The glorious return of the boy choir

(Photo credit: Mitchell Mark)

 In 2014, I visited Mater Dei Parish in the Diocese of Dallas (the FSSP's largest apostolate in the US) for a Sunday Mass on my way to attend a concert by the world-famous Choir of Westminster Abbey, over at Incarnation Episcopal Church. I even took the occasion to write about the importance of men & boys' choirs on my blog afterward. Well, as Providence would have it, my focus returns to Dallas once again. I'm pleased to share with you--nay, shout "alleluia" across the rooftops--that the very same Mater Dei Church recently debuted its own choir of men and boys! This is, as far as I know, the only boys' choir dedicated to the traditional Latin Mass in the entire United States. The FSSP's efforts in Dallas here are an unqualified triumph for traditional liturgy and a beacon of inspiration for the rest of us around the world. 

To celebrate this advancement and share the news with my readers, I casually spoke on the phone with Mater Dei's associate music director and founder of the Men & Boys Choir program, Mr. Chase Fowler. Mr. Fowler (incidentally a longtime reader of this blog) began at Mater Dei in 2016. He has a highly liturgical spirit and knew very well that the perennial tradition of the Church, when it comes to sacred music, as constantly expounded upon by Saint Pius X and other popes and leaders of the liturgical movement, valued the schola cantorum of men and boys singing together as the ideal. While Mater Dei is blessed to have many parishioners--five fully packed Masses back to back on Sunday, as many old-timers remember before Vatican II--they still have all the other obstacles against establishing a boys' choir that most of us do. The parish has no school at all, much less one that could focus specially on a music curriculum. Most parishioners live outside the usual territorial parish boundaries (some as far away as the state of Oklahoma, I hear), so commuting on another day of the week for even just one rehearsal after school hours is a pain. 

And yet, undaunted by any of these challenges, Mr. Fowler pressed on. The fruits of their labor blossomed this Passion Sunday, March 18, when the Men & Boys' Choir, clad in the traditional cassock and surplice of an ecclesiastical choir, sang in liturgy for the first time at the 9am missa cantata. The men naturally handled the minor Propers in their full melodies from the Liber Usualis, while the boys assisted with the Ordinary of the Mass. Not to be treated with kid gloves, the boys still capably handle serious choral works of the Catholic tradition by composers like Palestrina and Victoria: a feat most professional directors might scoff at as impossible for boys not enrolled in a full-time choir school and, therefore, not even worth trying. So far, the boys' choir is still going strong. They'll continue to sing at Mater Dei, in rotation with the other choirs of the parish, until the end of this term (the Fifth Sunday after Easter).

Why all the fuss, though? Why not just rely on capable female singers, like virtually every other church does? Mr. Fowler and I chatted about this, and he outlined a few reasons: 

The spirit of the liturgy: the choir of Levites

Illustration of the old cursus honorum. The first four degrees after tonsure are the minor orders.

First, the all-male choir is most in keeping with the spirit of the liturgy. Basically all Catholic communities dedicated to traditional liturgy in some form or another (whether the traditional Latin Mass, the "Anglican" Ordinariate, or the Eastern rites) accept that altar servers should all be male. Lay altar servers fill roles which were, in times long past, exercised only by men or boys who were tonsured and "ordained" to the minor orders. These minor orders eventually came to be restricted to men in formation for the priesthood, despite the canons of the Council of Trent ordering them to be restored to normal parish use. The canons were ignored, but it was universally understood that lay substitutes should at least potentially be able to be ordained acolytes... therefore, male.

What even most traditional Catholics today have lost is the understanding that singing in an ecclesiastical choir is, in itself, a form of altar service; perhaps better described as the foundation of all other altar service. This is obvious if you observe the daily worship at a traditional seminary or monastery chapel. A few seminarians assist the ministers at the altar as acolytes, but the rest sit in the choir stalls in cassock and surplice (fittingly called "choir dress") and assist primarily by singing the Mass or Divine Hours. The sheer amount of singing done at a traditional seminary is probably mind-numbing to diocesan students, but this is simply how the clergy lived for the first seventeen or so centuries of Christian history. In medieval times, an inability to sing on-key was considered an impediment to priestly ordination. This is why medieval literature usually describes priests not as "saying", but as "singing Mass".

The ideal of the seminary choir is shown beautifully in the FSSP's promotional video above for their Requiem album.

One of the biggest favors any parent can do for a son who might have a vocation to Holy Orders, therefore, is to develop his singing talent at a young age. This is where a boys' choir comes in. By learning liturgical music, especially how to read and sing Gregorian chant, and by becoming intimately familiar with many settings of the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei), a boy is formed in liturgy just as he would by serving the altar. Indeed, a boy's time is better spent in learning music because the ceremonies of altar service are easier learned as a teenager or adult, while the skills for singing are better formed from youth. But whether the boys sing well or poorly, they nonetheless fulfill a clerical role in liturgy which can't be said for mixed or women's choirs. Pius X felt strongly enough about this that, in his 1903 motu proprio on sacred music, Tra le sollecitudini, he banned women from church choirs entirely (with varying levels of success):

"With the exception of the melodies proper to the celebrant at the altar and to the ministers, which must be always sung in Gregorian Chant, and without accompaniment of the organ, all the rest of the liturgical chant belongs to the choir of levites, and, therefore, singers in the church, even when they are laymen, are really taking the place of the ecclesiastical choir. Hence the music rendered by them must, at least for the greater part, retain the character of choral music."

And:

"On the same principle it follows that singers in church have a real liturgical office, and that therefore women, being incapable of exercising such office, cannot be admitted to form part of the choir. Whenever, then, it is desired to employ the acute voices of sopranos and contraltos, these parts must be taken by boys, according to the most ancient usage of the Church."

Feminization of sacred music and decline into performance art

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge, established by King Henry VI in 1441, is considered by many to be the greatest men/boys choir in the world.

Second, an all-male choir helps counteract the feminization of sacred music. Here, I don't mean to denigrate the countless women who devote so much time and talent towards the betterment of worship (nor do I have any foolhardy plan to abolish women from church choirs overnight). Indeed, it's because of women's tendency to more freely devote their time that church choirs everywhere have more women than men unless they enforce an all-male schola. Traddy parents often, subconsciously, send their boys to serve, and their girls to sing in choir. The end result is that singing becomes perceived to be a feminine activity, or perhaps a consolation for not being able to serve the altar. The greater consequence is that the choir becomes divorced from its traditional understanding as a liturgical office, and then becomes focused more as performance art--pretty background music while the real work is done around the altar.

Some of the strongest evidence for this mentality is from a screed I found in the April 1917 issue of The Musical Quarterly, titled "The Boy Choir Fad", which you can read in full here. N. Lindsay Norden wrote this diatribe as a response to the revival in the later 1800's of boys' choirs, starting in the Anglican churches with the Oxford Movement, then expanding to Rome by the efforts of the Cecilians and others we might call "plainchant fundamentalists". Here are some of the more pungent excerpts:

"The boy choir fad has grown so alarmingly that the choral ideals of the American church will degenerate unless a decisive check is firmly put upon this disastrous evil in church music."

"Who would dare compare any boy choir with some of the splendid mixed choirs in New York City? Only an individual with no musical conceptions upon which to base judgment, or perhaps one imbued with the idea that a 'real' church choir should look in real life as some painters have elected to picture it."

"The principal elements which have made for the development of the boy choir are: sentimentality, a certain amount of ignorance about the 'angelic' qualities of a boy's voice, hollow imitation of the English church, and the unusual belief that it is not proper to have women in the chancel."

"If church music standards in this country are to equal those in the secular field, the boy choir must go. Rational, refined, musical considerations must overcome sentimentality, and uncultured, unworthy motives, which make for lower standards and insufficient results."

And perhaps worst of all:

"Church music in this country is mainly a mechanical echo of the ideals of the English church, which some of us consider the stupidest and dullest the world has ever known."

For the Modern Medievalist, at least, all these protests simply betray a mind more geared to sacred music as performance art rather than an act of liturgical worship. In any case, I would say Mater Dei's success over one hundred years after the publication of Norden's screed, long after the "fad" of boys' choirs collapsed everywhere outside of the most famous English cathedral and collegiate institutions, shows that with faith, the impossible can be made possible.

The chancel: uniting altar and choir

The chancel of Bristol Cathedral, with choir stalls

Mater Dei doesn't have a chancel and so this isn't an option for them, but this aspect of the choral tradition deserves some commenting on as well. A much more edifying article was posted in response to the above piece, in The Musical Quarterly's July issue of the same year, titled "Why We Have Male Choirs in Churches". This piece, which explains how all-male choirs were inherited even from the ancient Temple of Solomon under the Old Covenant, can be read here. It goes on through medieval history up to the Anglican movement to restore proper chancels with choir stalls, now seen in so many Anglican churches built from the mid-1800's and after. Ironic that so many Catholics perceive the choir loft in the back of the church as the more traditional style when it was really a later innovation to accommodate the introduction of women singers. The article has a fascinating quotation from the Bishop of Covington (presumably Ferdinand Brossart):

"We have succeeded in the past in removing the choir as far as possible from the altar, and have been spending money in the wrong way. Therefore we need not be surprised that we have succeeded in banishing also the music of the altar, the music of the Holy Service, from the church, and have substituted in its stead something more in keeping with exterior worldliness and profanity, and, with all, we have driven in a measure from the hearts of our men and boys that love for things most sacred, which the closer communication between altar and choir fostered so extensively in the Ages of Faith. Let us learn to spend more and more wisely, and restore the chancel choirs to the churches, and bring our men, old and young, back into the Sanctuary of God, that they may take a more active part in our magnificent Liturgical Service. Let us return to the old Catholic way of building our churches with a long chancel, and, if possible, an organ chamber, and vestries not only for the priests but also for the choristers. Let us bring altar and choir nearer each other."

A powerful call to action, to be sure! When I bring my chant schola out to some church for Mass, there are many times when we have to sing in the choir loft as a practical necessity because of the architecture of the place. However, whenever possible, I try to situate us within or near the sanctuary to emphasize our role as a true liturgical choir. 

It's also worth revisiting one of my favorite quotations from Augustus Welby Pugin, in his Earnest Appeal for the Revival of the Ancient Plainsong, which I transcribed for my blog long ago (see here). In addition to his many skills as architect and designer, the father of the Gothic Revival also sensed the importance of recovering the Church's traditional Gregorian chant. He had this to say about the state of choir lofts in his day:

"Formerly such persons as now constitute the choir were unknown. The service was sung in Parochial Churches, between the clerks and devout laymen (ministri), who assisted them in the chancel, and the people in the body of the church, who responded in unison. This grand and overpowering effect of the people answering the priest is yet to be heard in parts of Germany. At Minden the Habemus ad Dominum rose from more than two thousand voices of faithful worshippers. What a difference from the vicarious reply of three or four professionals, thrusting their heads from out of their curtained gallery in the intervals of their private conversation, and whose hearts, instead of being raised up, were probably groveling in the contemplation of a pull at a wine bottle between the acts of the performance, for it must be distinctly understood that all persons who sing in galleries are performers by position. Nutshells, orange peel, and biscuit bags, abound in organ lofts and singing galleries, and those who are acquainted with the practical working of these places must be aware, that they are a constant source of scandal and irreverence.  

Now, when we contrast the Catholic arrangement in a chancel to their miserable expedient of a gallery, we shall at once perceive the infinite wisdom and beauty of the former. All are habited in vestments, whose colour reminds them of the purity of heart and intention, with which they should celebrate the praises of Almighty God. They stand within the sacred enclosure set apart for sacrifice; the very place tends to preserve a recollection of the Divine presence, and to keep the singers in a devout posture. The distinct and graduated Chaunt offers no impediment to the perfect union of the heart and mind with the words as they are sung; and in lieu of a more empty and vain display of vocal eccentricities, we have a solemn, heartfelt, and, we may trust, an acceptable service to the honour of Almighty God."

The next step: the parochial school

The Atonement Academy, San Antonio

Mater Dei has shown us that it's possible to establish a boys' choir even without the benefit of a school. Still, for the perfection of the art, a school is the logical next step. In my chat with Mr. Fowler, he said one of his inspirations was the parochial school attached to my hometown parish, Our Lady of the Atonement in San Antonio, where I was received into the Church. The Atonement Academy is a full K-12 school (for both boys and girls) in the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter which, in addition to its overall mission in providing an orthodox Catholic education in the classical liberal arts tradition, requires every student, in every grade, to be in a choir. For this, Atonement has the outstanding honor to have one of the only Catholic parish churches in the whole world to have a daily choral Mass during the school year. 

The Atonement Academy represents a rare example of the fulfillment of an ideal espoused long before, during the original Liturgical Movement of the early 20th century. I recently picked up a book from 1963: really, a collection of essays titled Liturgy for the People. Most of the authors are Jesuit priests of a heavily progressive stripe, typical for the era. But one essay stands far above the rest: it's titled "The Schola Cantorum and the Parish School", by Theodore N. Marier. Marier was one of the leading advocates of Gregorian chant in the American Church, and was the second president of the Church Music Association of America. Shortly after writing this essay, he went on to found the St. Paul's Choir School in Cambridge, Massachusetts: the only Catholic boys' choir school in the United States. It still exists today (see website here) and is working hard to reclaim its identity as a liturgical choir, even singing Vespers every Thursday.

But what about the essay? In it, Marier says that the difficulties in fully participating in the liturgy are not Latin or Gregorian chant, but a lack of education. It's important to observe that Marier wrote this essay at the height of the Catholic parochial school's glory days in the US. Indeed, Marier himself seems to know it at the time of his writing: "our vast and complex network of parochial schools serving the cause of Catholic education from the kindergarten through graduate schools is vigorously operative in these times."

And yet, he laments that almost nowhere is any of this energy being directed toward the cause of sacred music. Where they are thought of at all, the choirs are "lunchtime choirs", with rehearsals made only during recess while other kids are at play. Drawing on the many statements from the popes of that era on the need for a schola cantorum to be established in every parish, Marier outlines a plan in his essay for every parish school:

First, of course, is the hiring of a full-time music director. The director would be responsible for developing a special curriculum for choir boys within the larger school, with the assistance of two other teachers, from fifth to eighth grade.

Second, one of the parish priests would be assigned to the schola's spiritual direction. He would teach the boys Latin, the liturgy, and how to serve Mass (all choirboys would also be expected to serve the altar).

Third, as the schola develops, it would take on more and more liturgical duties, enhancing the overall life of the parish. The schola would become the principal choir for Sunday high Mass and major feasts, and hopefully take up one or more of the Divine Hours (such as Vespers or Compline). Teams of boys in rotation would handle the cycle of Requiems, weddings, and other votive Masses as they come.

Marier ends this essay with an imperative, which is as relevant for 2018 as it was for 1963. I'll use it to end this column as well. Marier writes:

"The training of leaders must begin early in their formative years and continue over a long period of time. The Palestrina, Josquin Des Pres, Guido D'Arezzo or even St. Gregory of tomorrow is perhaps today in a parochial school third grade, waiting to be led, encouraged, and motivated by the Church to a life of fruitful creativity in her service. If the opportunity of training him is not seized now, the Church will sit by and watch him spill out his musical talents in the service of the theater or a television network, instead of in the fully dedicated service of her liturgical music."

My personal favorite men/boys choir is that of Westminster Cathedral (the chief church of the Catholic Church in England, often confused with the also-excellent Westminster Abbey Choir)

Requiem: the album

I've finally gotten around to seeing the promo video for the FSSP's new chant album: "Requiem". It's a stunning clip that deserves to be watched with full attention (fullscreen, 1080p, not on a smartphone). Everything about it exudes the medieval ideal of the liturgical choir... and what I'm striving to attain with my little start-up schola of male, surpliced chanters in the Philadelphia area. See below:

"Requiem" can be purchased directly from the Fraternity's site here. As an aside, I'm pleased to observe that one of the seminarians featured in the video assisted in the role of subdeacon for our nuptial Mass in 2014....

Why is the Tract for the first Sunday in Lent so LONG!?

For parishes that use the pre-conciliar Latin Missal, the Ordinariate's Divine Worship Missal, or even the Ordinary Form of Mass with music from the Graduale Romanum, you might have noticed the ridiculously long chant that came before the Gospel reading yesterday for the first Sunday in Lent's Mass. During this season, we've banished the Alleluia and put an extended psalm called the Tract in its place. The very name tractus implies an drawn-out psalm, but in practice, this comes out to only two or three additional verses. For the First Sunday in Lent, though, the complete Psalm 90(91), Qui habitat, is used. The Ordinariate's translation gives it as such:

V. I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my hope and my stronghold: my God, in him will I trust.
V. For he shall deliver thee from the snare of the hunter: and from the noisome pestilence.
V. He shall defend thee under his wings: and thou shalt be safe under his feathers.
V. His faithfulness and truth shall be thy shield and buckler: thou shalt not be afraid for any terror by night.
V. Nor for the arrow that flieth by day; for the pestilence that walketh in darkness: nor for the sickness that destroyeth in the noon-day.
V. A thousand shall fall beside thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand: but it shall not come nigh thee.
V. For he shall give his Angels charge over thee: to keep thee in all thy ways.
V. They shall bear thee in their hands: that thou hurt not thy foot against a stone.
V. Thou shalt go upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou tread under thy feet.
V. Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him up, because he hath known my Name.
V. He shall call upon me, and I will hear him: yea, I am with him in trouble.
V. I will deliver him, and bring him to honour: with long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation.

At my Ordinariate parish yesterday, it was sung to a basic psalm tone. I suspect the vast majority of churches prior to Vatican II did the same. There's only one time I can recall personally singing the full chant melody given in the Liber Usualis--a true marathon of neumes which takes at least 12 minutes to chant. It was oddly not even at a well-established Latin Mass community, but rather for then-new TLM out in the sticks: Ss. Cyril & Methodius in Shiner, Texas. Back in 2011, our schola was invited as a guest choir on a Sunday which just happened to be the beginning of Lent. I'm not sure if that community had any more exposure to Gregorian chant than the Missa de angelis, and yet, we mercilessly brought the full Tract upon them. I even have video evidence of that day below (beginning at the 1:49 mark):

I vaguely recall the priest saying that he didn't have much of a homily prepared because the Tract was a sermon in itself. I've sometimes wondered why, though, this chant is so much longer than virtually all of the others given in the Liber? 

There's the theory that the graduals and tracts of the ancient Church were all supremely long, but the laziness of succeeding generations caused them to be peeled back to mere fragments (as was the case with the Offertory chants)--the Church wished to leave the First Sunday in Lent's tract untouched as a penitential reminder of the fervor of past ages. My friend Mr. DiPippo, editor of the New Liturgical Movement, says that there's no real evidence for this claim being true in the Roman Rite; that it was made up to justify the invention of the responsorial psalm for the post-conciliar rite's lectionary. Perhaps he's right and this is just another one of those myths by "liturgists" that's been repeated so many times that it's been mistaken for truth even by great liturgical scholars. I haven't done the due diligence in my studies to say one way or another.

My favorite explanation for this tract's length is the one given by my pastor in his sermon yesterday. He referenced the Gospel lesson (which, at least this year, is the same for both the old and new lectionaries): Christ's forty-day trial in the wilderness as described in Matthew. Our Lord's retreat into silence and fasting is the very inspiration for Lent, so what could be a more appropriate Gospel for this Sunday? Near the end of the fast, the devil appears and tries to tempt Jesus using Scripture. Specifically, he quotes Psalm 90(91). I quote from the St John Fisher Missale translation, one of my favorites, below, and give my emphases to the psalm quote:

Then the devil took him up into the holy city, and set him upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him: "If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written that he hath given his Angels charge over thee, and in their hands shall they bear thee up, lest perhaps thou dash thy foot against a stone." Jesus said to him: "It is written again: Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God."

The devil tricks us, my pastor said, by quoting Scripture out of context. To counter this deceit, the Church presents the entire psalm in the liturgy so that we can hear and understand what Satan tried to bend to his own ends in its full form.

Whether or not that explanation can be proven beyond a doubt by historical-critical study, I find it to be a profound spiritual explanation for one of the most gruelingly long chants I've ever had to sing.

Radio chat is now online!

The Poor Clares in San Antonio attending our nuptial Mass in 2014

You can now listen to my radio "fireside chat" with the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration in San Antonio at this link, provided you have iTunes installed. Just select the broadcast for April 27, 2016.

Our discussion, which was prompted by the month's-mind Requiem Mass offered for their late abbess, Mother Angelica of EWTN fame, at my former parish in San Antonio, revolved around the prayers and Gregorian chants of the Requiem, devotions for the souls in purgatory during the Middle Ages, the Office of the Dead, and the importance of reclaiming the spirituality behind these traditions in the modern age. 

The sisters' main site is the Monastery of St. Michael the Archangel, or Texasnuns.com. From there, you can learn a bit more about them, buy their soap, and find their blog, Quidnunc. My first real encounter with the Poor Clares was when they attended a Requiem Mass for my stepfather years ago. Since then, I correspond with them every once in a while, and was honored to design service booklets for one of their solemn professions. And, if you saw my post two days ago, I did the same for the Requiem Mass for Mother Angelica according to the Divine Worship Missal of the Personal Ordinariates, which is now on YouTube below.

The Propers: striking terror into choristers' hearts since (at least) the 1920's

"Contrary to a fast-growing error, High Mass is the Mass which the Church would have us hear. Many Catholics ignorantly believe that Low Mass is the proper Mass, which has been expanded and embroidered into High Mass by Catholics who are too pious. On the contrary, the truth is rather that Low Mass is High Mass bleached and shorn for the sake of Catholics who are not pious enough. High Mass is Mass par excellence, and the singing of the Proper is part of it, by inexorable ordinance. Therefore, when the Proper is so dull or bungling as to hinder devotion, and to make people frequent Low instead of High Mass harm is done not only to the cause of the Liturgy but also to Catholic piety."

--fighting words from a column in The Tablet on November 22, 1924

Maestro Jeff Ostrowski has, once again, pointed his readers to the next great fascinating find from the annals of obscure publications from ages past (see his post on April 5 in Views From the Choir Loft). This latest offering is from a series of essays on how voluntary (i.e. volunteer or unpaid) choirs ought to approach and execute the Proper of the Mass. In the early 20th century, The Tablet was a premier journal in the British Catholic world and beyond for all kinds of scholarship. Today, it's... rather the opposite, with the archives being no doubt a source of embarrassment to any of their present-day editors who could be bothered to read any back-issues from the 1920's.

This particular series was the fruit of a contest that The Tablet held, which would give a modest monetary prize to whoever could present the best solution to a very real problem facing churches of the time: that most parishes frankly ignored the singing of the Mass Propers altogether. About twenty years prior, Pope Saint Pius X issued forth his monumental directive on sacred music, Tra le sollecitudini. Its chief aim, to restore Gregorian chant as the normative form of music in the western Church and cull profane, secular, or overly operatic pieces from church around the world, was met with a respectable degree of success; certainly with magnitudes more obedience than any papal document to come from Rome since Vatican II.

Nonetheless, while most parishes in England had succeeded in at least implementing something the Missa de Angelis for Sundays, they were overwhelmed with the demands of Rome that the Propers (the variable sung portions of Mass, such as the Introit and Offertory antiphons; sometimes called the "minor propers" to distinguish them from the variable parts used by the celebrating priest alone, such as the Collect and Preface) be sung from its approved Vatican Gradual: the primary source for the Proper chants which are found in the Liber Usualis and sung in many Latin Mass communities today. Musicians trained in the reading and interpretation of Gregorian chant were as few and far between in those days as now, but they also had no Internet to make up the difference, nor even chant CD's to know what plainsong might authentically sound like. The more faithful directors arranged to have the Propers sung according to psalm tones or in a monotone, but the rest just ignored them altogether.

At the end of the submission period, The Tablet determined that the received entries were all so unhelpful, off-topic, or downright bad that the title and prize simply could not be given out without diminishing the paper's good name. Still, the essays printed give a glimpse at the worries of the early 20th century church choir and the remedies they chose, and a few are amusing. One essay in particular is outstandingly funny and will be reposted in full at the bottom of this entry. But as you read through these, you see that the choirs' concerns from ages past are not so different from those who sing at Latin Masses today. Anyone who's sung in an intermediate or advanced schola knows well the "weekly grind": the hour, two hours, or even more required to rehearse the Propers for that Sunday alone, only to forget them until the same Sunday next year. Once your schola upgrades to full Propers, you find yourself with little time to ever learn new Ordinaries or anything else. But, do you dare revert to the bad old days of psalm-toning? Once you attain mastery of the full cycle of Propers, it's hard to go back to anything less.

On whether hired choristers are less devout than volunteers

"It must not be taken for granted that volunteers are necessarily and invariably more unselfish and high-minded than paid singers. Many a recipient of a quarterly cheque, which rarely covers more than his out-of-pocket expenses, is truly anxious that Almighty God shall be worthily praised in His temple. On the other hand, many a volunteer joins a choir because he takes pleasure in hearing himself sing; or because the choir-gallery is an informal part of the church, where you can be inattentive during the sermon ; or even (according to credible report) to dodge the collection." [MM: guilty as charged on this one. I remember a slight sense of indignation once when I sang at a church and saw an usher come up to pass the collection plate around the organ loft]

On the importance of training grown men to sing chant

"The difficulty of inducing certain grown-up Catholics, who describe themselves as 'passionately fond of music,' to content themselves with truly ecclesiastical music, even in Advent and Lent, has caused some earnest priests to drop ordinary mixed choirs of adults altogether, and to rely on picked bodies of children, who sing sweetly and chastely the Missa de Angelis and a plainchant Credo. This is good as far as it goes. [MM: Indeed, though I prefer adult or mixed boys'/men's voices, have sung the Missa de Angelis enough for a lifetime, and am rather skeptical of all the pre-conciliar romanticism around photos of "sweet altar boys", it's hard to picture a children's choir singing these chants as anything other than heavenly.] But although 'praise is perfected out of the mouths of babes and sucklings,' it is clearly fitting that the voices of grown-up persons should swell the song. 

"We must not encourage the scoffer who says that Catholicism is mainly soprano—a religion for women and children and not for men in the fullness of their manhood." [MM: What a relief to hear someone saying this almost one hundred years ago.]

Choirmastering: an age-old balancing act

"It is extremely difficult to be level-headed on the subject of music; and when a question of ecclesiastical music and propriety is touched, the fire of controversy leaps high. A member of a church congregation tells you the choir is all awry and the music too operatic, while his friend in the next pew gives as many reasons as to why the music is too gloomy and lifeless, and so on. 

"In fact, I suppose the ideal musical director would be the man who could satisfy both extremes and who could steer his course without offence to either party. Indeed, since 'operatics' in church were authoritatively discouraged, and since the entrance of plainchant as a rival to modern musical tendencies, the choirmaster's task has been a severe and unenviable one. Popular prejudices in favour of the operatic style, hard and unwise insistence on the omission of anything except Gregorian chant, have greyed the hair of many a man before his time." 

--by H.W.R. Lillie, S.J. (Saint Mary's Hall, Stonyhurst)
October 18, 1924

Needed: a professor of plainchant

"Very often he [the choirmaster] is at a disadvantage on account of his business occupations, or else his knowledge of music is so scanty that it will not bear presuming upon. No one, too, will deny that to render the chant well demands great skill and patience both in those who undertake to sing it and in the conducting of it. 

"A possible solution would be the institution of summer schools in central districts where those Who are keen to begin could attend. This seems quite a practical way out of the difficulty. Self-sacrificing teachers would, I am sure, lend their assistance to the furtherance of the cause. If summer (or vacation) schools were formed in each diocese, the standard would assuredly be raised. 

"Another plan would be the setting aside in each diocese of a competent musician who could travel round and give instruction where it was needed. A time would come when the appointment of choirmasters could he regulated, and those only who had sufficient experience and knowledge would be appointed. 

"Perhaps we shall see the day when a 'Professor of Plainchant' will have a chair in our larger seminaries and colleges—to say nothing of a Catholic college of music!" 

--from the same column by Lillie above

The real Propers: too hard to even bother with

"Our Holy Mother the Church has most wisely decreed that Whenever a Mass is sung, then the choir shall not only sing those portions of the Mass called the Ordinary, but also the Proper parts which vary according to the feasts. By a large and well-trained choir, such a task as singing the Proper in the official melodies of the Church, i.e., the Vatican chant, can be easily and gracefully performed, and we all know how delightful it is to hear the Proper of the Mass as sung, for instance, at Westminster Cathedral, whilst there are numerous other churches in London and the Provinces where the Vatican proper is very meritoriously rendered. But for a small and voluntary choir to do likewise would be entirely out of the question and should not even be attempted."  

--by the Rev. R.J. Simpson (Domodossola, Italy)
October 25, 1924

Volunteer choirs are destroying the liturgy

"To begin with, the writer cannot help uttering a protest against the very existence of the volunteer choir, viewing it as a form of musical frightfulness which has done more than any other agency to relegate the splendour of the Catholic liturgy to a state of innocuous abeyance and wellnigh oblivion. Let me state with all possible emphasis that if our clergy desire singing which will be a fitting concomitant to the descent of our Divine Lord upon our altars, it must be bought and paid for just the same as are magnificent edifices, golden chalices, costly vestments, and indeed all the other appurtenances of the Divine Sacrifice." 

--by James P. Dunn, U.S.A.
November 8, 1924

Comments from a musically literate outsider looking in

"I am not a Catholic—not even an Anglo—but I frequently attend Catholic churches, and can find my place in the book better than some of the faithful. It may interest you to know that many choirs settle the problem of the Proper of the Mass by leaving it severely alone. Some of them give creditable performances of those parts of the Mass which are sung in the same words every Sunday, but they simply pass over the variable Proper. Perhaps there is a special dispensation for Great Britain, but nobody can refer inquirers to its date and scope. You, Sir, have stated without qualification that the Proper must never be omitted from a sung Mass. I could name the defaulting choirs but I don't want to play the informer—to have it on my conscience that choirmasters have been dragged in chains to Rome. Besides, I admit that the Proper, in a majority of churches, is a trial to musical hearers, and that, more often than not, I am glad when it is skipped. Excuse a heretic's intrusion." 
-by T.T.W.
November 8, 1924

No one cares about liturgy

"I think most priests will agree with me that the laity, taken as a whole, are not much interested in the Liturgy as such. Suggestions from the pulpit that the laity should follow the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from the missal in the vernacular—opportunities for which are by no means lacking at the present day—are listened to but seldom acted upon. For some reason or other the beautiful simplicity and grandeur of the liturgical prayers is set aside, and the exaggerated complexity of most of our devotional books is preferred. After all, truth in all its beauty is to be found in the simple and straightforward. 

"This is a pity. An interest in the Liturgy leads to investigation and, eventually, to a correct interpretation of the mind of the Church. To give an example, the Introit of Midnight Mass at Christmas speaks of the eternal generation of the Son from the Father, and, be it noted, the chant corresponds perfectly with that idea. Compare with this the Introit of the third Mass, a few hours later, and note the contrast. In other words, the Proper of the Mass when understood in the vernacular by the laity reconciles them to the style of chant employed for a particular Sunday or feast. How often have we heard the remark: 'What an uninteresting Introit for Christmas!' It is clear that what is lacking is a true interpretation of the Liturgical Mind of the Church. Given an interest in and a fair grasp of the meaning of the liturgical words, the rendering of the Proper would be vastly different from what it has been."  

-by the Rev. Richard Arscott, Southsea
November 15, 1924

They've used psalm-tones so exclusively that the youngsters think this is all Gregorian chant really is

"On making inquiry, our colleague was informed that this method of executing the Proper [MM: that is, of psalm-toning everything, even the Easter and Pentecost sequences] had obtained at the church in question for very many years, without variation. Indeed, he computed that the same chant had been used over two thousand times, and he found that some of the younger people in the congregation regarded it as 'official' music, equal in authority to the strains associated with Sursum corda and the Paternoster. In short, this kind of Proper was looked upon as the thorns besetting the mystical roses of Holy Mass. A discreet investigation revealed the lamentable fact that, although the case above described was an exceptionally bad one, the Proper is not in a good way. There are many churches where, in flat disobedience to the command of the Church, the Proper was quietly dropped so long ago that hardly anyone remembers a time when it was sung. In certain other places it is voted a nuisance by choir and congregation alike, and is perfunctorily rattled off (monotone or chanted) at express speed. Where more conscientiousness prevails, the week-night preparation of the Proper is often a bugbear to the choir, and its Sunday execution is a torture to the congregation."
--from the "Summing Up" conclusion, leading up to the first excerpt I posted
November 22, 1924

One essay by a certain Canon Reginald Vaughan stands out for its sheer delightful absurdity. Vaughan was apparently a liturgical purist of the highest sort: if an all-male choir can't be had, then it's low Mass for you. (Though strangely, it's equally acceptable to use a gramophone for music at low Mass as it is to use female singers.) It's a textbook case of letting the great become the enemy of the good, but he argues so effectively and hilariously for it that you almost want to believe.

-------------------

"A voluntary choir is, I presume, the same as an amateur choir of people who sing, not because they are paid, but because they like it. A professional choir sings because other people like it, or they would not pay. Sometimes the other people like the singing of the amateur choir, but that is when they do not think they could do better themselves, and that is when time and trouble have been spent on music. Yet the choir must not sing to please. The people's likes and dislikes can be an indication of good and bad, but only when the people are musically wise. Nor should the choir sing to edify; that will take care of itself if they sing for the love of God and music, because He is honoured when they give their best. To offer one's best means taking trouble and spending time. It also means spending money for copies—not home-made copies of copyright music, for that is an injustice to composer and publisher, and cannot rightly be offered to God. Some schools and even convents seem to be without conscience in this matter. It would be a good thing to have one or two of the richer ones well prosecuted and heavily fined. [MM: perhaps GIA Publications should start up a canonization cause for this guy.] 

"Now where sung Mass is concerned, these amateurs must be men or boys, or both. I say must, because the Pope says so. 'Women cannot be admitted,' he says. [MM: Vaughan is merely quoting from Pius X's Tra le sollecitudini directly here.] The choir must be composed of clerics, or of those who are capable of being clerics. This has been perfectly clear for twenty-one years, and yet I believe there are places where Mass is sung, Proper and all, by 'mixed' choirs, in open defiance of the law. They plead 'necessity'; but, surely, a place where there are not enough men or boys is a place where 'necessity' should compel them to keep the law, and do without a sung Mass. 'Low Mass with music' is another thing; this music is not liturgical, and may perhaps be performed by women or gramophones.  [MM: or, in our century, perhaps chant played through an iPhone connected to speakers? I once visited an historic downtown church with just such an arrangement. I also heard the phone's ringtone echo throughout the nave when it started to receive an incoming call.] The matter rests with the celebrant. If he sings 'Dominus vobiscum,' the women must keep silence, for it is a Missa Cantata, and they are liturgically 'incapable' of singing 'Et cum spiritu tuo.' I do not know how nuns manage; but then, they are not voluntary choirs in the sense of this discussion. 

Besides, women almost invariably wobble. They have been spoken to very seriously by the highest authorities about this disgusting vice, and they have heard Dame Clara Butt. And yet, where there are women who profess to sing, you shall be driven half crazy by their everlasting 'vibrato' as they call it. And worse, they do it in church, and you cannot get away. They take an unfair advantage of your compulsory presence, and scarify your long-suffering ears with their horrible accomplishment, till you begin to think the deafness of Beethoven would be a blessing. Pius X knew a thing or two. This prohibition is the clearest thing in the whole 'Motu Proprio.' [MM: I read that Rome was issuing dispensations to allow female singers within days of the motu proprio's release.]

If sopranos are wanted, we must have boys. Now your boy, at his best, is peerless. But short of his best—even when he is not a mere squalling infant—is he worth the trouble? For he is the most difficult of all wind-instruments, and you have to get a new one every three years, and begin all over again. To get the best results out of boys, and perhaps the only results really worth having, you must run a choir-school--and then the choir is not voluntary. [MM: I don't understand why every Catholic cathedral on earth doesn't have a choir school attached to it. Actually, never mind; I do know why. I just don't like the answer.]

Singing is natural in men and birds. The man who cannot sing is defective, physically, mentally, or morally. [MM: Amen. Alleluia. It is written.]

He has no mouth, or is feeble in his wits, or is wanting in courage. Ask a man if he sings, and the answer is usually in the negative. But his wife has heard him in the bath room, and knows better. He means that he is not a drawingroom warbler—and a good thing, too. Your drawing-room warbler squeezes his wind-pipe and blocks his nose and does several other pachycephalous things under the delusion that it sounds nice. Sometimes he is so monumental an idiot that he tries to wobble. We do not want the drawing room voice in church. We want the bath-room voice. A man cannot add a cubit to his stature, an octave to his compass, or a Caruso-quality to his top note. But he can be a good man of his inches, and can use the voice God gave him without affectation, which is idolatry. An ugly voice, honestly used, is better for church-singing than a pretty one faked up to show off. However, very few men's voices are ugly, when they are allowed to work in their own natural simple unsophisticated way. [MM: All true. When your average American "dude" protests that he can't sing a lick, it's more of a cultural barrier or a lack of actually trying. I apply this to myself as well. I believe if I earnestly tried to study maths like my life depended on it, I could probably, eventually figure it out.]

Take the man who says he has never sung in his life, tell him to take a deep-sea diver's breath, open his mouth wide, and, while you play the chord of G major with all the stops out, let rip whatever comes. He will probably yell G or B or D, and be surprised at the music there is in him. He will soon learn, unless he be defective, to handle the joy-sticks of his vocal machinery, and let out notes of any pitch within his range, loud or soft. The less he thinks about quality of tone the better. Teach him to open his mouth, to avoid all sensation of tightness in the muscles of his head, to pronounce his vowels correctly and his consonants distinctly; warn him solemnly against Reginarangelorum and Hosannarinexcelsis, and the quality will take care of itself. As for reading, anyone who has mastered the mystery of deciphering The Tablet can learn to read a line of diatonic melody. It is not easy at first, of course, especially when others are singing different tunes, but few things are that are worth doing. 

Of accompaniment, the great thing is to be able to do without it. Who was the criminal lunatic who first said the organ was to 'lead the singing'? Surely he was a Protestant—probably a Lutheran. Yet God brings good out of evil, and we have the Big Organ and J. S. B. (By the way, cannot some one of our historical pundits put in some good work and find out that Bach was a Catholic? They have nearly done it for Shakespeare.) [MM: See Joseph Pearce's many recent books on this subject, such as The Quest for Shakespeare.] And I suppose that, as for this people that knoweth not the law, the Holy Instrument must condescend to lead their artless hymns. Most of them sing the 'treble'; women and children at correct pitch (when in tune), men an octave lower, as is natural and not wrong. Sometimes a woman, or a boy who thinks he is clever, will sing 'seconds,' which, I understand, is the tune three notes down the scale. Or a woman with a music-book (and a wobble) executes the tenor part higher up. The deeper-voiced men supply what they call 'bass,' instinctively following the progression of roots where it is obvious, and doing any old thing where it is not. Some, I have observed, reverting to the Hucbald type, sing in fourths or fifths, while others are like the late Dr. Benson, as recorded by his son: 'He produced a buzzing noise that bore no relation to any known melody.' And occasions are not unknown when three versions of the same tune, each with its own set of variations as above, may be heard simultaneously. Under such conditions it is not a sin to try to bring unity out of multiplicity, order out of chaos, by using the organ for a purpose for which it was not originally intended. But popular hymn-roaring is not Liturgy. The choir that cannot sing without its organ is not worthy to be called a choir. At certain times the organ is supposed to be silent. If the Church allows it then to be played softly to 'support the voices' it is a concession to human weakness of which Englishmen should be ashamed to avail themselves. A pitch-pipe is all the organ they should need. 

But so wedded are we to the organ and so dependent upon it that, if on a Sunday the wind should fail, either the choir goes all to pieces, or, if it has been properly taught and continues as if nothing had happened, the people gape with astonishment at the marvel.
In places where they cannot afford an organ there is never any question but they must spend good money on some nasty substitute, perhaps one of the things called harmoniums—a dismal piece of furniture from the interior of which one squeezes gruesome sounds suggestive of pain in the abdomen. Unclean though it is, however, there is a certain blatant honesty about the thing that renders it less utterly loathsome than the horrible contraption known as 'American organ.' [MM: Many Americans have come to terms with these abominations by simply allowing them to fall into disrepair and disuse permanently. In Philadelphia, we have churches whose organs have been busted for decades! Unfortunately, they've done just the same to the good organs, too.] One of the mysteries of our complex life is to account for the unblushing presence in Catholic churches of this meretricious abomination, that pretends to be a big thing on a small scale, and panders to corrupt taste with its vulgar 'grand' effects, and flaunts its painted pipe-top in front of an altar built of soap-boxes. Were I a Bishop-----! [MM: God knows how many times I've said "were I a bishop" in my short lifetime.] One row of good diapasons is better for all church purposes than the largest 'reed-organ' ever made, and would cost less. 

Now what Proper of the Mass shall our men sing? I will say at once and boldly—not the Vatican Gradual. They will inevitably spoil it. It is much too difficult for any but experts in that style. It is a wonderful collection of oneline songs, and this kind of music, perhaps more than any other, is either very good or very bad, according to the way it is done—Corruptio optimi pessima. Compare 'Home, Sweet Home,' as Patti used to sing it, with the same simple melody rendered by a gang of Chinese coolies. Most Englishmen, though able to sing modern 'figured' music very well, would extract a din quite as hideous out of the Vatican Gradual. I have heard plainchant that, if it were broadcasted without introduction, might be taken for steers waiting to be bulldogged. And we wonder why there are people to whom plainchant 'does not appeal,' and why England does not get converted. Is it a great wonder, when we show them the noise of a cow-yard, and say, 'This, my brethren, is the Church's own music'? There is a vulgar notion that plainchant is easy, because it is in unison. Of course, it is easier to read one line than two, but you might as well say that, for this reason, it is easy to play the cello. Try I can well believe that it takes ten years to train a monk to sing, though he may practise every day. But our men are business men with families in potentia if not in actu, and it means much to come out of an evening after a day's work. 

They will, however, if they are interested. And they will be interested if something worth singing is put before them, something not too foreign to their taste, something that needs work to make it go well. Also, if their attention is not distracted, and their valuable time wasted by the presence of a bevy of ladies or a cage of boys. 

And they will be more than interested if they realize the dignity of their office, which places them next in official importance to the clergy themselves. 

We must, then, find something worth singing well that can be got up in a short time. It would do many choirs a great deal of good to practise monotone. A 'reciting note' is by no means easy to do neatly. You get this kind of thing :—Dodomiminominussssfofortitityoudoodopleplebississyouay. 

Your men may be excellent as individuals, but they are not a good choir till they can sing all together on one note :— Dominus fortitudo plebis suae, like one large man. 

The Proper can be set to the conventional psalm-tunes. It is not very interesting, but quite good when well done, i.e., when they 'recite' as above, when every man knows what tune is going to be sung, where the inflexions are to occur, and which commas are to be observed.

[MM: I've removed some of Vaughan's more technical commentary here on method, but you can see it, with the musical notation, in the original scan of the article on The Tablet's website.] 

But we can do better. Dr. Tozer published a book of Propers for mixed voices. He has used the 'recitingnote' freely, and, especially at the ends of phrases, divided the text into regular measures. The result is often pleasing, not unlike an 'Anglican Chant' without its woodenness. For men's voices, of course, these pieces have to be adapted. And here, if space permit, I would digress a little on the surprising ignorance of many who 'do the singing' in church. They do not seem to know that when a man sings 'treble' he sings an octave below what is written. Consequently, if two tenor-men and two bass-men sing something written for soprano, alto, tenor and bass, the tenor will frequently get above the soprano, and the bass above the alto. Chords get inverted, and there may be consecutive fifths. Thus: the most practical Propers for voluntary choirs will probably be on lines somewhat similar to those followed by Dr. Tozer. [MM: Jeff Ostrowski posted a scan of the Tozer Propers online for the first time ever, I believe, in 2014. They were first published in 1905, a couple years after Pius X's motu proprio, to allow choirs unfamiliar with chant to comply with the requirement of singing the Propers by setting them to harmony, sort of like Anglican chant. You can view them here.] 

Some of the texts are very refractory, but art thrives under restriction. It is an opportunity for our musicians to show their mettle, a test of musicianship worthy of the greatest composers. What, for example, would Sir Edward Elgar make of the Offertory for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost? 

These pieces must be less difficult to sing well than the Vatican Gradual. They may be with or without accompaniment, for 'mixed' (boys' and men's) or for 'equal' voices; for one voice, or two, or more. There must be no undue repetitions, and, as the Frog tactlessly remarked when asking Mrs. Mouse to sing (did she wobble?), 'Let it be something that's not very long.' Let our music-makers, then, get first to prayer, and then to work and compose Propers. The monks of St. Gall did it, and we also have gifts of music by the same Spirit, together with larger resources and more science. Let them design musical miniatures, joyous vignettes of contrapuntal tracery, or strong gems of harmony, like the chasing and the jewels that adorn the chalice. With prayer and work, perseverance and a pure intention, our Parochial High Mass will become a source of interest and reasonable pride for choir and people, and a joy in Heaven." 

--by the Rev. Reginald Vaughan, C.R.L.
October 11, 1924

Quasimodo Sunday and the eyes of Notre-Dame

I have a semi-frequently observed tradition of watching Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame every year on the first Sunday after Easter (also called Low Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter, the Octave Day of Easter, Dominica in albis, etc., etc.). What on earth does Easter have to do with a Disney cartoon, you may ask? The answer lies in the traditional Introit chant for this day, also called Quasimodo Sunday:

Quasimodo geniti infantes, alleluia: rationabiles, sine dolo lac concupiscite, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. 

As newborn babes, alleluia: desire the rational milk without guile, alleluia, alleluia, alleluia. (1 Peter 2:2)

Today's header picture, featuring the text of today's Introit in a finely illuminated form on a manuscript, was taken from the video recording below.

That incipit, a compound of the Latin quasi and modo, has been reduced to as mere "as" in the English translation; but a more literal take might be "as if, in a way" or "almost the standard of measure". Thus, in Victor Hugo's 1831 novel Notre-Dame de Paris ("The Hunchback of Notre Dame"), when Claude Frollo discovers a misshapen baby abandoned on the steps of the cathedral, he bestows the name Quasimodo with a twofold meaning: first for having been found on the Sunday after Easter, but also for appearing "as if, in a way", a human being...

The opening sequence of the Disney version, like the rest of the film, is so different from the book that there's barely any resemblance, but that in no way stops it from being a masterpiece of song and animation. In the movie, Frollo is not the archdeacon but a secular magistrate, while the archdeacon is made into a separate, more benevolent character. This Frollo slays a Gypsy woman on the steps of the cathedral in pursuit and is about to toss her baby into a nearby well until:

"for one time in his life of power and control,
Frollo felt a twinge of fear for his immortal soul."

When Hugo wrote the novel, his readers, unless they were very old, had to imagine what the "eyes of Notre Dame" looked like because most of the statues had been destroyed by the plebeian vandals of the French Revolution. Indeed, this was precisely the reason the book was written in the first place: to bring a sense of cultural awareness to Notre-Dame's value at a time when the civil authorities were thinking of having the grand old (disrepaired) edifice torn down entirely. The statues we see resting on the western facade today are, thanks in part to Hugo's efforts, restorations made by Viollet-le-Duc, the famed restorer of the Sainte-Chapelle.

Some of the statues, refashioned in the mid-19th century by Gothic revivalist Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, will be shown in Disneyfied form below....

"You can lie to yourself and your minions; you can claim that you haven't a qualm.
But you never can run from nor hide what you've done from the eyes: the very eyes of Notre Dame" (Kyrie eleison)

These are from the Gallery of Kings: 28 kings of Israel and Judah, representing Christ's and our Lady's royal ancestors through the line of David. They were commonly assumed by the people, however, to be ancient kings of France, so they were all decapitated and buried during the Revolution.

One of many representations of the Virgin and Child throughout the cathedral. This one stands outside in front of the rose window.

An excellent photo of the Viollet-le-Duc restoration as found on this site.

And, of course, you owe this post a viewing of the film's opening sequence, if you've never seen it before....

The Latin Mass in Pennsylvania's capital

Last weekend, we sojourned out to central Pennsylvania to visit my grandmother-in-law, so while we were out there, we thought it would be a good idea to visit the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter's (FSSP's) chapel in Harrisburg for Sunday Mass.

The chapel of Saint Lawrence is situated beside the muddy--err, mighty Susquehanna River, as well as the foot of a grand avenue leading up to the steps of the Pennsylvania State Capitol building. The Capitol looks quite magnificent from the outside (when President Teddy Roosevelt dedicated it in 1906, he called it "the handsomest building I ever saw"), and I intend to visit it the next time we're in the city. It bewilders me that Madame, a lifelong Pennsylvanian, hasn't yet done her duty as a loyal citizen of the Commonwealth and toured the place. (A native Texan wouldn't dare dream of reaching their 20's without visiting the State Capitol building in Austin.)

Pennsylvania's Capitol complex is so big, in fact, that the Commonwealth bought up the old Saint Lawrence, a parish church built by a German Catholic community, and demolished it for expansions. The current Saint Lawrence was finished in 1918 in the same Gothic style as its predecessor, but as far as I can tell, was never returned to parish status. It became a chapel for the nearby cathedral of the Harrisburg diocese. Over the years, that old German community fizzled out and the chapel collected dust until 2005, when the bishop that year gave the building to the FSSP. Unofficially, I've read that the primary motive was mostly to allow the diocese to compete with an independent priest in York rather than for altruism, but I can't confirm it. Whatever the reasons were, the Fraternity has made good use of the property and placed the old Latin Mass right in the middle of a busy metropolis; a refreshing change from the usual state of affairs, where bishops or the laws of economics sentence Latin Mass communities to death by suburbia.

Wonderful iconography around the Mary altar.

We arrived early enough for me to take a look around the building. The church appeared to be a sturdy Gothic edifice of plaster and stone, and filled with stained-glass, altarpieces, and all the other usual furnishings that we've apparently forgotten how to make over the last century. My only gripes were with the floor tiling which looked like those you'd find in an old Pizza Hut, and the small sanctuary; though, to be fair, even ugly tiling is better than the carpeting I got used to at so many Latin Masses in Texas, and virtually no Catholic parish in America has a properly sized sanctuary with a chancel. As I studied the architecture, the congregation was praying the Rosary, and a few were in line for confessions. It wasn't packed to standing room only, but all the pews were respectably filled out with few gaps in between. Throw in a bunch of lace veils, and it was like stepping back into a Catholicism that virtually no longer exists, even though these sights and sounds were still the norm within my mother-in-law's memory.

Yes, these signs are here for a reason!

At 10, sung Mass begun with the priest and servers processing from the front door of the church to a processional hymn from the Collegeville Hymnal. As with most other Catholic churches in our country, hymnody wasn't one of the more cherished traditions here, so only a few people actually sang. With that done, the celebrating priest began the Asperges and Mass flawlessly. The choir, an all-male schola of five or six guys, made all the responses alone. Though I knew they existed, this was the first time I actually attended Mass with an entirely silent congregation (save for the ones at Clear Creek Abbey, an unusual circumstance). Even at the diocesan TLM where I lived previously, where the vast majority of people weren't much interested in singing the Ordinary of the Mass as a congregation, you could still squeeze some et cum spiritu tuo's out of them. Even the basic responses at Saint Lawrence, though, were sung by the schola alone, albeit done well. They also sang the complete Missa Orbis Factor, even the Gloria, and all the minor propers according to the full melodies in the Liber Usualis.

To be honest, I spent the greater part of Mass in the narthex holding our daughter, who was by far the noisiest person there. From what I could tell going in and out, though, Mass proceeded just as you would expect from a society of priests dedicated to preserving the traditional liturgy; no funny business whatsoever. Another priest, not the celebrant, preached the homily. The substance was a solid, hold-no-punches tour of the errors of religious liberty and the French Revolution, probably timed to precede France's annual celebration of that jailbreak in 1789; perhaps so punchy and replete with quotes going back to Pope Pius VII that one who wasn't already well-formed in the Church's traditional teachings would lose a tooth. I didn't have the heart to ask my mother-in-law, who Madame dragged out with us (and hadn't even attended a TLM since Vatican II), what she thought of the homily afterward. In fact, if such homilies are a normal occurrence at this chapel, I'm surprised the bishop still allows them to operate at all.

The beautiful, but small, sanctuary.

After the last Gospel, the priest and servers exited the church to another English hymn. This time, I made sure to grab a hymnal and turn to the right page, even with baby in tow, but again, not too many other singers. There was, however, still a fundamental difference between how the recessional hymn was treated here versus my old diocesan TLM community back home. In San Antonio, everyone starts filing out as soon as the priest passes the last pew while the choir alone sings two verses of the hymn. There's not even a pretense of trying. But in Harrisburg, although only a few people bothered singing, everyone still stayed standing in their places until all four verses were done. There was, at least, a respect for the hymn's place.

Servers putting the sanctuary in order after Mass.

Following the thanksgiving prayers and so on, I took a few pictures of the church and followed the congregation to the basement, where a farewell reception was being held for their outgoing chaplain, the same one who celebrated Mass. Other than the priests themselves, the people weren't very chatty with newcomers, so I only got to ask two laypeople about the church's history. The schola director actually looked about the same age as me, and I learned he started singing chant around the same time I did. We talked a bit about music, I had a dessert or two, then headed out.

Look at this excellent wooden ceiling!

In leaving, I realized the most unusual thing of all about this community, compared to other TLM venues: there were no female choir members. Usually, the music for sung Masses is provided by a mixed choir of adult men and women (more women than not), or a choir mostly of women augmented by a small men's schola for the proper chants. Although I'm a big proponent of congregational singing, I thought on my way out that perhaps the reason this church was content to leave all the singing to the schola was because the all-male responses, combined with the reverberation from the stone walls and non-carpeted floor, gave the sacred music a strong air of the monastic. I can't say I blame them for not wanting to "ruin" it, at least.

It's not every day that you see even the organ's pipes adorned in Gothic at an American Catholic church.