Jeg fikk i midten av august kjenneskap til en oppgave (phd) om katolsk kirkemusikk, som jeg så langt bare har lest noe av – 200 av over 600 sider, pga. ferie o.a. Den heter «THE MUSICAL PRELUDE TO VATICAN II: PLAINCHANT, PARTICIPATION, AND PIUS X», er skrevet av Walter William Whitehouse, og kan leses her.

Oppgaven er svært grundig og går tiår for tiår gjennom utviklinga på 1800 (det var stadig vanskelig, ja umulig, å få orden på kirkemusikken, selv etter mange problemer og biskopelige bestemmelser), og når oppgaven kommer fram til pave Pis X, leser vi på s169-70:

Pastoral Concern for the Faith of the People

All of the above forces, or “impulses,” were not novel in the twentieth-century Church or new with Pius X, nor certainly was concern for an ardent faith in Catholic believers. What is new with Pius is the pronounced locus of the source of “the true Christian spirit” as within the liturgy itself: more specifically, a direct attribution of Christian spirit to “active participation in the sacred mysteries” as the “first and indispensable source.”

Moreover, this actuosa participatio is realized by virtue of singing, which is the proper role, the historic and recovered role, of the laity during solemn Mass. Thus, the means of active participation is singing, and in Pius’ famous (if apocryphal) phrase, not singing at the Mass, but singing the Mass. This is categorically a major shift, a decisive return to early-Church practices over centuries of musical and liturgical passivity among the Catholic laity.

And further, the means by which the faithful were to participate in the singing of the liturgy was none other than Gregorian Chant: that music which was in unison, did not need accompaniment, was (so it was claimed) easy to learn, and which rendered the texts intelligibly. The role of the people was to sing the Ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, Agnus Dei), and it was these texts which Pius wished all to know and understand; by them they participated in the action of the Mass itself. A lively Christian spirit demanded participation; active participation was accomplished through singing; intelligible and liturgical participation required singing the texts of the Mass; and the accomplishment of all of the above pointed forcefully to the use of Gregorian chant. …

Jeg leste dette for en ukes tid siden, men poster det ikke før i dag – etter å ha sett kardinalens hilsen på video (nederst). Kardinal Bartolucci falt i unåde (liturgisk sett) på 60-tallet, men føler nå at pave Benedikt er i full gang med å rette oppde gamle feilene. Han sa bl.a. følgend ei sin hilsen:

… In the year after that (I was made) vicemaestro, with Perosi, of the Sistine Chapel Choir. Upon the death of the Maestro, I was named, in ’56, by Pope Pacelli, Pius XII, perpetual director Maestro. Then, the times unfortunately changed. But today, a true a proper reawakening by so many young people, who wish to relive the beauty of the Latin Mass and the greater spiritual fruit derived from it, can be noticed with great satisfaction; this is great, a very great comfort. And it makes us hope for a liturgical future certainly desired by Your Holiness. We thank the Lord, that he may help all those who are working for seriousness in sacred music. I firmly trust that, we the help of God, a true return to the bimillenary tradition of sacred music will take place. …

Hele teksten kan leses hos Rorate Cæli, og i videoen under kan man få engelsk teksting ved å trykke på CC-knappen nederst.

William Oddie skriver også om den nye engelske oversettelsen av messen; det gikk i praksis fint, skriver han, og så legger han mest vekt på betydningen av at man nå svarer presten «Og med din ånd.»:

Well, the new translation of the Mass is now up and running, and, at least in my parish, its launch seems to have passed off without any awkwardness at all. “And with your spirit” was confidently and (as far as I could see) unanimously declared, as though the congregation had been saying it for years … As in parishes all over the country, a series of sermons on the new translation, and on the Mass itself, also got successfully underway. I wonder how many priests said for the first time that the people’s response in that opening exchange between priest and congregation does not mean “and the same to you, Father”. “And also with you” can’t really mean much more: indeed, it was the perfect example of how the old translation, from the off, consistently reduced (ah, wondrous past tense) theological meaning in the movement from Latin to English.

For det aller meste er han godt fornøyd:

On the whole, I am thrilled by the new translation, which consistently uncovers new theological meaning in the text. That’s why this Sunday I felt I had to be present at a celebration using the new English Rite: this was, after all, an historic event for the Church in this country. In future, I shall probably revert to my practice of attending the Oxford Oratory’s 11am Latin High Mass on Sundays. But most other Masses there are in English: and when I go to Mass during the week, there or at the Oxford University Catholic chaplaincy, Mass will still be in the vernacular. Most of us who prefer Mass in Latin have long ago accepted that most Masses we attend will be in English: so it is wonderful that the new translation is so palpably closer to the Latin – not just in some scholarly sense we would only be aware of if we have made a close comparative study of the new and old translations with the Latin text, but noticeably for anyone, sometimes, dramatically so: it is splendid, for instance that now, instead of confessing “that I have sinned through my own fault” and striking my breast just the once, on Sunday I confessed (striking my breast thrice) “that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”: for, the suppression of that threefold repetition of the “mea culpa” (in response, perhaps, to some mistaken ecumenical sense that there is a protestant dislike of what they are pleased to call “vain repetition”) – that suppression always produced a consciousness, in anyone who went sometimes to the Mass in Latin, of a dreadful and palpable loss of the prayer’s devotional power. But no longer: never again. Alleluia.

Men til slutt skriver han at han gjerne skulle ha sett at man også hadde fått en ny oversettelsen av «Agnus Dei».

I have to say, however, that there was, for me, one disappointment (and though only one, a real and substantial one): that there has been no change in the exceptionally clumsy (and inaccurate) translation of the Agnus Dei. “Lamb of God you take away the sins of the world” isn’t just dreadful because it carries on from the old regime that terrible habit of writing prayers which seem to be informing God that he does this or that, or has this or that characteristic, ….

Av flere grunner har jeg i dag sett en del på hvordan barnedåp skal og kan gjennomføres i en messe, og tenkt på om det er nyttig og godt at man har dåpen i messen. Selv har jeg nesten bare hatt dåp i messen når jeg har feiret messe på avsidesliggende steder – som jeg har gjort en hel del, både da jeg var i Bergen, i Stavanger og (faktisk) også her i Oslo.

Jeg foretrekker å ha barnedåp som en egen seremoni, og oftest døpes bare ett barn om gangen – dette er også praksis de fleste steder i Norge, så langt jeg vet. Og det er også det mest tradisjonelle, for inntil 1970 var det så langt jeg vet ikke tillat å ha dåp i messen. Ved dåp at store barn og av voksne har jeg vanligvis en egen dåpsmesse, siden disse dydøpte også får sin første hellige kommunion samme dag.

I Norge brukes mest praktiske argumenter mot å ha dåp i søndagens høymesse (ved mindre messer er det en hel del lettere å ha dåp); som at kirken allerede er stappfull, at det skjer så mange andre ting i høymessen, at det er vanskelig å integrere dåp i en søndagsmesse på en god måte, at det kan bli veldig lang tid for dåpsbarnet (og for andre små barn) å være i kirken, slik at det derfor kan bli mye uro etc.

På Fr. Z’s blogg ble dette diskutert for et par år siden – SE HER – og kanskje leserne også har synspunkter på dette?

For about two-thirds of my life, ever since the introduction of the old ICEL translation, I have argued and written that we should have an accurate translation of the Missal for Mass in English. This morning for the first time, I was able to celebrate Mass in English at which we used a decent translation of the Gloria, the Creed, and the Domine non sum dignus. Although I have joined others in looking forward to this development and defending it, nevertheless, I was rather moved to be able to use it fully for the first time. All my priestly life, I have had to celebrate English Mass with a dumbed-down, lame duck translation.

I England begynte man denne søndagen med (store deler av) den nye, korrigerte oversettelsen av messen til Engelsk (jeg irreterer meg selv grønn spesielt over syndsbekjennelsen, Gloria og første eukaristiske bønn i den gamle oversettelsen), og Fr. Finnigan skriver sitatet over, og en del mer om hvordan han opplevde første søndag med en god oversettelse.