s later in the week.

Tags: Colloquia 2010 and 2011, Latin Mass, Liturgy, Music Sacred Catholic Liturgical and Chant, Orthodoxy at Work, Reflection

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