Sing Joyfully to the Lord
33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)
In the Gospel Jesus describes the calamitous events that will precede his second coming: the destruction of the Temple; wars, famines, and persecutions for the faithful. But in the face of this, Jesus tells us (in the “Alleluia” verse), “Stand erect and raise your heads, because your redemption is at hand” (Lk 21:28).
Likewise, the Responsorial Psalm echoes a phrase that is often heard throughout the Bible: in the face of great evil and all the problems in the world, “sing joyfully before the King, the LORD… Sing praise to the LORD with the harp and melodious song, with trumpets and the sound of the horn” (Ps 98:5-6).
I am blessed in my small parish with a beautiful church choir. Please listen to two of our girls singing the “Ave Maria” set to the music of J.S. Bach by French Catholic composer Charles Gounod.
On the way to the guillotine during the French Revolution, the sixteen Carmelite nuns from Compiegne sang the Salve Regina. In the starvation bunker of Auschwitz concentration camp, St. Maximilian Kolbe sang hymns with his companions as they died.
Why do we sing? Why is speaking not enough? Why did God give us two voices, one for speaking and one for singing?
Speaking comes especially from the mind. But singing reaches deeper within us, to the heart and spirit. Singing expresses joy.[1] Christians are called to sing joyfully to the Lord always; to see past the problems and evils which are creations of the devil, and see the original goodness and glory of God, present in creation and in the lives of men, and which is still not overcome even by evil. Joy is the possession of God. For this reason, the devil does not and cannot sing, and despises the beauty of spiritual song.
As in the psalm today (Ps 98), the Bible will often describe human singing in terms of creation: “Let the sea and what fills it resound, the world and those who dwell in it; let the rivers clap their hands, the mountains shout with them for joy” (Ps 98:7-8). Not coincidentally, many of the hymns we sing in church are creation hymns.[2]
Christians must learn how to sing in order to express their relationship with God. We need to be very discerning with the music and song that is mass-produced especially for youth. Instead of reaching into the spirit and lifting the heart in joy to God, this “music” often has the opposite purpose. It is very unspiritual, negative, focused on the sensual and worldly pleasures, and vulgar. Instead of leading to prayer and praise, it is often designed to drown out spiritual thoughts.
A true artist is one who appreciates the beauty and mystery of life and creation, and is able to sing about problems of the world and human life in a thoughtful and positive way, and ultimately a spiritual way.
When people today come to church, they are not familiar with “church music,” which is very different from popular music. They know how to sing the popular songs because they are drummed into their ears every day, but when it comes to church music, they are often quiet. Catholics in the United States have a reputation of not singing church music well. And many of the modern church “songs” served up for us are quite frankly not worthy of singing.
This was brought home to me on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where our group encountered many other pilgrims from different countries, always singing at pilgrim sites. We were hosted by an Eastern-rite Catholic church, and the parishioners (everyone: men, women, and children, full-throated and strong) sang a beautiful chant to welcome us. When their priest then asked us if we could sing something for them, I was caught off guard. What spiritual songs do we American Catholics actually know from memory, that we can all sing together, aloud, in any given moment? Thank God for the “Our Father” chant that we used every Sunday, which allowed us to avoid embarrassment that day, barely!
Unfortunately, the call of the Second Vatican Council for implementation of sacred Gregorian chant, and exposure to polyphony and choral singing, and the rich patrimony of the Church’s sacred music, has not been realized.[3]
This is part of the same problem where Catholics are losing faith in God and leaving the Church. They have a difficult time not only singing, but praying. The more you can pray, the more you will be able to sing joyfully to the Lord. And the more you are able to sing joyfully to the Lord, the more easily and deeply you will be able to pray. When we sing, we “pray twice.”[4] Singing unites mind, heart, and spirit; singing lifts our heart out of the problems of the world and brings them to God’s presence in heaven.
Church music, then, is different from the secular music of the world, both in style and purpose. Church music comes from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The words usually come from the Scriptures, such as the Psalms, or else the words form a prayer based on Scripture and the mystery of Christ’s life. If you read the words of the hymns that we sing, you will see that every one of them is a prayer or theological poem, that sings about some mystery of the faith. Hymns for Mass are chosen in our parish based on the themes of the liturgical season or the particular feast we are celebrating.
There are three ways of singing to the Lord. The first is individual and personal, very often connected to our experience of creation. When we see something beautiful or inspiring in nature, our heart wants to sing to God. If we take the time to learn the various hymns, and especially to go back and learn the original hymns of the Bible, we have a whole lot of songs that we can use to express our deep spirit, and sing joyfully to the Lord. It is a beautiful thing when someone is able to sing to God in the midst of praying privately, or in their other daily activities. Many of us don’t even know a single spiritual song from memory to be able to do this (except possibly the Our Father or Salve Regina).
The second way of singing is communal. This takes singing to a whole other level, and this way of singing is extremely pleasing to God. God made us to sing together with others, so that when we join our voices as one, we actually become one, in unison and harmony with each other. Singing together expresses the reality of the Church. When an individual sings, he expresses his inner joy; when the Church sings, she expresses her inner spiritual joy, which is that of Christ and the Holy Spirit.
The “church” must therefore be able to sing in the liturgy, and that means each individual must do his part. Every baptized Catholic must realize that there is no such thing as an “audience,” or a “spectator” at Mass. Everybody is an “active participant,” part of the corporate body, with a formal liturgical role to play. This includes praying and singing. The priest has a voice at Mass, the liturgical cantor has a voice, the congregation has a voice, and at times everyone together, priest and people, have a voice.
Having a practiced church choir (men, women, children) is helpful for liturgical singing, because it can learn the music in advance, lead it by example, and model for the congregation its unified and harmonious “voice.” This is why parishes need true choirs, as the Second Vatican Council said,[5] and not just musical groups modeled on popular music styles, with a “lead singer” and “back up vocals.” A “lead singer” must never dominate the “voice of the congregation.”
The third important way to sing, which goes beyond individual singing, or even singing with our brethren, is to sing with the angels and saints in heaven. And this is one of the most important reasons “church” music, or “sacred music,” is very different from the ordinary popular styles in the world. It is the reason the Second Vatican Council insisted that sacred chant must be given pride of place.[6] Sacred music, infused with the Holy Spirit, lifts us beyond earth, and joins us to heaven. It transcends earthly fads and fashions. It is timeless. It connects us with the tradition of Christianity going all the way back to Jesus, and all the way back into the Psalms and other sacred music of the Bible. Many of the hymns go back hundreds of years; many of the chants (such as the “Salve Regina”) go back over a thousand years. Christian composers and artists through the centuries have created music of such incredible beauty that when you hear it, it touches your spirit, helps you to pray, and actually starts to lift your own spirit in prayer to God without realizing it. The western musical heritage, often called “classical music,” grew out of Christianity which introduced an entirely new form of musical harmony not encountered in any other culture.
Singing is essential to the liturgical life of the Church, and the spiritual life of the individual. And not just any singing, but that highest and deepest form of singing which is the expression of joy, the expression of God’s beauty. And when the destructive chaos of evil is strongly present, the darkness only serves to highlight more clearly the light and beauty of this musical world, a true foretaste of heavenly glory.
One more from our parish choir: “Ave Verum Corpus” by Mozart
[1] Joy present, or joy absent, which is sadness.
[2] For instance, “All creatures of our God and King, Lift up your voice and with us sing…”
[3] Cf. Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy), Chapter 6 – Sacred Music, Nos. 112-121. The treasure of sacred music is to be preserved and fostered with great care, and choirs must be diligently promoted (114). Gregorian Chant must be given “pride of place,” followed by polyphony (harmonic singing) (116). The pipe organ is to be held in high esteem (120).
[4] Widely attributed to St. Augustine, even by the Catechism of the Catholic Church (1156), the actual text cannot be found in his works.
[5] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 114.
[6] Sacrosanctum Concilium, 116.