Today the Sacred Music Colloquium of the Church Music Association of America concluded with a high Mass (novus ordo, ad orientem) in the Crypt Chapel of Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.  I felt like I was back on familiar turf throughout the week, as my husband and I used to visit the Shrine often for Mass and Confession when we lived in Maryland for a few years.

I had not ventured into the depths of Catholic University, however, until now.  I spent most of the week in the auditorium of Caldwell Hall.  Many of those hours were spent under the fierce yet fun direction of Horst Buchholz, the VP of the Church Music Association whose real job is directing the music program and being chief organist at the cathedral in Denver, CO.  In his free time he also directs the Denver Philharmonic Orchestra.  (He has a cool German accent, and my husband says he sounds like Gunter from the HBO series "From the Earth to the Moon.")  He has taken his cathedral choir to Salzburg... twice. They were the only American choir to be invited back for the event they sang at, possibly attributed to the fact they sang their Latin German-style... though I'm sure it might have had a little to do with the sheer talent of the director and the discipline he imposes on his choir.  He was the director of the polyphony pieces during the colloquium.

The Sacred Music Colloquium began back in 1991. According to one young woman, a few years ago when she attended there were perhaps 60 attendees and there was a good deal more negative emotion in the air, with most people more in favor of reinstituting the Tridentine rite rather than reforming the implementation of the current Missale Romanum.  This year, there was record attendance.  They officially cut off registration at 120, but ultimately wound up with 140 attendees, plus the faculty.  I heard that they could have had twice as many if the accomodations would have allowed it.  While there were many fans of the "Classical Roman Rite" the talks given focused on restoring the sacred to the average American parish, working with baby steps toward the ultimate goal of sacred music called for by the post-concilliar document Musicam Sacram - the sung Mass in Latin.  This is the Mass of Vatican II we are talking about - the same Mass you probably attend on Sunday in English, which almost everywhere is missing the Propers of the Mass, a huge repertoire of sacred music handed down for generations and revived in the last century or so by the monks of Solemnes.  Note, no one was saying we should immediately jump in and impose the Latin chants on a parish used to singing "Gather Us In" and "On Eagles Wings".  But take small measures to at least bring about beauty in the Mass, gradually introduce sacred motets, maybe begin chanting the Communio before or after a Communion hymn, and introduce the congregation the Sanctus and Agnus Dei in Latin.  I know these things can be done, we have done this at my parish.

Why Latin?  This topic came up in a spontaneous discussion during the last session of our chant schola class/rehearsal, taught and directed by Amy Zuberbueler.  I was in the beginner group, since I could not define all the types of neumes off the top of my head and wanted to learn how to transmit this information to our parish's schola, but this meant I was in a group of first-time attendees of the Colloquium who were pretty fired-up by the end of the week and had lots on our minds.  One young woman asked why in particular is Latin the best choice for the liturgy, why does the Church give it pride of place?  Several reasons were mentioned.  Latin is a language reserved for worship... if you walk into a synagogue you hear chanting in Hebrew, not the street language.  If you walk into a Catholic Mass you should hear Latin.  Latin is also universal, connecting us with the Church throughout the world.  It also links us to the heritage of our tradition - Latin is the language of the ages.  We can sing the same chants sung 1500 years ago a the same time during the Mass. 

Taking this further to the whole question of why to restore the tradition of sacred music, meaning the chants of the Graduale Romanum, one young man pointed out that in the 1970s the movement was to invite the popular culture into the liturgy, in the hopes that it would attract more people to Mass and encourage participation.  The movement now is to kick out the pop culture (which as it is represented in todays hymnals is about 30 years out of date) and offer music that is completely opposite to the culture.  What a concept... to say that we would "set ourselves apart" with the music and language we use at Mass - I remember learning from Scott Hahn that to say something is "set apart" is to say that it is holy... that it is SACRED.

There is much more I could share from the colloquium and hopefully will in the future days (the road to hell is paved with good intentions), but one summary statement I can make, my overall impression coming out of the Colloquium:

There is hope for the liturgy, and it is coming from the laity, a nice representation of whom attended this Colloquium.  There is a movement, I believe inspired by the Holy Spirit, of Catholic church musicians whose sensus fidei has been bothering them, telling them something is not right with the state of liturgical music today, and that there must be something more.  They search for what is missing, mostly on the internet, and they find people like the members of the CMAA who are rediscovering the treasury of sacred music, the very same that Pope Benedict XVI is calling us to restore.  And slowly but surely, they are beginning to collaborate, making their discoveries, compositions, and suggestions available for free on the internet, helping each other to implement small changes, baby steps toward restoring a sense of the sacred to the holiest act we can do as a human on this earth: to worship the Lord at Mass.  

You can hear some of the sounds and talks from the colloquium on the CMAA website.