So beautiful...

[Desert Walker]

On the Cathedrals of the Middle Ages

[url="http://www2.nd.edu/Departments//Maritain/etext/midage11.htm"]Excerpted from here[/url]

[quote]It is not enough that we should know how a great cathedral got itself built up. It is well to know how it was administered and kept together. After all, it was a centre of good government, when good government was rare. At its head stood the bishop, elected for life. He was often a sovereign temporal authority, like the Bishop of Durham in England, or the great German elector-bishops of Cologne, Trier, and Mainz. In any case his authority was the source of all rights, and his will the normal spring of administration. For many centuries all his clerics lived with him, ate at the same table, and slept under the same roof. The temporal goods of the see were under the supervision of an officer known as the archdeacon, who also looked after the clergy. A cathedral school, where boys were brought up as in a seminary, where the young choristers were trained, was attached to the building. Other buildings were close by, apartments for the clergy of the cathedral, a house for the guests, the pilgrims, the poor penitent travelling to Rome or to St. James in Spain. In England a noble circular hall, whose roof was upheld by a single pillar, was affected to the meetings of the clergy and to the synods. Numerous officials were on the personnel of the cathedral -- a master of the choir or precentor (a very important office), a chancellor or legal adviser and officer of the diocese, a treasurer, a dean or head of the chapter with its numerous priests or canons bound to sing the psalms at fixed times during the day, and to carry on the services of the cathedral according to the laws of the Church. A great number of laymen were usually attached to such a building -- caretakers, janitors, laborers, bailiffs, messengers -- sometimes the family of the bishop ran up to many hundred heads. A great wall was often drawn about the whole establishment, and the gates closed and patrolled at night as in a little fortress. With daybreak began the round of divine service that almost never ceased, the space between the High Mass and the Evensong or Vespers being filled up with many minor and local ceremonies of great interest -- in England, e.g. the distribution of the Holy Loaf, the chanting of the lovely Bidding Prayer, or public petitions for divine mercy, the calling over from the pulpit of the Bede-Roll or names of dead benefactors, the chanting of litanies, the conduct of processions, and a hundred and one forms of religious life that kept the entire clerical force on their feet the livelong day. Besides the varied religious life of the cathedral itself, there was the wonderful social life without -- the weekly market, the pedlers and tradesmen, the ale-house that often belonged to the church, the great breweries for a people who seldom drank water, like the English and the Germans, the children at their games, the smithies wide open and resounding, the granaries and stores of the bishop. Between that cathedral and the next great church, there were only hamlets, some monasteries, small ones maybe, and an occasional nobleman's castle perched inaccessible on some high crag. As a matter of fact, here were the original elements of mediaeval civil life, here the germs out of which grew first most mediaeval cities and small States of Europe, and then our own civilization. When a man of learning and distinction, of high birth and great piety, like a Grosseteste of Lincoln, or a Maurice de Sully of Paris, or an Engelbert of Cologne, presided over such a work, one can imagine how close to ideal contentment the life of his people could come.

The decorations and furniture of the cathedral corresponded to the beauty of the structure. The altar arose on marble or bronze columns, sometimes resting on couchant lions or on human figures. Reliefs in marble or bronze decorated it. The costliest embroideries and laces were made for it; stuffs of gold brocade, and ornamented with precious stones, were hung upon it, worth a king's ransom. Embroidered frames, richly painted panels, were often used to embellish it on high festivals. Often a great baldachino, or open roof, held up by columns of costly material covered it. In Germany and elsewhere the altar worked gradually back from the front line to the wall of the apse, whither the relics were taken. In time they were put upon the altar itself, and thus arose the elegant reredos. It is all visible in the painted folding-doors that may yet be seen -- lovely work by the schools of Cologne or of Bruges, of Hans Memling or Albert Drer. The chalices of silver and gold were gems of artistic skill, covered with precious stones, engraved in niello, heavy with pearls and mosaic, decorated in arabesque or filigree. Though the smallest of them was of inestimable value, yet the richest was looked on as all too unfit for the holy service it rendered. From being round and large they became tall and slender, according as they were more immediately for the personal use of the celebrant. The ciborium for the communion of the people, the pyx for the communion of the sick, the monstrance for the benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, were each a new object for the artist's taste and the generosity of the donor. For all of them the pointed arch of the Gothic fixed the shape and the details. The Mass and service books were of enormous size, made of the finest parchment, illuminated by the deftest hands, bound and ornamented with lavish fondness and a skill never since surpassed. Every vessel that was in any way connected with the eucharistic service became at once an art- object -- the censer, the cruets, the basin, and even the candlesticks and candelabra, the Mass bells, the portable crosses, the reliquaries. Even when done in iron or brass, like the massive lecterns, these objects affected the most exquisite forms, and were the starting-point of the loveliest work that later generations expended on domestic interiors, or on buildings devoted to civic purposes. The baptismal fonts, round or octagonal, offered the sculptor an interesting field for his inventive genius, and even the well, always found in the cathedral cloister or close, was often seized on for purposes of sculptural decoration. The empty spaces in the cathedral were gradually filled with splendid family tombs of marble or bronze, on which the symbolism of religion and heraldry disputed the palm with the truth and vividness of portraiture and history. The dead bishop and his canons were in time remembered for their services or their legacies. Thus every cathedral was soon a city of the dead, where the effigies of priest and layman, of abbess and noble dame, looked down from their silent places on the ebb and flow of the human life that they had once graced and enlivened. Never was there a more moving and romantic lesson of the transient nature of life than these great cathedral-spaces in their first days when the dead builders stared on the living, and the living felt that day by day they were only drawing closer to the beloved dead. Over them all there is even yet something of a sacrosanct Christian fondness --the knight cherishes yet his falcon or his hound; at the feet of the sweet chatelaine is yet carved the little spaniel, the companion of her leisure and the witness of her womanly virtues.

The railings of the choir, and the screens to separate it from the people, the screens for the altar itself, the pulpit, the tabernacle, the reading desks for the daily office, the organ fronts, the stalls for the canons, the marble pavement, the entire furniture of the cathedral, were turned over to the artists as an inexhaustible province for their skill and genius.[/quote]

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

Video of a recreation of a Medieval Mass:
[url="http://www.liturgy.dk/default.asp?Action=Menu&Item=285"]http://www.liturgy.dk/default.asp?Action=Menu&Item=285[/url]

[Desert Walker]

wow...! The chanting is sooo... it's all so sacred...

[Resurrexi]

I really liked that video, I wish my TLM were more mediveal and less 1962ish.

[stbernardLT]

This is just a thought and I don't want to argue. As most of you know I do support LIFE TEEN and I have no prblem with praise and worship music in mass. I've been told many times by people on this board and other people I know that the mass is not intended for entertainment and it is all about Jesus. I totally agree. And I firmly believe that p&w music is not entertainment but praise to God.

After the last month or so of the TLM highjacking of the phorum, I see the same people who are saying mass isn't entertainment, getting caught up in the BEAUTY of the ceremony. Maybe it should be this way or that. Is it ok this way just because our eyes are being entertained instead of our ears. How is it that people get so caught up in how beautiful the chant sounds (I'm not dissing the church chosen music), but that is not entertainment. As humans we are entertained by everything whether or not we notice it. We form likes and dislikes about every environment we come into contact with. No matter if you are a trad or a neocon (whatever that means).

I can go to any mass and find the beauty in Jesus eventhough I'm Ok with p&w in mass (not a liturgical abuse due to adaptations made by the US bishops in the GIRM). On the other hand I'm the one who is at fault. I've heard so many people say the NO lacks the beauty and reverence of the TLM, but I say we all are caught up in enetertainment rather than Jesus. He is beautiful, not the music or the visuals that accomdate masses. All these things can help us to draw mearer to the mystery of Christ, but I have come to understand that. Even without them, He stilled died for us and the gift of his body is still present at every mass (unless invalid). We have become so cauight up in what our flesh prefers, that we have forgotten what it is our heart needs, JESUS, not beauty or something that was done in mass years ago. Mass is mass because Jesus is Jesus and that will never change no matter what is different about how we celebrate.

Just remember that the liturgy has never been defined by beauty but by a bloodied man who died for us while were still sinners. This is a very ugly situation, and the only thing that can make it beautiful is the love and the relatuionship that takes place between the forgiver and the forgiven, the victim and the murders. That is a beauty no song or posture can ever duplicate (it can only strive for it). Our physical actions can only represent or attempt to represent that of which our heart understands sacred.

If this doesn't make sense I'm sorry, I'm really tired.

[OLAM Dad]

To some extent your arguing apples and oranges, stbernardLT. Chant and P&W music are not just different in style. They are greatly different in [i]how [/i]they are used in the Mass. To say that they are the same and that some people just prefer one vs. another is missing one key difference between them.

Chant at the TLM is the singing/praying of the Mass itself, it is not just background music to help pass time at the entrance or during communion (we too sing hymns for that purpose).

I'm in the schola at my parish. The schola chants the propers (Introit, Gradual and Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion) and the choir (composed of the schola and others such as women) chants the ordinary of the Mass (Kyrie, Gloria, Creed, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei).

[stbernardLT]

Background music to help pass time, sorry you feel that way about how some people pray. Again I don't want to argue, I'm just saying we are loosing focus on Jesus, because we continue to argue over details. I'm not promoting liturgical abuses, I'm simply just asking for a realization of what the mass is truly about.

[jezic]

is there even an indult to say a Mass like this anymore? Is it possible?

[Desert Walker]

All I know is, last Sunday my brain nearly melted out my ears because the "music folks" wouldn't stop singing and playing the electric organ even though it was PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that people had just received communion and wished to unite themselves with their Lord in prayer! Instead they gave us about a minute of silence, then it was time to clap for the "music folks" and allow a member of the SVDPS to explain to us that "Jesus isn't here right now, so we've got to do his work for him. We need your help. Come volunteer your time." Ok fine, can I pray now? Nope, we're done. "The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the lord, AND TO SERVE GOD"S POEPLE!" Oh, I thought if you served the Lord you would, by default, be serving His people as well... I guess I missed that nuanced understanding of reality... oh well. I wonder how many banal conversations I can have before leaving the church...

[MC IMaGiNaZUN]

[quote name='Desert Walker' post='969594' date='May 3 2006, 10:33 AM']
All I know is, last Sunday my brain nearly melted out my ears because the "music folks" wouldn't stop singing and playing the electric organ even though it was PAINFULLY OBVIOUS that people had just received communion and wished to unite themselves with their Lord in prayer! Instead they gave us about a minute of silence, then it was time to clap for the "music folks" and allow a member of the SVDPS to explain to us that "Jesus isn't here right now, so we've got to do his work for him. We need your help. Come volunteer your time." Ok fine, can I pray now? Nope, we're done. "The Mass is ended. Go in peace to love and serve the lord, AND TO SERVE GOD"S POEPLE!" Oh, I thought if you served the Lord you would, by default, be serving His people as well... I guess I missed that nuanced understanding of reality... oh well. I wonder how many banal conversations I can have before leaving the church...
[/quote]
LOL, i totally know what this is like.

After mass i would always make a visit to Our Lady, than to the Tabernackle. But, since mass ended, it was social time, right there in the Church.

I don't know but i need, for the sanity of my soul, some special time for my Lord.

But do you know what i am talking about, like how for the last twenty minutes before Christmas mass, everyone is smalltalking about who cares, when we are commemorating the moment that Jesus is incarnated, and nobody passes a thought on that. But its like that after mass at my old home parish.

My brother and I decided together to glide between the groups in conversation, and whisper kindly, "lets continue our conversations outside." The teens where open, especially when i explained the reverence reserved for this sacred space inside and outside of the celebration of Mass. It was the old folks that didnt feel they had a need to listen to us.

The Music leader started doing the same thing. He was a club bouncer at one time. Big muscles, and tattoes. But he was like a jerk, and of course he was less effective.

But i know the priests at the time left a considerable amount of silence after the homily, and after everyone recieves communion.

Or even another thing, like at my brothers Baccaloreate Mass, one of the Priests announced before Mass that they are not to hoot and hollar as names are called. But people don't care.

You can tell them so much, but the fact is they don't care. They can't find a reason to?

SHALOM

[son_of_angels]

All this is why we should not sing AT mass by SING the Mass.

[son_of_angels]

[quote name='jezic' post='969532' date='May 3 2006, 08:17 AM']
is there even an indult to say a Mass like this anymore? Is it possible?
[/quote]

Actually, it looks pretty much like a Dominican Traditional Mass, which needs no indult...

[Lil Red]

paragraph breaks are a beautiful thing

[Desert Walker]

[quote name='Lil Red' post='971281' date='May 4 2006, 01:33 PM']
paragraph breaks are a beautiful thing
[/quote]