Chant Café

I’ve decided to take St. Teresa of Avila as my own intercessor as the SSPX prepares to consecrate bishops.

Teresa lived a daring ecclesial life in the heart of the Inquisition. At times she received contradictory orders from superiors and had to choose the righteous course from among them. Her reform was opposed, and her closest collaborator at the time was imprisoned by his former community.

On her deathbed, Teresa famously said, “In the end, I am a daughter of the Church.” This sense of loyalty to the Church, fidelity to the mark of unity, acknowledgement of the union of bride and Bridegroom, and of one’s personal junior position is an attitude open to deep mystery. It is often a share in the Cross. It bears fruit in the salvation of souls.

 

 

The Office hymns express universality in sets of triplets. For example, a popular Marian hymn begins “The God Whom earth and sea and sky Adore and laud and magnify.” This list, earth, sea, and sky, is a comprehensive list. All creation worships you.

Quem terra, pontus, ǽthera
colunt, adórant, prǽdicant
trinam regéntem máchinam,
claustrum Maríæ báiulat.

In the 10th century hymn for the Ascension, Aeternae Rex altissime, we have a slightly different group of three, derived from Philippians 2:10, comprehending the underworld as well. “The triple world of all things made, The heavens, the earth, the realm of shade, Shall bend the knee, before You bow, For You are Master of them now.”

Why a list? Perhaps the imagination benefits. Instead of simply singing “everything,” the congregation sings of what the “everything” consists, and each singer’s imagination moves around the creation with the expressions.. The imagination has a moment to fly, see a vista, and touch the cold salt water.

We have no such concrete sensibility of the underworld, but the imagination has its own shadowy feelings where it is concerned as well. And however vague that darkness, we are aware of how much our own deaths will need a sovereign, benevolent presence.

Fortunately for us, that Presence is near us, and, pierced for our sins, at the right hand of the Father.

O Christ, Most High eternal King,
Your faithful people ransoming,
By death you conquered death and grave:
The victory of grace you gave.

Ascending to the Father’s right,
You sit in judgment and in might:
A universal Kingship giv’n
Not by humanity, but heav’n.

The triple world of all things made,
The heav’ns, the earth, the realm of shade,
Shall bend the knee, before You bow,
For You are Master of them now.

The angels tremble at the sight.
How altered is the human plight!
For flesh has sinned, but flesh atoned,
And God in flesh is God enthroned.

And so forgive us, Lord, we pray.
Wash all our guiltiness away.
And lift our hearts to Your high place,
Ascending by Your heav’nly grace,

So when, on rosy clouds’ array
You start the final judgment day,
You will forgive our errors’ cost,
And give us back the crowns we lost.

Jesus, ascended to the height,
Be with the Father glorified,
And with the Spirit, Font of love,
Forevermore, in realms above.

Tomorrow, April 21, is the first anniversary of the passing of Pope Francis.

Last year I offered this hymn text for anyone who would like to use it to pray for him, and I would like to do so again this year, with my compliments.

O Lord, receive Your servant into Your dwelling-place,
Your realm of endless glory transcending time and space,
Where You complete all worship and sacraments fulfill,
Where priests are priests forever according to Your will.

The Son forever glorious, our sacrificial Feast,
Through human mediation, the action of a priest,
Brings heaven to the lowly and lifts the human race
By sacramental blessings in festivals of grace.

O charity unfathomed! Though rich becoming poor,
Christ makes an earthen vessel a priest forevermore.
The co-eternal Maker of earth and sky and sea
Breathes new on his anointed the grace of ministry.

Receive our Holy Father, high priest on Peter’s chair,
Whose office was the union of Churches everywhere
By strengthening the brethren in faith and hope and love.
Receive him, Lord, in mercy into Your Church above.

All honor, glory, blessing throughout the heavens ring
To God Who shares His likeness; to God our gracious King.
Praise Father, Son, and Spirit, forever Three in One,
Who by the blood of Jesus the world’s salvation won.

Text c. 2025 Kathleen Pluth. Permission granted for use through May 2026. All other rights reserved.

Hymn for the Soul of a Pope

It still startles me every time I see it. Young people have been taking the lead in the US Church for decades, and it’s still brand new every time.

-A family of three generations on their way into Mass, with the youngest women, still in their teens, by far the most modestly dressed.

-Stations of the Cross in an urban basilica full of young adults.

-At a sacred music convention, young people recruiting Religious to join them in a rosary.

-A chant choir that is a 20-member young adult ministry in itself.

-Young mothers and fathers taking their children out of Mass, bringing them back in, taking them back out, bringing them back in, patiently offering them the maximum possible exposure to the Mass, Sunday after Sunday.

-Long confession lines, especially when the sacrament is offered on Sundays before Mass.

Grace abounds.

In the interest of respectful communication about a lamentably contested subject, I thought it might be helpful to say in public some of the things that have been on my mind regarding the Mass according to the 1962 Missal, which some naturally call the Latin Mass.

First I should mention some things that I’ve heard others say; I don’t agree with these characterizations. It isn’t elite, or the last valid form of the Roman Missal, or divisive, or clericalist, or effeminate, or play-acting.

In my quite limited experience of what we can call for short the TLM, I’ve noticed the following good things.

1. It restores the Sunday Mass to its rightful place as the peak contemplative experience of the week.
   In my experience of the current Missal, the Sunday Mass is almost always much less contemplative than daily Mass. And daily Mass is much less contemplative than personal prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. The TLM, I find, for me, inverts this order. A Missa Cantata or Solemn High Mass on Sunday is peak prayer, then daily low Mass, and lastly my own feeble attempts to rise to match this level of prayer I’ve been brought to at Mass.
2. It offers sounds and gestures that not only dispel distractions, but positively engage on a deep level.
   The first sounds I hear at a low TLM are whisperings and swishings, like the children being put to bed or respectful silence being broken by the minimum vocal sound. Just these simple vocal cues are very recollecting on a natural level, like the robes of the monk whose turn it is to pull the bell rope for office. The choir overcomes these at a sung Mass, of course, with a different kind of engagement. Slow, prescribed, ceremonial movements return me again and again to the sense that something important and peaceful is being done here.
   And there is always something to learn about it. Just this year I learned that Aquinas and other commentators identified the 5 signs of the cross during hostiam puram, hostiam sanctam, hostiam immaculatam, Panem sanctum vitæ æternæ et Calicem salutis perpetuæ as a memorial of the 5 wounds of Christ crucified.
   Long commentaries have been written by centuries of saints on the words and gestures of the Mass. As usual, the faithful have a lot of discretion in how we respond. We can focus on one or two gestures and meditate on them throughout the Mass. Or think about something quite different in the words of the Missal. Or let it all flow over. Or make acts of gratitude and faith. Or offer up what we’ve done during the week, like repenting or enduring suffering or being honest, at a price, at work. The options are endless. And I feel the question should be asked, is this not participation?
3. It is a wildly successful Young Adult Ministry.
   There’s a nearby city that I like to visit when all my friends are at Mass on Sunday. I go to the anticipated Mass near my home on Saturday, then see friends after their various Masses on Sunday. Sure, there’s a sprinkling of KofC here and there, doing good works, and everywhere there are dedicated clergy making time for their parishioners. But the TLM is where the energy of the young families are. Donuts at that parish are once a month. The other weeks, young people crowd onto various patios. Either way, the young courting couples, the singles, and above all the young marrieds with their little ones always make me think of Psalms about the restoration of Jerusalem.

Of course, all of these are just one person’s experience and opinion. My sense is that good can come from the co-existence of the two forms, and in fact currently does come. I’ve derived from the TLM on a personal level what I would call a better receptivity to grace and a better disposition to the sacraments. It’s hard to say for oneself. But it’s also very hard to discount the joy.

I’m in the middle of a very busy time–the kind of busy that makes me glad for some chipper popular music. My go-to for a quick picker-upper is John Fogerty’s fantastic Centerfield. Put me in, Coach! But with the longer tasks I’ve got going on now, I’m enjoying a Spotify playlist of the greatest hits of my dad’s old favorite singer, Ella Fitzgerald.

Listening to these old songs, I’m constantly struck by the deliberate delight that the songwriters put into their craft. It’s always something: an unexpected rhyme, or a delicious melody, or a funny but apt image. Fitzgerald and the backup bands likewise splurge on the fun factor, with a change of harmonization or a horn blast or a cymbal brush when it might not be expected.

It makes me think about the parable of last Sunday. In fact, it makes me think of all the parables. They’re often really funny. Think about the guy trying to sleep when his neighbor harps at him because he needs bread. And the neighbor in the story is the good example! And this is Jesus’ commentary on the Our Father! Everyone has heard multiple homilies on the Our Father. How many were funny? Jesus’ was.

One of the most effective tools in the “make friends for yourselves with dishonest wealth” toolbox is delight. How well are we doing that? Jesus treated the most serious mysteries of salvation with humor. He used imagery and odd turns of plot to make points that would hit oddly and be thought about. Do we use these tools?

In particular, how is our music delighting our congregations? Are the words consciously aiming at being tasty on the tongue, apt to the mind, stirring to the heart? Don’t we have a more important task than Ella’s work? If so, why aren’t we acting as prudently?

Are our lyrics formulaic and banal? Are they bossy or inviting? Are they really true to the faith that we share, or do they promote some deadly serious agenda–or even just a deadly agenda?

Are we really writing melodies? Or do we hop along prosaically from one cadence to another? One of my favorite composers avoids being driven by cadences even in very short phrases such as the refrains to responsorial Psalms. And yet some days it seems as though Taizé and its successors are going to replace really melodic music in the Catholic Church.

Here’s a melodically marvelous, if not lyrically original, chipper song about sorrow. The record came out in 1944, arguably a harder year than even our own. How can we make liturgical music that can truly encourage the children of light?

The banners of the King we see,
Bright with the cross’s mystery.
The Lord of flesh by flesh became
Suspended on this killing frame.

And then, when He was wounded here,
His body pierced by that dread spear,
He shed the water and the blood
To cleanse us in this saving flood.

O beautiful and shining tree,
In purple clothes of royalty,
Elected from a worthy stem
To touch such sacred limbs as them.

O blessèd tree whose arms were furled
With all the price of all the world,
You stand, its awesome weight to tell
And steal the wonted prey of hell.

O altar, hail! O Victim, hail!
The glorious passion is your tale:
When Life Himself dread death endured,
And life’s return He thus secured.

O cross, our only hope, abide.
We greet you in this Passiontide.
Grant to your children growth in grace;
For those in guilt, their sin erase.

Salvation’s font, O Trinity,
By ev’ry spirit honored be.
Let those who, by Your mystic cross
Your love has saved, be never lost.

Tr. Kathleen Pluth