We are pleased to present to you an absolutely brilliant address by Archbishop Alexander Sample of Portland, Oregon, delivered at the CMAA colloquium, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 19, 2013
You can download Abp. Sample’s lecture here (PDF), or view it below:
Celebrating the Spirit of the Liturgy
They are all now up and available. All music is in the commons so please feel free to take them and use them as you see fit. Mostly, we hope they serve as an example of the possibilities within the Roman Rite.
Each year at the Colloquium, 
we offer a Requiem Mass for the deceased members of the CMAA. Since the Motu Proprio, “Summorum Pontificum” in 2007, we have had the option of offering the Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Liturgy as well. This year we will celebrate a Solemn Requiem Mass with Absolution at the Catafalque. This practice was prescribed for All Souls Day as well as any Solemn Mass for the dead where the body was not present. This practice could be somewhat unsettling if one is not used to it, or doesn’t understand it.
Our faith, heavily permeated by the theology of the Incarnation, uses things to convey spiritual realities. The highest realities, of Divine institution, are the Sacraments. The greatest sacrament is of course the Holy Eucharist, where the elements of bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of our Lord. Sacramentals, or blessed objects, are used to dispose us to the many graces that come from God. Finally, symbols, art, music and architecture lift the mind and the heart to God.
The catafalque is either an empty casket or a wooden form made to look like a casket that is covered by the black pall and surrounded by six unbleached (orange) candles (when they are available); it is a symbolic representation of the deceased. When it is present, the priest sings the absolution for the deceased as if the body was present. The body was the Temple of the Holy Spirit and must be shown the greatest respect, even symbolically.
The use of the catafalque also calls to mind the stark reality of death and judgment, but in contrast, the hope of God’s mercy and redemption. We offer the absolution for the dead and we pray that we will be prepared for death. We realistically and vividly face the reality of death and just as realistically and vividly we profess our belief in the Resurrection. Our faith is strong―even stronger―by meditating upon the death we know will come to all of us.
Prof. Alise A. Brown, music educator and teacher of the Ward Method at the University of Northern Colorado, has kindly allowed us to make available on-line her 2007 dissertation, The Life of Justine Ward. Read the dissertation here.
Charles Cole, appearing on Vatican Radio, describes Pope Benedict XVI’s contribution to sacred music and, in the audio interview, mentions CMAA as a resource for education in sacred music. (Thanks, Charles!)
(Vatican Radio) Among the estimated 150 thousand people who spilled from St Peter’s Square out onto via della Conciliazione for Pope Benedict XVI’s last Angelus Sunday, were the burgundy blazers and caps of one of Britain’s most famous Catholic schools, represented by their equally world famous choir: The London Oratory Schola Cantorum.
“I offer a warm greeting to all the English-speaking visitors present for this Angelus prayer” said Pope Benedict, “especially the Schola Cantorum of the London Oratory School. I thank everyone for the many expressions of gratitude, affection and closeness in prayer which I have received in these days”.
The boys together with their director Charles Cole were fresh from singing at morning Mass in St Peter’s Basilica. They were invited by the regular choir for all non-papal liturgies in St Peter’s, the Capella Giulia, which is marking the 500th anniversary of its founding this year by inviting choirs from around the world to come and sing at the tomb of the Apostle.
At the end of Mass, to the joy of the congregation, both choirs, situated opposite each other in the two transepts of the Altar of the Chair, sung the sublime double-choir motet Adoramus te, Christe by the late renaissance Slovenian composer Jacob Handl.
It was just one of the many moving moments at St Peter’s this Sunday, but without doubt the excellence of the singing and the beauty of the liturgical music was of great spiritual benefit to the pilgrims who had flocked to Rome for this last appointment with Pope Benedict.
“I think the music of the Church has such an important role in developing and nourishing our faith and reinforcing things” says Charles Cole, Director of the London Oratory Schola Cantorum. He dropped by Vatican Radio to speak with Emer McCarthy about what he termed ‘musical evangelization’ and the great boost Benedict XVI’s pontificate has given to the current renaissance in Catholic liturgical music. Listen: CharlesColeOnVaticanRadio (17 min.)
“I think certainly in this day and age where frankly being a Catholic is very, very difficult when we have a constant stream from the media telling us that Catholic truths are off target and no longer in vogue, there are certain truths within the music that tells us, no we are not wrong, we are definitely doing the right thing and we need to keep at it”.
“I think the music is something very comforting, its our dialogue with God, it’s the way we relate to Him through the liturgy and for that to be something available to the boys through the choir is something of huge importance.”
“Under the pontificate of Benedict XVI there has been a particular focus on the relationship of the liturgy and music and this remarkable heritage and its grown to ever greater prominence. But it never really went away its always been there and its something that we simply need to keep alive and nurture, because frankly that music is so special, so unique for the Catholic Church…because its our music”.
“Music and the liturgy have been given a huge boost under his pontificate and that will last for a long time to come”.