LITMIR.BIZ

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earbuds connected to their iPhones, their pilgrimage to class is punctuated by ear candy intended to either soothe the soul or excite the affections for another day. Whether students (or some of their faculty) are secretly dancing to the music of Taylor Swift or grounded in Mozart’s Jupiter, they’re understanding their world differently through the power of song.

      I came to recognize the interconnection between music and movement while living in Boston during my doctoral studies. On my lengthy walk to class I listened nearly every day to the symphonies of Mozart. Through the power of Mozart’s artistry, the world around me began to open up. I noticed the stunning greenness of the trees, together with the shape of each individual leaf. I attended to the architectural fittingness of the homes that I passed by as I traversed the sidewalks of Newton. The external world, once mere background noise to my inner musings, became a gift through the power of a song that pulled me outside of myself toward the harmony of the universe.

      The Church has recognized the power of music to give this kind of shape to our perception of God’s activity in the world. As we enter into the Mass, as the Church ascends upon her pilgrimage toward the heavenly liturgy of love that is God’s very life, we sing. In fact, the Church has found this singing so important that we have been given both words and a tune to sing as we enter into the celebration of the Mass. The introit (or entrance chant) focuses our attention at the very beginning of Mass upon the mystery that we celebrate during this liturgical season. On the Second Sunday of Advent, we cry out:

      O people of Sion, behold,

      the Lord will come to save the nations,

      and the Lord will make the glory of his voice heard

      in the joy of your heart. (Cf. Is 30:19, 30)

      Here, we recall Israel’s longing that God might act definitively in history. We Christians are to take up this very same posture during the season of Advent, longing for the second coming of our Lord. Already, Jesus comes again into our midst through the joy of singing this song, as the hearts of every believer stretch forth yearning for God’s presence among us. This song of longing for God’s presence, while especially appropriate during Advent, is meant to inform our desires every time we go to Mass.

      The preference for a set chant at the beginning of the Mass is more than a holdover from an “old-fashioned” Catholicism. These introit chants are always taken from the Scriptures. The entrance chant focuses our attention upon the history of presence that God has with the human race. When on the Friday after Ash Wednesday, we cry out,

      The Lord heard and had mercy on me;

      the Lord became my helper (Ps 30[29]:11),

      we join our voices with all of Israel, with the entire history of saints and sinners who have benefited from the merciful love of God. God has forgiven the human family before. God has forgiven me before. And at every Mass, God’s heart of mercy comes forth to greet his prodigal children.

      Of course, few of us hear these entrance chants on a regular basis. Most of our parishes substitute a hymn, one that should have the very same theme as the introit for the day. The problem with many of these published hymns is that they focus too much upon the gathering of the assembly. We end up a singing a rally song about ourselves, about how excellent we are as the Church.

      The entrance song or chant should focus less upon ourselves and more on how the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit has redeemed the human race, gathering us together now to sing a new song to the Lord: “Sing to the LORD a new song; / sing to the Lord, all the earth. / Sing to the LORD, bless his name” (Ps 96:1–2). We gather together to praise the God who is active within human history, not to feel pepped up or to remind God that he has chosen a remarkable people.

       Sing a New Song

      Still, singing is not simply a matter of vocal performance or entertainment for the Christian. Instead, as St. Augustine notes, to sing this new song to the Lord is to commit ourselves to the unity of all humanity that the Church promises. We come into Church with many songs ringing in our ears. We hear the song of war that tells us that the only way toward peace is through the sword. We hear the music of efficiency that reduces women and men to their jobs and income brackets. The orchestra of advertising plays its symphony in which women and men are merely consumers in a world in which happiness can be achieved through acquisition alone.

      In the midst of these unsatisfying songs, we sing a hymn of joy that once again reminds us of our identity as creatures made for praise. We are not first and foremost warriors, workers, or consumers, but women and men created in the image and likeness of God. To sing at the very beginning of Mass is to dispose ourselves toward the worship that we are to offer during the rest of the liturgy. It is to commit ourselves to a form of life in which everything we are, everything that we give, is praise:

      You must praise him with the whole of yourselves. Not only must your tongue and your voice praise God, but your conscience must praise him too, and your life and your deeds. What I mean is this: now, while we are gathered in church, we praise God, but when each of you goes off home it looks as though you cease to praise him. But let each one of you not cease to live a good life, and then he or she will be praising God all the time. You only stop praising God when you swerve from just conduct and what pleases him. If you never turn aside from what is right your tongue is silent, but your life is shouting, and God’s ears are attuned to your heart. Just as our ears are sensitive to our voices, so are God’s ears sensitive to our thoughts.²

      It is not just the music of the Mass or the opening hymn or chant that is to be our soundtrack. Praise of God is to become a habit of our hearts. We are to look at our friendships, our family, our jobs—everything—as relationships in which we praise God. Participation in the Mass every week attunes us to a truth that we might have forgotten in the course of our daily lives: that we are called to become a hymn of praise to the world.

      Let the praise of God be in my heart of hearts,

      Let the memory of the Scriptures become my song,

      And let a hymn of love attune me, gracious God, to the peace that you promise to all those who sing a new song to the Lord.

      Alleluia, praise to you O triune God.

       Questions and Practices

      1. What chants or hymns does your parish sing? How do these hymns prepare you to offer praise to God at the beginning of Mass?

      2. What distracts you from offering the Mass with full heart and voice? How might you heal yourself of these distractions?

      3. In what areas of your life do you need to learn to sing a new song?

      Chapter Four

       Reverencing the Altar and Greeting the People

       “That I May Come to the Altar of God”

       (Ps 43:4)

      If you’ve ever been to an art museum in Europe, you’re likely to encounter room after room of panels of the crucified Lord, of his Mother Mary looking with compassion upon the wounded body of her Son, of martyrs in various forms of disfigurement. Because our art museums have saved so many remnants of Catholic culture, we may forget while wandering through these museums that some of these painted panels were originally intended to adorn the altar. These pieces of art were important to the celebration of the Mass.

      One of the most spectacular of these is the Isenheim altarpiece, painted by Matthias Grünewald. The Isenheim includes panels depicting Saints Anthony and Paul in the desert, the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin, the Resurrection and, at the very center of the altarpiece when fully opened, the crucified body of our Lord, Jesus Christ. His arms are twisted upon the cross in a way that no human muscle could move. His body is marked by sores almost too hideous to look upon.

      It is important for the viewer of this artwork to know that the Isenheim altarpiece found its home

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