32nd Annual Liturgy Conference
Music in Catholic Worship
June 14-16, 2004 at the University of Notre Dame
Music as a Language of Faith
Karen B. Westerfield Tucker
School of Theology, Boston University
June 16, 2004
I. Introduction
Sound is foundational to the Christian faith. God is the source and even the substance of sound, a sound identified by the writer of the Johannine Gospel as the logos, the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). From the beginning, God utters sounds and intends to communicate meaningfully with those sounds. Through sound – creative speech – God brings all that is to birth: “God said, ‘Let there be . . . .’” God also converses in expectation of a reply: first to the pair in the garden by asking “‘Where are you?’” (Gen. 3:9); then to human generations either directly (through words or mighty wind or still small voice; cf. 1 Kings 19:12) or indirectly (through a prophetic “Thus saith the Lord”); and finally “in these last days,” according to the letter to the Hebrews, “God has spoken to us by a Son” (Heb. 1:2). Sound is a means of God’s self-revelation.
The sounds of God thus are not static or flat, a “mere word,” but are instead dynamic, active, lively, and bring into being what is intended. Such is the force of the Greek word logos, but more so the Hebrew word dabar. Nowhere is this sense of dynamism better expressed than in Isaiah 55:11 where God says, “so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.”
Because God is the source of all sound, it is only by God’s graciousness that the creation is able to sound a reply. Because God is the substance of sound, the response the creation offers resonates with God’s own sound or echoes it. This resonance is a language of faith, as creation groans and vibrates in its longing to harmonize fully with the sound of God (sonus Dei).[1]
The God-given gift of response is likewise dynamic, meant to bear witness to what is intended. Sounds offered to God simultaneously express faith, shape and sustain belief, and help to cultivate the fruits of faith. Sounds of praise and thanksgiving, petition and lament affect minds, hearts, and lives and draw the sound-maker into communion with God. According to St. Paul, “if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:9). Yet the response need not come solely from the lips. In the 150th Psalm, the Psalmist shouts, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord” at the conclusion of a list of musical instruments that offer suitable praise. The response may primarily – and necessarily – come in the form of speech. But worthy response is also given by means of the sounds produced by musical instruments animated by human breath or activated by the hands and feet of the inspired player. The entire human body functions in various ways as a living instrument for suitable, spiritual worship (cf. Rom. 12:1).
Sound, or more specifically for our purposes here, music – with and without texts – thus may be viewed as a language of faith. The liturgy provides the principal context and a framework for the development of this language. Musical expression of belief can also occur extra-liturgically and in the privacy of personal devotion – such certainly were and are key venues for Catholics and Protestants. To explore further music as a language of faith, three aspects will be examined: (1) music as faith-full; in other words, music as a means for articulating the faith of the Church; (2) music as faith-filled; performance as an act of faith; and (3) music as faith-filling; or the gospel-spreading quality of music, in keeping with the testimony of Paul (echoing the Psalmist) that “their sound went into all the earth” (Rom. 10:18, KJV). A hymn by the late British Methodist hymnwriter Fred Pratt Green very neatly sets out in three stanzas these aspects, with the fourth stanza providing a summary inspired by Psalm 150.[2] This hymn will help to guide our reflection on the topic:
When, in our music, God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried:
Alleluia!How often, making music, we have found
A new dimension in the world of sound,
As worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
In faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
Borne witness to the truth in every tongue:
Alleluia!Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always:
Alleluia!
II. Music as Faith-full
When in our music God is glorified,
And adoration leaves no room for pride,
It is as though the whole creation cried Alleluia!
The first line of this stanza, intentionally or not, echoes the hallmark statement proposed in Pope Pius X’s motu proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (TLS 1) – and confirmed later in Sacrosanctum Concilium (SC 112) – that music’s purpose, like the rest of the liturgy, is the glorification of God as well as the sanctification and edification of the faithful. This objective of glorification is hinted at in two often-quoted scriptural statements regarding music, that “psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs” ought to be presented in a spirit of thanksgiving (Eph. 5:18b-20; Col. 3:16-17). But these are not to be theologically unqualified expressions of thanksgiving. The verses specify that thanksgiving should be rendered in the name of Jesus Christ to God the Father, suggesting that the music offered is expected to express and hand on the received tradition of the Church (1 Cor. 11:2; 2 Thess. 2:15). Indeed, the Church has always insisted that its scriptural and historic faith – a gift of God – be the source of its music. The glorification of God as well as the formation and maintenance of Christian identity is best accomplished by adherence to the fides quae creditur – to the faith that is believed. To ensure fidelity, the churches have imposed legislation that guides or limits the repertoire that may be used in public worship. Regarding words: in the fourth century, the fifty-ninth canon of the Council of Laodicea (c. 365-380) forbade the use in corporate worship of texts composed by private individuals. Roughly 1500 years later, Methodists in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries imposed the restriction to “sing no hymns of your own composing” lest a text convey inappropriate teachings.[3]
Thus it is no surprise that, for Roman Catholic worship, the principal musical text has been the standard and approved liturgy of the Church, inclusive of scripture and the commentaries found in classic tropes and sequences. Such an approach makes certain that the musical texts speak the language of faith. Other churches with a canonically mandated liturgical text that likewise understand that text to be the principal musical text, among them the Orthodox and certain Anglicans and Lutherans, have also enjoyed the confidence that doxology – right praise – is being offered. For many Protestant denominations, however, liturgical texts are not mandated, and musical texts function in different fashions: from being governors of the shape of the liturgy as in the historic five-hymn-“sandwich” of British Methodism, to being “supplements” to the main task of preaching typical of Baptist services.[4] The test of a musical text’s faithfulness falls to local clergy or church committees who must judge its appropriateness. This is not an easy task, which is why many denominations without a mandated liturgy supply an authorized hymn or song book to its constituency. For many Protestants, the hymnal is the prayer book and a metrical compendium of the essentials of the Christian faith. Therefore, as many churches give up their hymnals in favor of songs taken off the internet or from recent CDs, and the theological soundness of the texts seems to be overlooked in favor of the popular and the catchy, there is a critical question that must be asked: Are the musical texts that are used still faith-full?
The Church has employed music as an appropriate and vital bearer of its doctrine expressed in words, and has understood melody and harmony to be an essential part of that language of faith. Melody’s power to engage the emotions has been regarded both positively and negatively. Delight in a tune can turn ears, lips, and heart toward God, and even make difficult teachings more acceptable.[5] But attractive tunes can also mask heretical messages and distract from the sole import of the text, namely the glorification of God. St. Augustine’s reservations in this latter regard (Confessions X.33) were shared by later Christian writers,[6] including the eighteenth century Anglican (and Methodist) poet Charles Wesley who set them in a stanza of a hymn on the theme of the true use of music:
Still let us on our guard be found,
And watch against the power of sound,
With sacred jealousy;
Lest haply sense should damp our zeal,
And music’s charms bewitch and steal
Our heart away from Thee.[7]
Music’s “charms” may steal hearts. But melodies and harmonies are more than just charming; they are laden with meaning. Wordless music, as a language, communicates meaning. As Plato insisted in The Republic, modes, harmonies, and rhythms are never neutral and can deeply affect both the performer and the listener for good or ill.[8] Assumptions about the existence of meaning in melody stand behind the first paragraph of the 1903 motu proprio, which declares that the function of musical accompaniment is to “clothe with suitable melody the liturgical text proposed for the understanding of the faithful” and thereby “add greater efficacy to the text” so that “the faithful may be the more easily moved to devotion and better disposed for the reception of the fruits of grace belonging to the celebration of the most holy mysteries” (TLS 1). “Suitable” melodies are those that speak the language of faith, in other words, that resonate more closely to the sonus Dei. Such suitable melodies are here identified as those found in Gregorian chant and Palestrina’s polyphony. The secular melodies of the theater, however, threaten to profane the sanctity of the faith expressed in the liturgical text and so should not be used as settings for it. Although one may take issue with the specific types of sounds that are here identified as appropriate and inappropriate and, in fact, the conciliar documents of Vatican II allow more latitude, the point of “suitable” versus “unsuitable” melodies must be taken seriously. Does the devil have all the good tunes? It depends what one means by good! John Calvin clarified that melodies composed “for the sweetness and delight of the ear” were unbecoming to the dignity of the Church and an affront to God.[9] Just as the Church must judge the theological fidelity of the words it uses, so too it is up to the Church to determine which goodly and godly melodies best support the transmission of the faith taking into account the different cultural locations of the people of God.
Because melody is filled with meaning, a suitable melody’s marriage to the text adds a “greater efficacy” because together the two resonate more fully in accord with the sound of God. Joseph Gelineau, in his classic work on Voices and Instruments in Christian Worship, describes the fullness of this union in reflecting on this phrase “greater efficacy” from Tra le sollecitudini:
The word which is merely spoken is a somewhat incomplete form of human language. It suffices for ordinary utilitarian communications. But as soon as the word becomes charged with emotion, as soon as it is filled with power, as soon as it tends to identify itself with the content of its message – when, in fine, it has to signify the sacredness of actions being performed – then it calls imperatively for number and melos, that is, for a musical form . . . . The complete word, the fully developed word, the sacred word, has the nature of song.[10]
Melody therefore is not extraneous to worship and is more than a simple helpmeet for the text. By rhythm and the duration of notes it brings new life and new insights to a text that may be missed in a simple recitation. And it allows those gathered in worship to unite dynamically in a common purpose of praise. But it is nevertheless a servant in liturgy’s – and humanity’s – goal and end: to praise and glorify God.[11]
If melody has meaning that resonates more closely to the sound of God when joined with a text, what might that say about music not intended to accompany words, but that is inspired directly by the sacred word or by the liturgy itself? The Church has regarded the vocal jubilus as a faith-full utterance, by which, in the words of St. Augustine, “the heart rejoices without words” and “the immense extent of gladness has not the limits of syllables.”[12] Less certainty has been given to instrumental music’s ability to utter the language of faith. Preludes and postludes performed on pipe organs or other instruments have often been regarded at best as outside or tangential to the liturgy, at worst as mood music. Even the relatively positive statements in Music in Catholic Worship (37) and Liturgical Music Today (58) mostly define instrumental music’s role as the stimulation of feelings. Yet if melody has the ability to convey meaning, perhaps a closer look – and a more significant place – needs to be accorded to instrumental offerings of praise that are faith-full.
The character of untexted music can be determined in part by the conviction of the composer. Pope Pius XII’s encyclical Musicae Sacrae, promulgated in 1955, addressed this matter succinctly and clearly. The composer “who does not profess the truths of the faith” lacks “that inward eye with which he might see what God’s majesty and His worship demand.” The works of such an artist will never “breathe the piety and faith that befit God’s temple and His holiness” (#27). But the artist “who is firm in his faith and leads a life worthy of a Christian, who is motivated by the love of God and reverently uses the powers the Creator has given him, expresses and manifests the truths he holds and the piety he possesses so skillfully, beautifully and pleasingly in colors and lines or sounds and harmonies that this sacred labor of art is an act of worship and religion for him” (#28).
Take, for example, the organ works by the French composer Olivier Messiaen. Messiaen was clear that his Catholic faith motivated and inspired his work, and it was its theological truths that he wished to explicate musically.[13] The pieces are given titles or subtitles drawn from Scripture, the Missal, or from the days and seasons of the liturgical year. Even in the notes and harmonies, Messiaen declared his faith and the faith of the Church: he borrows heavily from the Church’s plainchant; he employs time and stained glass-like “colors” of sound for interpretation; and he frequently uses numerological devices, a long-standing practice of church composers, especially relishing threes as representative of the Trinity – triple note values, triple layerings of sound in different timbres, three types of dynamic markings, etc. Regarding the production of sacred music, Messiaen commented on the need for
a true music, that is to say, spiritual, a music which may be an act of faith; a music which may touch upon all subjects without ceasing to touch upon God ... To express with a lasting power our darkness struggling with the Holy Spirit, to raise upon the mountain the doors of our prison of flesh, to give to our century the spring water for which it thirsts, there shall have to be a great artist who will have to be both a great artisan and a great Christian.[14]
Messiaen’s organ music is a deliberate communication of the language of faith, whether or not it is immediately perceptible by the hearer – or even the performer.
Music – with and without texts – has the capacity to articulate the faith of the Church and to pass on that faith. The performance of that music is equally a language of faith, the second aspect to examine.
III. Music as Faith-filled
How often, making music, we have found
A new dimension in the world of sound,
As worship moved us to a more profound
Alleluia!
Earlier it was noted that God’s sound is identified as the Word. This is a dynamic Word who becomes flesh and dwells incarnate, God’s living sound embodied (John 1:14). Human music in imitation of the divine sonus is likewise more than words on a page or notes on a staff. It is the bodily play of rhythms, pitches, duration of tone; the lively movement of lips and tongue; and the thoughtful mind that centers the purpose of the effort. Charles Wesley exhorts us, the singers, to let
The joy from out our heart arise,
And speak, and sparkle in our eyes,
And vibrate on our tongue.[15]
Music is the presentation of the body as a living sacrifice in producing the resonances of praise (Rom. 12:1).
For the joy of ear and eye,
For the heart and brain’s delight
For the mystic harmony
Linking sense to sound and sight;
Christ our God, to Thee we raise
This our sacrifice of praise.[16]
Making music leads to a more profound – a faith-filled – alleluia.
Performance of music in worship – texted and untexted – carries with it a dimension of intentionality that combines both spirit and intellect. “I will sing with the spirit and I will sing with the mind also,” wrote St. Paul to the church at Corinth (1 Cor. 14:15b).[17] Singing – or music-making broadly – requires an element of commitment to the process itself and to what is sounded. Performance is an act of faith, by which the delight of hearts and minds is given an acoustical form.
The notion of music-making with the spirit recalls once again Psalm 150 and the Psalmist’s direction, “Let everything that breathes praise the Lord.” The liveliness of sound is generated by life itself. The entire inner being produces the sounds animated by the very breath that supports life. This holistic and vital response is a decision of obedience to the creator of life and an act of joy in thanksgiving for the gift of life. In corporate worship, the breath that animates individual bodies unites as in one breath to sustain the body of Christ, the Church. By this one breath drawn in faith, the gathered community lives “in such harmony with one another, in accord with Jesus Christ,” that as one voice they “glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:5-6, RSV).
Thee let us praise our common Lord,
And sweetly join with one accord,
Thy goodness to proclaim:
Jesus, Thyself in us reveal,
And all our faculties shall feel
Thine harmonizing name.[18]
Music made “with the spirit” also suggests an energetic performance in which the emotions flow and bodies move. “Spirited” music is that in which persons are fully engaged and involved – it need not necessarily refer to a peppy, foot-tapping, danceable tune or to an ecstatic reaction, though the term often carries those senses. Music “with the spirit” is any in which there is the investment of participation, in other words, where the heart is truly in it.
It is only “with the Spirit,” here meaning the Holy Spirit, that human beings are able to make and offer the gift of sound to God. Our worship is by the Spirit of God (Phil. 3:3), for by the Spirit we are able to confess that Jesus is Lord (1 Cor. 12:3) and have access through Christ to the Father (Eph. 2:18). The Spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are children of God (Rom. 8:16). This Spirit even sounds on our behalf, with “sighs too deep for words,” when our own music-making is feeble or difficult (Rom 8:26) or when we are not confident of the worthiness of our own “joyful noise” (Ps. 66:1; 95:1-2; 100:1-2). Several generations of organists have understood the second half of a stanza by hymn writer Frances Ridley Havergal to make petition for the Spirit’s aid in their musical leadership of worship:
Take my hands, and let them move
at the impulse of thy love.
Take my feet, and let them be
swift and beautiful for thee.[19]
To complete the pair set out by St. Paul, music making occurs not only “with the spirit” but also “with the mind.” Enthusiasm of the spirit is set alongside the fully conscious, the reasonable, the rational; engagement of both heart and mind is requisite for faith-filled sound. Not only does “with the mind” imply a comprehension of the true purpose of the performance (i.e., why and for whom it is being done, which make a statement of faith), but also some level of engagement with the meanings inherent in musical language, text and melody. The line “that the faithful may understand,” or some approximation thereof, is an oft-repeated phrase in twentieth and twenty-first century Roman Catholic documents on music and worship that has encouraged teaching and reflection on the texts of worship, but has done less so for the melodies of worship. Music-making is not a mindless activity, but rather one that demands attention to the purpose of process and production.
“With the mind” also suggests that an assent is given by the music-maker or makers to the sounds that are produced. Although the music-maker may not be the original poet or composer, yet by the performance itself, the music-maker claims the meanings associated with the text and/or the melody. A song does not contain empty words. Words are meant to bring about what they intend. Words are “done,” and Christians, claims the Letter of James, are to be “doers of the word” (James 1:22). As Emily Dickinson rightly noted in a brief poem written in 1872:
A word is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day.[20]
A sound produced reverberates far beyond its source. By communicating meanings, the action of singing or the producing of sounds with a musical instrument itself makes a statement of faith.
Musical performance is thus a language of faith, itself an act intent upon echoing the resonances of God. Because the performance should be a faith-filled participation in the Church’s vocation to glorify God, it follows that active and fully engaged music-making by voice or with musical instruments is to be preferred over artificially reproduced sounds. What kind of Christian faith conviction is exposed by the pushing of a button or the flipping of a switch? Technology may certainly enhance the live performance, but it is theologically and liturgically problematic if technology substitutes for it.
Along the same line, because the performance gives testimony to the convictions of the performers, those who share in song or instrumental music ought to be in agreement with what they offer. The document Musicae sacrae, as noted earlier, spoke to the matter of composing artists, but the same applies to performers. A practical problem arises then in regard to the professional music-makers – cantors, choir soloists, choir directors, instrumentalists – churches hire to assist in offering the language of music. Should a competent musician, but an agnostic, be given a role in the Church’s liturgical leadership? If the recognition that performance is a language of faith is true, the answer ought to be “no.” Given the declining number of trained and committed church musicians, especially organists, the churches need to raise up from among their own persons those (of whatever age) with the skill and the desire to assist in offering the musical sacrifice of praise.
The expection that music-making and profession of faith should be closely tied raises the question whether or not those who are newcomers to the faith or who are seeking the way of God may – without assuming positions of leadership – nevertheless participate in the musical language of faith. This question brings us to our third and final aspect for examination: music as faith-filling.
IV. Music as Faith-filling
So has the Church, in liturgy and song,
In faith and love, through centuries of wrong,
Borne witness to the truth in every tongue:
Alleluia!
Because the Church’s music articulates its faith, and because the performance of such music gives evidence of the truth, music is evangelism – it reinforces the gospel message to the faithful performer and exposes (and invites) the stranger to the way of salvation. The Church has always known of music’s gospel-spreading capability. The presence of what are believed to be hymn fragments in the New Testament testifies to the Church’s intentional usage of music for purposes of evangelization. One possible fragment, 1 Timothy 3:16, summarizes the teachings of the Church in creedal fashion; another, in Ephesians 5:14, is a brief summons: “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.” In a narrative scripture text, the writer of the Acts of the Apostles is careful to observe that the songs sung by Paul and Silas in the Philippian prison were overheard by their fellow prisoners (16:25).
On virtually every continent, and in myriad tunes, music has told the gospel story. Leaders of reforming and missionary movements have typically used music to get the word out: Francis of Assisi, Waldo, Luther, Calvin (using scripture words with new or recycled metrical tunes), Zinzendorf, Moody and Sankey, Berthier of Taizé, Bell of the Iona Community. Charles Wesley wrote thousands of hymn texts to praise God and spread God’s glory among all the peoples (cf. Ps. 96:3b), and acknowledged those purposes in his hymn on true music:
To magnify Thy awful name,
To spread the honours of the Lamb,
Let us our voices raise,
Our souls’ and bodies’ powers unite,
Regardless of our own delight,
And dead to human praise.[21]
Churches have often used texted music to keep the faith alive and growing in dire circumstances. Methodists in Estonia under communism, who were forbidden to assemble for worship or to engage directly in Christian education, celebrated and shared the faith weekly at a legally allowed “choir practice” with an intergenerational choir devoted to singing for hours the sacred texts of the Church.
The tunes of the Church have equally been used to impress hearers. In the fourth century, the Emperor Valens was struck by the “thunderous sound” produced by the faithful at St. Basil’s Church in Caesarea.[22] In the years since it was composed, many a hardened heart has softened upon hearing the Christmas melody “Silent Night.” The sound of tight harmonies and enthusiastic drumming has drawn curious visitors to Christian assemblies in Africa. Composers such as Olivier Messiaen have expected their untexted music to speak the faith to believers and to whet the spiritual appetites of unbelievers – even those in the concert hall.
Music has the capacity to attract persons to the faith. But it also has the ability to be faith-filling or faith forming for, as has already been noted, music is dynamic and not static. What is sounded bears witness to what is intended and helps to bring it about. Music speaks the faith and simultaneously shapes the faith. Thus newcomers or seekers who come with an openness to hear, learn and live what the Church believes find that, by the transformative power of God, feeble and immature groanings can develop into impassioned sounds of praise. By repetition of the sounds of faith, that very faith can grow and flourish as the fruit of those who confess God’s name (Heb. 13:15). For this reason, what sounds newcomers (as well as the faithful) are exposed to – and are encouraged to produce – need to be carefully assessed lest persons be malformed and they, in turn by their utterances, misdirect others. Music that sounds forth righteousness, impartiality, and the peaceableness of God’s kingdom will shape Christians who desire to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God (Micah 6:8).
Here music’s formational role is comparable to that of the liturgy as a whole. By practicing the faith with the community at worship, one discovers or rediscovers what it means to be a Christian and how one should be a Christian. By embodying the faith and learning about it at the same time, a person – along with the entire community – lays claim to the promises given to the children of God. This is the conceptual framework underlying the catechumenate as it is found in the church in the third and fourth centuries which has been taken up in contemporary manifestations such as RCIA. Perhaps it is a fair question to ask what role music has played in the catechumenal process of the churches.
Another facet of the gospel-spreading capacity of music is its ability to be renewed in every generation. New texts and melodies evince God’s persistent love of humanity and the enduring creativity of the Holy Spirit: the sound of thanksgiving still goes out to all the lands in a multiplicity of languages, tones, and timbres. Divinely inspired artists in every age, attentive to the repeated biblical injunction to sing a “new song” (e.g., Psalm 96:1; 98:1; cf. Rev. 5:9; 14:3), proclaim the faith afresh so that the body of Christ may once again hear and pass on the good news of what God has done and will do. Music, perhaps more than any other language of faith, conveys that God is with us always, still seeking and expecting our response, and that the Christian faith, while timeless, is also timely.
V. Conclusion
Because music is a faith-full, faith-filled, and faith-filling language, its place in liturgy and in devotion is clear. As the human approximation of the dynamic sonus Dei, music renders to God that which belongs to God (cf. Mark 12:17) and that which has been given as a gift from God. As an articulation of God’s truth, music in both texted and untexted forms communicates meaning. As embodied profession, music enables the individual body and the body of Christ, the Church, to be living witnesses. As an agent of evangelism, music confronts Christian and stranger with God’s boundless mercy. Fred Pratt Green’s last stanza thus is a fitting conclusion:
Let every instrument be tuned for praise!
Let all rejoice who have a voice to raise!
And may God give us faith to sing always:
Alleluia!
Endnotes
- Might there be an auditory equivalent to the visual imago Dei?
- Cited from The Hymns and Ballads of Fred Pratt Green (Carol Stream, IL: Hope, 1982) 51-52. The original fourth stanza, “And did not Jesus sing a Psalm that night,” is omitted here. Note that the original first line of the first stanza was “When in man’s music, God is glorified,” and remained the author’s preference both linguistically and theologically.
- Of course, this restriction helped the Wesleys to sell their own hymn books!
- See Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, “Congregational Song as Liturgical Ordo and Proper: The Case of English-Language Hymns and Hymnals,” Studia Liturgica 28 (1998) 102-20.
- See Basil, Homilia in psalmum I, 1 (PG 29, 212) and John Chrysostom, Expositio in psalmum XLI, I (PG 55, 156).
- On this matter, John Calvin commented, “If the singing be tempered to that gravity which is fitting in the sight of God and the angels, it both lends dignity and grace to sacred actions and has the greatest value in kindling our hearts to a true zeal and eagerness to pray. Yet we should be very careful that our ears not be more attentive to the melody than our minds to the spiritual meaning of the words” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Library of Christian Classics vol. 21, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1960] 895, III.20.32).
- Charles
Wesley, Hymns and Sacred Poems in Two Volumes,
vol. 2 (Bristol: Felix Farley, 1749) #189 (“The True Use of Music”),
255-56, stanza 5. Modern conventions regarding capitalization are
used here and in later citations. The text draws its inspiration
from 1 Corinthians 14:15. The original hymn in full reads:
Jesus, Thou Soul of all our Joys,
For whom we now lift up our Voice,
And all our Strength exert,
Vouchsafe the Grace we humbly claim,
Compose into a Thankful Frame,
And tune thy People’s Heart.
While in the Heavenly Work we join,
Thy Glory be our sole Design,
Thy Glory, not our own:
Still let us keep our End in view,
And still the Pleasing Task pursue,
o please our God alone.
The secret Pride, the subtle Sin,
Oh! let it never more steal in,
T’offend thy Glorious Eyes,
To desecrate our hallow’d Strain,
And make our solemn Service vain,
And mar our Sacrifice.
To magnify thy awful Name,
To spread the Honours of the Lamb,
Let us our Voices raise,
Our Souls and Bodies Powers unite,
Regardless of our own Delight,
And dead to Human Praise.
Still let us on our Guard be found,
And watch against the Power of Sound,
With sacred Jealousy;
Lest haply Sense should damp our Zeal,
And Musick’s Charms bewitch and steal
Our Heart away from Thee.
That hurrying Strife far off remove,
That noisy Burst of Selfish Love,
Which swells the Formal Song;
The Joy from out our Heart arise,
And speak, and sparkle in our Eyes,
And vibrate on our Tongue.
Thee let us praise our Common Lord,
And sweetly join with one Accord,
Thy Goodness to proclaim:
JESUS, Thyself in us reveal,
And all our Faculties shall feel
Thine harmonizing Name.
With calmly reverential Joy
We then shall all our Lives employ
In setting forth thy Love,
And raise in Death our Triumph higher,
And sing with all the Heavenly Choir
That endless Song Above. - Plato, Republic, trans. Paul Shorey, Loeb Classical Library, vol. 1 (London: William Heinemann, 1930; New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1930) 245-65, III.10-12. On the “meaning” of music, particularly sacred music, see Albert L. Blackwell, The Sacred in Music (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1999).
- Institutes of the Christian Religion, 21:896, III.20.32.
- Joseph Gelineau, Voices and Instruments in Christian Worship: Principles, Laws, Applications, trans. Clifford Howell (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1964) 44.
- Cf. Musicae Sacrae, #24.
- Augustine, In psalmum XXXII, II, S.1, 8 (PL 36, 283).
- Olivier Messiaen: Music and Color; Conversations with Claude Samuel, trans. E. Thomas Glasow (Portland: Amadeus Press, 1994) 20-21; see also Almut Rössler, Contributions to the Spiritual World of Olivier Messiaen, trans. Barbara Dagg and Nancy Poland (Duisburg: Gilles & Francke, 1986) esp. 50-54.
- Olivier Messiaen, The Technique of My Musical Language, trans. John Satterfield (Paris: Leduc, 1956) 8; this work is volume 1 of Messiaen’s Technique de mon langage musical.
- Stanza 6b, “The True Use of Music.”
- The original version of the stanza and refrain for Folliot S. Pierpoint’s “For the Beauty of the Earth” (1864).
- In this passage, Paul is discussing ecstatic and rational utterance, but his pairing of spirit and mind with the action of singing is useful for this discussion.
- Stanza 7, “The True Use of Music.”
- Frances Ridley Havergal, “Take My Life, and Let it Be,” stanza 1 (1874). The poet specifies that this hymn is drawn from Romans 12:1.
- The Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1955) 845.
- Stanza 4, “The True Use of Music.”
- Gregory of Nazianzus, Oratio XLIII, In laudem Basilii Magni, 52 (PG 36, 561).
