Beautiful Music
by Fred Schaeffer, OFS
Music is in the beholder's ear. What may be beautiful music for me could be downright ugly for someone who abhors classical music. Music and song helps calm us and prepare us for liturgy, prayer and reflection. But again, if you're in love with heavy metal, church music might sound odd to you. In the days of Saint Gregory, Gregorian chant was "in." Later there were the classics, and particularly relevant to church music were composers such as Buxtehude, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed principally for the organ, an instrument still widely used in churches, except that with the cost of church organs many churches defer to electronic keyboards which imitate organ and other instruments rather well.
Ah, the good old days! About twenty years ago, when I still lived in Petersham, Massachusetts with the monks, we went to daily Mass at a Benedictine Abbey down the road. https://www.stmarysmonastery.org/ What a joy that was. Benedictines (OSB) are known for their liturgies. Liturgy is their charism and they are particularly good at it. Holy Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours were celebrations of sound, specifically Gregorian Chant sung to perfection. If there's anything I miss about Petersham it's the beautiful Sacred music I was privileged to hear every day.
The choir at EWTN nowadays also does a particularly good job. More about that later. At my current parish church in Vero Beach, Florida, I participate in a choir as a bass. Contemporary Catholic Church music may contain some Gregorian Chant but for the most part, we sing chorale compositions from 20th-21st century composers and church hymns. These are beautiful also, particularly if sung in four voice harmony (Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass or Baritone).
St. Augustine told the world that "Singing is praying twice!" Do not laugh, but I sing a lot, even at home by myself. When I pray the Liturgy of the Hours (as a Secular Franciscan we have a duty to pray this or a similar daily "office"), I may sing the Gospel canticle or a psalm or two. Perhaps it is fortunate I live alone so that I am not disturbing anyone, but I knew a happily married couple who sang these prayers together. To me, there is something Godly about music, particularly prayerful and calm music. “The music of the angels.” I hope very much that when we get to heaven we will find beautiful music. I suspect that when we are in Heaven totally involved in God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we will not worry about what it sounds like but we will be so overcome with love that it sounds like heavenly music. We'll be praising God continually and since there will be no more pain and suffering it will be just great. When people tell you about their conception of heaven, I think there's going to be disappointment, but only for a second. When we see what Heaven is really like, we'll love it. But first we have to get there, and in this day and age one really wonders how on earth anyone will ever get to Heaven. Please pray for each other, that we'll make it. We know God loves us dearly, but we have to love Him back. When we don't pray and when we sin, we don't love Him. And when we know better, and still sin, we don't love Him enough. That's more or less what Saint Bonaventure, the great Franciscan theologian, told the world in his writings.
Music is a way to calm oneself. When you're in church, you listen to the words of the music, and 'pray them in your heart.' Then think of the great musical heritage that came about in the world because of the Catholic Church. It was only through the Church that the Ave Maria, the Hail Mary, in Latin, came about as a musical piece, and the composition you hear most often was composed jointly by Bach and by Gounod. Other parts of Liturgy came about in the same way. It is a blessing and, for me at least, it is pure joy to listen to choirs sing, to music on CD's and to my own feeble attempt on my keyboard. I never read music (for keyboard) well, the older I get the more I forget. Music definitely brings me closer to God!
Now we come to the end of the story, the 2020 COVID19 Pandemic. This was a 5-months, or longer, time away from the Sacraments, away for public participation in Holy Mass, and away from singing in the choir. To fill that gap, in part, many of us listened to and watched EWTN, and that’s where my earlier reference to their beautiful choir comes in.
From a beautiful article in the Catholic Register: “Derek Paul Kluz, the director of the choir of the Eternal Word Television Network, director of music, organist and master of the choirs, makes it very clear: “When you tune in to one of the many outlets for viewing or hearing EWTN’s daily Mass, be assured the choir is thinking of you, the viewer, and is very appreciative of your prayers for our sustentation and spiritual health.”(1) EWTN’s daily “live” Mass airs at 8:00 AM ET, and repeats during the day. I include them in my daily prayers.
Participation in Easter and/or Christmas Concerts at St. Helen (Vero Beach, FL) has been a joyful experience. It takes weeks of practice but it is also a lot of fun. The choir is sort of a big family. I started singing with the St. Helen’s Charismatic Prayer Group Music Ministry. Then one day, around 1992, I visited the church and there was our music group director, Carolyn Dean. And she said: “So you’ve come to join the choir.” Well, I wasn’t there for that purpose at all, but I thought “What a nice idea!” I joined. My singing really began many years before. Let’s see: I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old, I attended a Dutch boarding school in the Netherlands. I sang there as a soprano. Don’t laugh! Little Dutch boys often have high voices, and then one’s voice “breaks” and we become tenors or basses. I recall, we sang in the choir loft, in front of a great pipe organ, and the director was “frater Venantius” (not sure of his name anymore, but he was a religious man with the “Fraters of Tilburg” a Dutch order. I left there when I was 12 and two years later we immigrated to USA. My next singing was as a member of the Capuchin Order, Postulancy and Noviate, although I barely recall that since I was only 21 or 22. That vocation did not go anywhere but much later in life, now with the OFM’s in Cincinatti, when I was 55, I sang in a little choir there at Mass with a very gifted lady director, and may have sung in their novitiate too. Then back in Vero Beach after 5 years a monk where our community walked to the Benedictines and reveled in Sacred sounds. Why did I leave all that? In hindsight I have no idea but Our Lord wanted me to be back in Vero Beach. Still singing, if this Pandemic will ever stop.
Local churches, including St. Helen in Vero Beach, have made arrangements for “streaming Masses” which works particularly well. There we can hear singing by our own talented choir director, Dolores Mark, accompanied by one or more other singers. Currently only two members of choir are allowed to participate due to COVID19 regulation, which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It severely limits the beauty of the chorale pieces, requiring four voices.
Let’s continue to make beautiful music by voice or instrument, for the Glory of God!
Peace and all Good!
Fred Schaeffer, OFS
Written 9/27/2002, revised 6/23/2020. This was bro. Fred’s 111th reflection in 2002. I’ve lost count how much I have written probably upwards of 700 essays. I keep the old reflections to repeat them or use parts of them in new reflections.
1. Ref. “EWTN’s TV Mass Choir Lifts Hearts With Heavenly Song.” Posted by Joseph Pronechen on Sunday Mar 22nd, 2020 at 12:57 PM. Subtitle: “Sacred music is needed more than ever amid the coronavirus crisis.”
