A new tradition for an older church
By John Quinlan Journal staff writer | Posted: Saturday, February 10, 2007
Matthew Geerlings, director of music and liturgy at the Cathedral of the Epiphany, stands in front of the new organ he plays at the cathedral. (Staff photo by Jerry Mennenga) cathedralGeerlings028.jpg. Matthew Geerlings, director of music and liturgy at the Cathedral of the Epiphany, stands in front of the new organ he plays at the cathedral. (Staff photo by Jerry Mennenga)
EDITOR'S NOTE: Yesterday, The Journal reported on the exuberant music found at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. Today, we look at a different tradition.
Catholic churches are not often regarded as bastions of rousing gospel music. Some have amazing choirs and fabulous cantors. But they lack the spirited, rafter-shaking reputations of many of their Protestant brothers. It's a different tradition, as Tevye might say.
Change comes slowly in the Catholic Church. And there is no exception for sacred music.
Yet a little more than 40 years ago, change came with a bang.
That's when the Second Vatican Council retired its Latin chants and hymns and decreed that Catholics could sing in their native tongues. Following in the steps of the Protestants, Catholics began singing in English, Spanish or Vietnamese, whatever the favored language of a particular parish was. And over the years, the style of music hasn't changed much, though certain hymns have fallen in and out of favor.
Thus was born the guitar Mass, promulgated by those St. Louis Jesuits, said Matthew Geerlings, director of music and liturgy at the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux CIty, one of but a few fulltime paid church music directors in Siouxland.
"The Second Vatican Council came around and they kind of threw out the baby with the bathwater in a major sense," he said, "because the popular idiom at the time was folk music. And so we see a lot of that being used at Mass."
One week, Catholics were singing Gregorian chants. The next Sunday, they're singing hymns in English with a definite folk music flavor. Catholics in recent years weren't surprised to hear "Morning Has Broken" in church even though many wondered what an old Cat Stevens song was doing at Mass. Folksy it was, yet a church hymn when Stevens recorded it.
"And so there's a certain generation now that sees that as traditional Catholic music. Yet when I think of traditional Catholic music, I think of music that was composed in the fourth century," he said.
Occasionally, Geerlings speaks to high school students and younger kids, telling them about those old chants and recent efforts some have made to restore them to the Catholic liturgy.
"They're mesmerized and they're loving it," he said, pointing to the commercial success of a CD by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos that came out about 15 years ago -- peaceful music that he sees as "utterly beautiful and sublime."
Occasionally, he likes to bring this rediscovered music back into play at the Cathedral, especially while there are still people around who remember the old Latin Mass. But he knows there will be no fulltime return to this old-time Catholic music.
The church is kind of split into two camps -- those who still want the folk music and those who want the ultraorthodox, traditional hymnody and chants, he said.
But none of that matters when he is selecting music for the Sunday liturgy.
"I quit trying to satisfy everyone because you end up offending everyone," he said.
Geerlings said he tried the "blended" worship at his last parish, mixing folk-like songs with traditional hymns like "Mighty Fortress Is Our God." But this proved unfulfilling with some singing one song, a different group singing the next.
"Mighty Fortress," he noted, is closely associated with the Lutheran faith, but if first appeared in a Catholic book of worship in 16th century Germany.
"At the Cathedral, we take more of an approach that the music of the Mass is going to be based on tradition," he said, thus allowing for the occasional Gregorian chant.
But he also has a folk mass group that is willing to play and he wants to take advantage of the new pipe organ and the types of singers available. "And so sometimes you have to tailor the style of music you do at your church around the people you have available to you," he said.
Catching up
Since American Catholics have only been singing in English for 40-some years, it will take a while for them to catch up with the Protestants. The Anglicans have been singing for 400 years, the Lutherans for 455 years, he noted.
"So there is that element where we have a couple generations of people that grew up not singing in Mass," he said. "You know, that was the role of the cantor, the priest, the choir, and we just sat there and kept our heads in our missalettes. And then at the end, we went home. So it's difficult."
Catholics may never match the passion of their Christian brethren at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. And it will be years, if ever, before they catch up with the Episcopalians or the Lutherans.
Music plays an integral part of the worship service at Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux CIty, said the Rev. Del Olivier.
"This is a singing church. I think by and large we as Lutherans have a very strong heritage of singing in the church," he said.
It is one of the things that Martin Luther was adamant about back in the 1400s -- that the music belonged to the people, not just to the choir and the priest chanting the liturgy, he said.
Rarely does some church member not sing. "People will give it the old college try, even if it's something new," Olivier said.
The church is very cognizant of the congregation when selecting hymns, he said.
"We try to select hymns where even if they don't know it, that the melody, once they hear it, it's easy enough for them to pick up and sing with more confidence," he said.
And old favorites like "Lift High the Cross" and "Amazing Grace" are always well sung.
Other churches favor modern music.
The River Hills Church in South Sioux City, affiliated with the Assemblies of God, gravitates to more contemporary music, the rule of thumb being one traditional hymn for every four contemporary songs chosen each Sunday. With the median age of church members being 45 to 47 years old, it just seems appropriate, Pastor Kevin Roach said.
"It's kind of what we know and what we're learning," Roach said. "Our worship people are always working on learning new music and sharing it with the congregation."
There is no church choir, but River Hills has its own band, a drummer, acoustic, electric and bass guitars and keyboards, along with a synthesizer and back-up singers.
"Music is a big part of the service," Roach said. "For some people, it's probably more important than a lot of things that happen in a service. For some, it's probably more important than the sermon at times."
And that just challenges him to do a better job with the sermon, he said, laughing.
Turning to the children
As for the Catholic Church, the key to more church involvment in the music of the liturgy lies with the children, Geerlings said.
"Martin Luther did that with his church," he said. "He just kind of wrote off the adult generation, said they're not going to sing anything. But he formed a choir school. Then within a couple generations, boom, he had congregations that could sing. And that's lasted through to today.
"I love going to a Lutheran worship service because everything's sung and everyone sings it."
And while Catholics are known for stronger vocal participation at Christmas or on patriotic holidays when more personally meaningful tunes are used, they're not likely to ever approach the full-throated emotionalism found at Baptist churches such as Mt. Zion.
Most Catholic churches lack the cultural component found at Mt. Zion, whose membership is predominantly African-American, Geerlings said. But there are some Catholic African-American parishes which use a lot of the hymns that can be found at Mt. Zion -- and with the same spirit. There are even some charismatic Hispanic Masses at the Cathedral in which the members approach that degree of enthusiasm, he said.
"There's a cerain component of that that I think perhaps we need to be a little more conscious of, but it's not in our tradition," Geerling said. "I don't think we'd get the same reaction because the African-American community has a certain history with a lot of their music that we don't necessarily have with what maybe came to us from the Western European tradition versus what came up in the South and the struggles they went through.
"There's a real passion in that. That has a real emotional component that they can really vent maybe some of their frustrations through the music. They can implore God in some of their music about why have we been suffering so long? There's praise and adoration in that music about some of the injustices being addressed.
"Certainly, we have some of the texts, but we didn't suffer like that."
Song selection
Catholic churches are not often regarded as bastions of rousing gospel music. Some have amazing choirs and fabulous cantors. But they lack the spirited, rafter-shaking reputations of many of their Protestant brothers. It's a different tradition, as Tevye might say.
Change comes slowly in the Catholic Church. And there is no exception for sacred music.
Yet a little more than 40 years ago, change came with a bang.
That's when the Second Vatican Council retired its Latin chants and hymns and decreed that Catholics could sing in their native tongues. Following in the steps of the Protestants, Catholics began singing in English, Spanish or Vietnamese, whatever the favored language of a particular parish was. And over the years, the style of music hasn't changed much, though certain hymns have fallen in and out of favor.
Thus was born the guitar Mass, promulgated by those St. Louis Jesuits, said Matthew Geerlings, director of music and liturgy at the Cathedral of the Epiphany in Sioux CIty, one of but a few fulltime paid church music directors in Siouxland.
"The Second Vatican Council came around and they kind of threw out the baby with the bathwater in a major sense," he said, "because the popular idiom at the time was folk music. And so we see a lot of that being used at Mass."
One week, Catholics were singing Gregorian chants. The next Sunday, they're singing hymns in English with a definite folk music flavor. Catholics in recent years weren't surprised to hear "Morning Has Broken" in church even though many wondered what an old Cat Stevens song was doing at Mass. Folksy it was, yet a church hymn when Stevens recorded it.
"And so there's a certain generation now that sees that as traditional Catholic music. Yet when I think of traditional Catholic music, I think of music that was composed in the fourth century," he said.
Occasionally, Geerlings speaks to high school students and younger kids, telling them about those old chants and recent efforts some have made to restore them to the Catholic liturgy.
"They're mesmerized and they're loving it," he said, pointing to the commercial success of a CD by the Benedictine Monks of Santo Domingo de Silos that came out about 15 years ago -- peaceful music that he sees as "utterly beautiful and sublime."
Occasionally, he likes to bring this rediscovered music back into play at the Cathedral, especially while there are still people around who remember the old Latin Mass. But he knows there will be no fulltime return to this old-time Catholic music.
The church is kind of split into two camps -- those who still want the folk music and those who want the ultraorthodox, traditional hymnody and chants, he said.
But none of that matters when he is selecting music for the Sunday liturgy.
"I quit trying to satisfy everyone because you end up offending everyone," he said.
Geerlings said he tried the "blended" worship at his last parish, mixing folk-like songs with traditional hymns like "Mighty Fortress Is Our God." But this proved unfulfilling with some singing one song, a different group singing the next.
"Mighty Fortress," he noted, is closely associated with the Lutheran faith, but if first appeared in a Catholic book of worship in 16th century Germany.
"At the Cathedral, we take more of an approach that the music of the Mass is going to be based on tradition," he said, thus allowing for the occasional Gregorian chant.
But he also has a folk mass group that is willing to play and he wants to take advantage of the new pipe organ and the types of singers available. "And so sometimes you have to tailor the style of music you do at your church around the people you have available to you," he said.
Catching up
Since American Catholics have only been singing in English for 40-some years, it will take a while for them to catch up with the Protestants. The Anglicans have been singing for 400 years, the Lutherans for 455 years, he noted.
"So there is that element where we have a couple generations of people that grew up not singing in Mass," he said. "You know, that was the role of the cantor, the priest, the choir, and we just sat there and kept our heads in our missalettes. And then at the end, we went home. So it's difficult."
Catholics may never match the passion of their Christian brethren at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church. And it will be years, if ever, before they catch up with the Episcopalians or the Lutherans.
Music plays an integral part of the worship service at Augustana Lutheran Church in Sioux CIty, said the Rev. Del Olivier.
"This is a singing church. I think by and large we as Lutherans have a very strong heritage of singing in the church," he said.
It is one of the things that Martin Luther was adamant about back in the 1400s -- that the music belonged to the people, not just to the choir and the priest chanting the liturgy, he said.
Rarely does some church member not sing. "People will give it the old college try, even if it's something new," Olivier said.
The church is very cognizant of the congregation when selecting hymns, he said.
"We try to select hymns where even if they don't know it, that the melody, once they hear it, it's easy enough for them to pick up and sing with more confidence," he said.
And old favorites like "Lift High the Cross" and "Amazing Grace" are always well sung.
Other churches favor modern music.
The River Hills Church in South Sioux City, affiliated with the Assemblies of God, gravitates to more contemporary music, the rule of thumb being one traditional hymn for every four contemporary songs chosen each Sunday. With the median age of church members being 45 to 47 years old, it just seems appropriate, Pastor Kevin Roach said.
"It's kind of what we know and what we're learning," Roach said. "Our worship people are always working on learning new music and sharing it with the congregation."
There is no church choir, but River Hills has its own band, a drummer, acoustic, electric and bass guitars and keyboards, along with a synthesizer and back-up singers.
"Music is a big part of the service," Roach said. "For some people, it's probably more important than a lot of things that happen in a service. For some, it's probably more important than the sermon at times."
And that just challenges him to do a better job with the sermon, he said, laughing.
Turning to the children
As for the Catholic Church, the key to more church involvment in the music of the liturgy lies with the children, Geerlings said.
"Martin Luther did that with his church," he said. "He just kind of wrote off the adult generation, said they're not going to sing anything. But he formed a choir school. Then within a couple generations, boom, he had congregations that could sing. And that's lasted through to today.
"I love going to a Lutheran worship service because everything's sung and everyone sings it."
And while Catholics are known for stronger vocal participation at Christmas or on patriotic holidays when more personally meaningful tunes are used, they're not likely to ever approach the full-throated emotionalism found at Baptist churches such as Mt. Zion.
Most Catholic churches lack the cultural component found at Mt. Zion, whose membership is predominantly African-American, Geerlings said. But there are some Catholic African-American parishes which use a lot of the hymns that can be found at Mt. Zion -- and with the same spirit. There are even some charismatic Hispanic Masses at the Cathedral in which the members approach that degree of enthusiasm, he said.
"There's a cerain component of that that I think perhaps we need to be a little more conscious of, but it's not in our tradition," Geerling said. "I don't think we'd get the same reaction because the African-American community has a certain history with a lot of their music that we don't necessarily have with what maybe came to us from the Western European tradition versus what came up in the South and the struggles they went through.
"There's a real passion in that. That has a real emotional component that they can really vent maybe some of their frustrations through the music. They can implore God in some of their music about why have we been suffering so long? There's praise and adoration in that music about some of the injustices being addressed.
"Certainly, we have some of the texts, but we didn't suffer like that."
Song selection
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