Definitions
Since I couldn't get through to my interlocutors, and I could not get them to be concise, I will vent my frustration here.
Proposition: I sell, I do not market
How I define marketing: Marketing are all those things done so as to predispose a prospective buyer toward a particular product before the opportunity to buy is presented.
How I define selling: Selling is an act whereby one party ascertaining the needs of the second party proposes a product to fulfill those needs.
There may be other definitions of marketing and selling, but as I used the terms, I believe I succeeded in establishing that I can sell a product without marketing it.
Generally, in selling wine, I am talking people out of wines that have been marketed to them. Such wines usually suck. I propose a heretofore unknown wine which I, from dispassionate analysis, have determined best suits the needs of the buyer.
Tell me if I have failed in my understanding, and please show how.
Untimely meditations
Just a few thoughts that have been in my head:
- Demanding that abortion is a right for a woman who has become pregnant by rape makes about as much sense as Israel suggesting it has the right to level Lebannon because two of its soldiers were abducted by Hezbollah. In each case we have an act of violence by one party against another, for which the injured party turns around to annihilate an innocent third.
- I received from a friend of mine a pack of cigarettes. They are from Brazil, and Brazil apparently mandates not only a warning about the dangers of smoking, but a picture on the back of the pack of a man dying in agony in a hospital bed (and we are to assume he is dying of cancer). I thought the nanny-state was getting out of hand in the U.S.! Well, apparently Brazil is solicitous for the physical health of its citizens; a noble sentiment. I wonder if it might be just as concerned about the spiritual welfare of its citizens. If so, I should hope to find a picture of souls in agony in Hell on the back of a box of Brazilian condoms.
- I have come to the conclusion that the Bush presidency is largely a failure. However, he has done the Republic a few invaluable services, and their names are Roberts and Alito. Most of the rest of his time in office seems to have been mismanaged. Yet, he still possesses a brilliant, and unlooked for, spark of character. Employing his all-too-seldom used veto, he struck down the Congress' attempt to coerce the American people into funding the creation and subsequent destruction of human embryos (dare I say, "human beings"?) for stem cell harvests. This was his pledge back in the 2000 campaign, this was his established policy in 2001, and he has held firm on grounds of conscience and human dignity even until today. Mr. President, for this you have my respect and gratitude.
Gall
Concerning the news that the new translation of the Roman Missal will be more faithful to the Latin: I am speechless at the gall of those who oppose fixing the lousy translation poor Catholics have suffered under for nearly 40 years. (Actually, I pity all Catholics who have to put up with the miserable abortion of a liturgical rite known as the Novus Ordo. Anyway . . . ) Their explanation for opposing the change: we would be stripping away from the people words that have come to mean so much to them spiritually. This, of course, from the same folks who have no sympathy whatsoever for those who had the Traditional Rite of Mass stripped away from them 40 years ago. The gall . . .
Concerning Louisville: I visited Louisville for a wedding recently. There seems to be a fairly thriving Catholic community down there. And what always follows thriving Catholicism? Children, hordes of them. And it is beautiful. I suspect that the reason why the US and Europe have essentially given up reproducing is that we feel there is nothing worth handing on. Europe is spending the last of its cultural currency as it falls into utter decadence and complacency. Europe has produced nothing of cultural value in at least a century, and rather plunged the world into two World Wars. The US is not far behind Europe in decline, but there is a reactionary current that wants to keep us from becoming like Europe. In fact, the cultural war taking place right now is between the progressives, who want godless Paris right here and right now, and those "conservatives" who are attracted to a more religious and traditional way of life. Europe endures no such war, the progressives have won their decadent paradise. The will suck every drop they can, and leave no provision for the future. That is text book decadence. Anyway, I think one brings many children into this world when one believes life is really worth living and sharing. Ah, it is beautiful to see hordes of little children running around: our future, the future of our civilization, the inheritors of all of Western Civilization.
That is worth passing on. The opportunity at eternal life. What is a more worthy inheritance?
Whatever
Fine, I'll play along . . .
A. Four Jobs I’ve Had:
1. Wine Sales
2. Mobile Electronics Installer
3. Labor to a Carpenter
4. Condiment Factory worker
B. Four Movies I’ll Watch Over and Over:
1. Requiem for a Dream
2. Stalag 17
3. Schindler's List
4. A Man for All Seasons
C. Four Places I Called Home:
1. Chicago
2. Front Royal, VA
3. Glen Ellyn, IL
4. Addison, IL. Super flumina addisonis, sedebant et flebant . . .
Four TV Shows I Love:
1. Rome
2. Life is Worth Living
3. Otherwise I don't watch TV . . .
4.
E. Four Places I’ve Been on Vacation:
1. Front Royal, VA
2. Tampa, FL
3. Tuckahoe, NY
4. Louisville, KY
F. Four Websites I Visit Daily:
1.
www.hotmail.com2.
www.sspx.org3.
www.aliceinchains.net4.
www.google.comG. My Four Favorite Foods:
1. Black beans and rice
2. Filet mignon with rosemary potatoes and aspargus
3. Gumbo
4. Lentil soup
H. Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now:
1. Front Royal, VA
2. Clear Creek Monastery, OK
3. Chicago, IL
4. Burgundy, France
I. Four People I’m Tagging: Fuck you, I ain't taggin' nobody
1.
2.
3.
4.
J. Four CD's to which I have most recently listened
1. Metallica,
And Justice for All2. The Cure,
Head on the Door3. Alice in Chains,
Unplugged4. Better Than Ezra,
DeluxeJ. Carr, Esq.
An Effete Jesus?
An Effete Jesus?As a disciple of Jesus, I worry that he has a reputation for being soft. The pictures of him that we see are usually the blessing of children, or the forgiving of sinners, etc. Now all of that is good, and a very true picture of Jesus. However, it is incomplete and often leads to an attitude that Jesus is just a nice guy, and won't punish anybody or let them damn themselves. Some further contend that Christians should be pacifists or should give no resistance to aggressors, because Jesus did not use violence or give resistance. Were it true that Jesus was entirely passive, perhaps that argument could be made. As it is, that picture of Christ is inaccurate.
One of my favorite stories of Jesus is found in the Gospel for Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent (in the Traditional Missal), to wit, the cleansing of the Temple. Here we see Jesus, having observed buying and selling in the Temple precinct, construct a whip of cords and start whipping people. (Either for rightly or wrongly, my heart leaps for joy at this story.) He not only whips the merchants out of the temple, he starts throwing their tables about and whipping their animals out too. Clearly, we see Christ making use of force for a noble cause, i.e. the sanctity of his Father's house. To sell animals for sacrifice right beside the Altar is a grave irreverence, and everybody doing it should have known better. Our Lord doesn't first ask nicely for everyone to leave, he constructs himself a weapon and gets to work.
For all the advocates of non-resistance in imitation of Christ, this example cannot be but a very difficult objection to surmount.
Another story that delights me was read during the Third Week of Lent. In this story Jesus goes to his hometown synagogue and tells the people that he in not going to work miracles for their entertainment. They are naturally not pleased. In fact, they become so enraged, they drag Jesus to a cliff with every intent of throwing him off of it. However, at the last moment, Luke records that "he, passing through their midst, went his way." I don't know exactly what he did to restrain his would-be murderers, but if we ever wish to find a sandal print of Jesus, I would look on that cliff: God had enough and put his foot down.
Indeed, our Lord laid his life down at his Crucifixion. Nonetheless, we must remember what he said very adamantly, "I lay my life down, that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me." That one always sends chills down my spine. His death was not a tragedy, it was a sacrifice, what he came into the world to do. Real men sacrifice. He reminds his captors in the Garden, that if he wanted he could summon twelve legions of angels to defend him. That would be an army of about 72,000 angels, well-armed, fiery, with Christ as their general, against a cohort of Temple guards. Surely that battle would have been short and the victory one-sided. Yet, concerning that option he asks his disciples, "How then are the Scriptures to be fulfilled?" He forgoes that option to complete his mission to lay down his life.
Jesus is a man in every sense of the word: he possesses wisdom, strength, self-control, and every virtue. He possesses the virtues in an exemplary fashion, which means their is no one more courageous than Christ.
As I see it, our Lord came to teach, to heal, to found a Church, but above all he came to offer himself as a sacrifice, to die. That is a glorious vocation, should any man be called to follow it. One of my favorite scenes in the LOTR movies is in the The Return of the King. The Rohirrim are above the plain of the Pelennor, about to engage the forces Sauron besieging Minas Tirith. They ride to certain death in battle, and they chant with ravenous appetite for glory "Death, death, death." Sursum corda.
All that being said, our Lord offers us two ways, both legitimate at appropriate times: Use force as necessary in defense of Justice, and turn the other cheek. The Church praises both St. Joan of Arc and St. Lawrence, both crusader St. Louis IX and St. Francis who preached to the Sultan. This is one of those beautful paradoxes of Christianity.
Speaking on that subject, G.K. Chesterton explains, "So it is also, of course, with the contradictory charges of the anti-Christians about submission and slaughter. It is true that the Church told some men to fight and others not to fight; and it is true that whose who fought were like thunderbolts and those who did not fight were like statues. All this simply means that the Church preferred to use its Supermen and to use its Tolstoyans. There must be some good in the life of battle, for so many good men have enjoyed being soldiers. There must be some good in the idea of non-resistance, for so many good men seem to enjoy being Quakers. All that the Church did (so far as it goes) was to prevent either of these good things from ousting the other. They existed side by side."
The person of Jesus Christ is an inexhaustible font for us to study and imitate. There is the Prince of Peace and there is the Judge of the World. There is he who is meek and humble of heart, and there is he who is filled with zeal for his Father's hosue. There are different, but equally legitimate, ways of being Christian. To discover these we must
learn from the Master, and ignore what the World tells us what Christians should be.
J. Carr, Esq.
+St. John of Capistrano
Extremists and Extremism
I am prompted to write for at least two reasons:
1. The particular issue about which I am to write has been rioting in my head to such an extent that I can find no peace unless I release it.
2. I realize that despite the near infinite number of words and pages that can be found on this wonderful internet, there is an overwhelming dearth of worthwhile reading material. Most news items and opinions out there are so shallow and utterly lacking in critical depth, that if one really does possess a greater-than-sixth-grade reading level, one cannot help but be bored, if not stultified, with it all.
So I propose to relieve my mind and contribute, if not to the cause of Wisdom, at least to a higher and more noble form of entertainment for you, my dear Readers.
And thus do I speak of extremists and extremism. Rarely can I read the op-ed pages or watch the weekly political reviews without hearing about these wickedly evil and dangerous creatures known as "extremists." Now, I am not sure that I have ever actually encountered an extremist, anymore than I have ever run into the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, unless these three are all wont to run about incognito, and so I am inclined to hold all three of dubious existence. In fact, I am probably more inclined to believe in the latter than the former, on account of the fact that supposedly these have given me things (or they have
gifted me, to use a ridiculous and superfluous neologism), while I have never received anything from an extremist. And being a good Aristotlean, and subscribing to the notion that every effect must have a cause, I must at least admit the
possibility of the existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. Such credence I can't see myself owing to any extremist.
So, you may ask at this point, what in the world am I talking about? Alas, that would be my indignation at the misuse of the terms "extremist" and "extremism." And "misuse" would likely be an understatement. The term, used in political discourse, seems to refer to anyone whose views actually or presumably oppose those of the speaker or writer. In this world, there really are a precious few things that two men, let alone the majority of men, can agree upon. Today, men work to resolve that problem by attempting to bully half the world into agreement with them by inciting this same half of the world to shun the other half which they have labeled as "extremist." A very efficient tactic, as can easily be seen.
Naturally, I find this repugnant and intellectually dishonest.
So what do we mean by "extremist" and "extremism."As it stands, I am inclined to restrict the use of those words, forsooth not to those with whom I disagree, but another class entirely. A man is not an extremist merely because I happen to disagree with him, as some would have it. Rather, if forced (as so it seems intellectually that I am) I would attempt to define an extremist as a man whose views taken to their logical conclusions result in that man behaving in an anti-social manner. Here I am thinking of someone along the lines of Ted Kaczynski--though it could be argued the mail bombs were not
actually a logical extension of his thought. He might be an extremist. At my most liberal, I may even allow that an extremist be a man whose views and their logical conclusions are so unspeakably abhorrent to the overwhelming and vast majority of our Commonwealth that they cannot reasonably be tolerated. It should be noted that individuals favoring or opposing abortion, affirmative action, greater recognition of states' rights, the death penalty, war in Iraq, the teaching of evolution, public recognition of a Supreme Being, limiting the power of the judiciary, increasing presidential powers in war time, etc. are not, by the definition I have given, extremists. These are merely inviduals who happen to stand on one of the two sides permitted by an issue. Interestingly enough, I don't think their could possibly be a moderate middle on the issues. What is the middle of the affirmative action debate? That we should reserve spots for minorities, but just reserve fewer of them? Maybe just have affirmative action every other year? And what of public recognition of God? Should we find middle ground by demoting him to a demi-god? Could we all agree to put "In Nothing We Trust" on our money? Sometimes black and white are okay, because looking for grey is occasionally absurd. And simply because a man chooses one over the other does not transform him into something unnatural, like an extremist. I do not think that even ideas such as renewed Prohibition, bestowing rights on animals, or even Marxism (note that I do not add a hyphen and "Leninism") are "extremist" ideas as such, though I will certainly concede that they are all bad ideas. And labeling so many things as extremist--which really aren't--not only renders the term functionally meaningless, it also makes the word impotent when required for ideas or persons who might actually be extremist.
And why should the term be so frequently misused? Well, when men have tired, as I think they have now, of real discussion and real democracy, they fall to pseudo-discussion and a pseudo-democracy, which might be better termed as lies and
ad hominem attacks. The term "extremist" seems (regrettably) to be a favorite of the progressives--for reasons I do not understand--though it seems neo-conservatives have picked it up in retaliation. Complimenting "extremist" they also use terms such as "far right-wing" or "far left-wing," and these are equally as nauseating. All in all, such lies and
ad hominem attacks are the weapons of the cowardly or weak-minded, who either fear real discussion, or whose politics are based largely on knee-jerk reactions inculcated by political pundits. Either way, these attacks enable one to defeat a man in debate without having to debate the man, or rather his ideas. For once a man has made his opponent an extremist, i.e. dangerous, hateful and untrustworthy, what need is their to debate such a creature? Or so it goes.
Thus, one might begin to see why I am reluctant to concede the existence of extremists.
Generally, I respect any man who can formulate his ideas, see their logical conclusions, and act accordingly. Such a man has the rare distinction of being
consistant, something which, if not a virtue outright, is at least akin to virtue. I suppose that one's ideas could include the utilitly of lying and
ad hominem attacks, but here my respect for consistancy would falter, since consistancy should include intellectual
honesty. It follows that I would likely object to doctrinaire Machiavellians. The majority of men, however, either cannot see the logical conclusion of their own ideas, or pretend that such conclusions are not as bad as they seems. With these men, it is largely not worth arguing, and the best course is simply to ignore them as far as possible. Really, the only excuse for making an
ad hominem attack is when the other man is holding a lethal weapon, and the
ad hominem attack in that case should be much more literal than figurative. Otherwise, I am personally content to do battle with the other man's ideas and/or errors. Such battles require much greater courage and skill, and are much more honorable.
So to conclude I would petition my readers, being persons of good character, to refrain from misusing the term "extremist". I would also encourage you to rebuke such misusers for their cowardice. Lastly, I would suggest that since those who misuse the word extremist (maybe we should call them "extremilizers" do great harm to political society, should be placed publicly in stocks for at least a week's time ere we get down to hanging, drawing and quartering them. Who's with me?
J. Carr, Esq.
P.S. Tom, I am honored that you have created images of my two possible eternal destinies on your web page. A healthy reminder, indeed. Gratias tibi ago.
Vanity of vanities
As you may have noticed, I have descended into a no-blogging hole for about a month now. Alas. Well, ere I take my rest this eve, I with pour forth the brimming thoughts of my mind. Now, mind you, they may not be of anything weighty. Yet, I should put something in writing, to satisfy those who check this place every and anon.
Perhaps I can speak of why I don't post. Well, first of all, there is busy-ness. Oft times matters of greater moment afflict me and I cannot escape their blows, save that I should do battle with and silence them. This takes time; time which cannot be rendered to posting. Secondly, I am admittedly lazy. I actively pursue the art of procrastination. This does not make for prompt posting either.
Then, there are reasons of deeper significance. The first of these (and the third in general) is that my Muse is often absent. Ah, you may object that I am blaming a mere personification! I should respond: Minime! I verily believe in the Muse, or at least in inspiration. There are times that I may compose, and other times in which it is verily impossible. Concerning this phenomenon, I penned a sonnet. Yea, it is published in a previous post, but I shall leave a copy here as well.
O fickle Muse, what pain have I caused thee
To seek Olympus' cloudy height and fly?
A boon to mankind, but a bane to me!
With sterile mind and weary heart I cry.
Bereft of thine inspirations, the poet
Mumbles and stutters, falters, fizzles, drowns.
What chance he'll reap it, e'en though he sow it?
All beauty failing, thou mak'st us sad clowns.
Since no persuasion seems will lure thee back,
I will be forced to try something . . . more severe.
No dearth of reasons and of tears no lack,
No other course to take, that's quite clear!
In dullest prose I will write our protest;
No pen we'll lift til thou com'st 't our behest!Yea, I believe in inspiration. The mind is fertile ground, but brings forth no fruit lest it should be seeded.
Euntes ibant et flebant mittentes semina sua. And who indeed doth seed it unless it should be the Muse? I shall not make the argument that the Muse is a person per se, but much like the wind or a spirit, it blows whither it will. True, one can wait on the Muse, and be at ones pen and paper (or keyboard if you like) faithfully everyday, and scratch (or peck) out some words. Oft those words will be dull and lifeless. But the Muse, seeing fidelity, may be won this way, and that wanton may make it her wont to visit you oft. So those that seek to write something everyday, be it prose or verse, may count on her visitations, provided they are faithful. The good folks have what we call "careers in writing".
I am not such an one. I let her wake me, or keep me from sleep, at her whim, and so far our relationship works out well enough.
But to the point, she has been away on Christmas break (I pray she should return for Hilary term) and I have been without inspiration, and so following, a will to write.
Now not only have I lacked inspiration, but I am afflicted by a certain melancholy--the second significant and fourth general reason. It is a mood that comes and goes, much like the Muse. However, Melancholy's visitations are not nearly as cheerful as those of the Muse. The Muse is poetical and free. She is a like sprite or a fairy. Mythological, through and through, and her home is the imagination. Melancholy, on the other hand, resides in the reason, or better yet, makes his stays in the reasoning faculty. He is dark and brooding--as should be expected--and he brings with him a great Wheel when he comes. Not quite akin to Fortune's Wheel; however, this Wheel too may be used for a rack. Melancholy takes reason and sets it upon his Wheel and lets it spin round and round--always ending where it began. And he sings a song--a sad song--which begins, "Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity . . ." Somewhere in his verses, he speaks of lives scattered like sand upon the wind in a desert. And the rhythm of the spinning and the droning of the music sets one into twilight betwixt waking and dreaming. In the midst of this, one can only hope that the Muse or some other being of light will come and roust him out. Else one must wait until he ends the endless cycles.
So when Melancholy is in my soul, I am generally weighed down with this thought: Though I should write something, it is likely to be without much significance. And even if it should be significant, what does it matter? It is seen by few, affects far fewer, and will fade as quickly as it came to be. In fact, it seems that all man's actions are thus, to wit, bound to fade and be forgotten. Is there anything worth doing, anything that
remains, abides? Ah, the author of Ecclesiastes muses upon this thought. Man is the summit of creation. He can compass all of creation within his mind. He is more than matter; he greater than an animal; we walks with reason and a dignity above all creatures. And yet, he shall not outlast them. Rather, he is like a spark which blazes and then is though it never was. Man is greater than a mountain, but a mountain was here yesterday, is today, and shall be tomorrow. All that man does is passing transient.
Nothing abides in this world. Nothing is unchanging--save maybe the stars. One cannot set one's heart upon anything. To do so is to set it upon the waves and hope to find it again. The greatest of deeds is bound to be forgotten. The greatest of men go now nameless. All is transient.
It is said that men of old grasped at immortality through their progeny. A man desired a son, that through him, he might in some sense, in some way remain. Man should not fade. Deep inside it feels so unnatural that we should have an end to our life. An author on Caesar speculated that the great Roman sought power and gratified his ambition, conquering Gaul and Rome herself, building great monuments, so that he might in some way escape the transience of life. Perhaps this is why men must rule, and conquer, and build, and write: so as to endure and not fade away.
Here I do not speak as a Catholic, but merely as a man, casting my gaze on existence. It is a blessed thing that I am a Catholic, and that for many reasons. But certainly because it gives light to darkness, hope to dispair, a way off of the wheel of melancholic reason. Apart from my Faith, I should agree with Satre that existence is absurd. All is meaningless. It is vanity upon vanity. Why move, when all motion is in a circle? I shall include another poem in free verse to illustrate this sort of dispair.
Beneath the Field of Dying Embers, in an unfamiliar landA Cosmic Wind blows cold across the Void.And I sit, my head in my hands,Knowing that no cavalry will come.The Universe is still born,And they are not coming.No one is coming.
I cling to Him that is eternal, and to a greater life post this one--to an eternity and a Person that do abide. Yet, all the same, that this world seems as something that does not remain, that nothing good abides and nothing evil lingers, sets upon my mind.
And setting upon my mind, I am kept long on that wheel, ere I may recover myself; ere I wander in wonder back into the woods and among the hills with the Muse and the Angels. And even off the Wheel, I am still subject to a cycle, albeit an entirely spontaneous one: wonder at the beauty of existence, and dispair that things which are beautiful are always fading.
This is my reason for not-writing, my reason for not-doing. An affliction of the mind and heart that to move is to go nowhere.
Now to avoid ending on such a sad note, I shall recap. I fail to post:
1. Because I am busy
2. Because I am lazy
3. Because the Muse is away
4. Because Melancholy is nigh
And with that, it seems my Muse is bidding me adieu. She has said her peace, and it seems so have I. Inspiration dries up, and sleepiness comes upon me.
Fare thee well, my Muse. Fare thee well, too, my Reader. Adieu.
J. Carr, Esq.
+Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus
Second of Wolfmonth
Cantus
CantusEvery once in a while I get a taste for beautiful music, and by that I refer to Classical Music, Renaissance Polyphony, and Gregorian Chant. I have had such a taste lately.
I find that such music generally has a calming effect, and more significantly, I find that it has the power to move the heart to the love of beautiful things and the mind to contemplation of them. While I deny that specific kinds of music, modes, melodies or harmonies can affect specific emotions, I am helpless but to agree with Socrates in the Republic when he maintains that music can bring a sort of gracefulness to the soul, and help in educating the young in what is truly fine and noble. An education in fine music will expose one to those thresholds of beauty which are possible in the medium of sound.
Dearest to my heart is Chant, or if you will, gregorian chant--that ante-medieval music of monophonic melody. In college, I belonged to a Gregorian Schola, and there we learned and performed the chants proper to the Sundays and feast days of the Church. For me, Chant formed a bond of friendship with fellow scholiasts, and on a personal level, came to form a vital part of my liturgical spiritual life.
The function of Chant (from the Latin,
cantus, "song") in the worship of the Church is to provide a sonic vesture for a sacred text. The rites of worship in the Church have their in the roots in the mists of the 3rd and 4th Centuries, if not in the time of the apostles itself. Along with that ritual of worship developed the
cantus, the song of worship and its ancient melodies. Such song had been a part of Jewish liturgical life at least from the time of the Temple onwards, and was a natural inheritance of Christians. Chant has been the means to express and adorn the sacred texts of Scripture recited at the Mass. It has been an integral part of the Mass throughout the history of both.
This may sound rather unusual in the days of the New Rite of Mass and its celebration in the vernacular. To be sure, the sacred texts remain in the Missal, most often in translation, and occasionally recited, but the link between them and their music has been (regrettably) largely lost. They are generally replaced by generic Entrance Hymns, Communion Hymns, Recessional Hymns, etc., which have no real link to the feast or ritual of a given day in the liturgical calendar.
In the Old Rite there are certain texts which vary with the given feast or Sunday. These are (for the most part) the introit (sung at the initial procession and/or while the priest said prayers at the foot of the altar), the gradual, the alleluia, the offertory and the communio. These texts are appropriate to the day according to their teaching or content, and have been fixed for the day from time immemorial. And each of these texts possesses its own distinct "sonic vesture" which helps express its sentiments and which gives it a beautiful adornment. The character of the melodies is monophonic and they possess a distinctly Roman austerity, which is nontheless beautiful emotional. (This is in contradistinction to the Greek and Eastern Churches, whose music became richly harmonized and is certainly more exuberant in expression--much like Greek spirituality. They too have fixed texts and fixed melodies such as the Kontakion, the Troparion, etc. However, on these, I have little competence to speak, and will no further digress.)
The genius of a canon of text in a cycle repeated yearly is that allows one to reflect again and again on the Scriptures pertaining to the feast or commemoration, growing with the liturgy year after year. The power of the melodies is that they cause the text to attain to the mind by penetrating the senses and lingering in the imagination. The result is that the melodies and the mind of the Church, as it were, represented in the sacred texts, goes with one out into the world. Not only do they find their supreme expression in the Mass, but they can be a consolation in suffering, an encouragement in trial, a jubilant expression of thanksgiving. I am myself wont to recite the responsory
In manus tuas from the Office of Compline, i.e. "Into thy hands, I commend my spirit" in times of difficulty,
Media vita in times of dispair, and the
Gloria in a spirit of gratitude.
Chant, for me, draws me into the worship of Mass by lifting my mind to God. It is a spirtual bread on the daily journey. It is a bond with friends. And at last, though not likely least, it is beautiful to hear, piercingly beautiful when understood. Naturally, I would encourage any and all to give it an attentive hearing if possible. I myself eagerly await the
Gaudens Gaudebo of the Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8), as well as the the
Alleluia, Tota Pulchra, which I have known, sung and loved since college. The latter I have nicknamed the
Paint It Black Alleluia on account of similarity between a melodic scale in the chant and the Sitar theme in the Rolling Stones'
Paint It Black. Odd, amusing, but undoubtedly part of the charm of gregorian chant.
J. Carr, Esq.
+ First Sunday of Advent
