Musicians discuss Mass changes

DETROIT — Changes coming next year in the English text of the Mass, and how the transition to the revised liturgy can best be managed, appeared to be the principal concerns of the nearly 2,000 people attending the 33rd annual convention of the National Association of Pastoral Musicians, July 12-16 at Cobo Center.

“All of the musical settings need to be rewritten,” Annette Wright, director of music at St. Francis of Assisi/St. Maximillian Kolbe Parish in Ray Township, said Monday of the new Mass texts Catholics will use as of Advent 2011.

While that will mean challenges for pastoral musicians, it will also mean the opportunity for composers to write new music, said Wright, who is also outgoing local chapter director for NPM and a member of the committee that planned this year’s convention.

The problem with just tweaking the current settings, she explained, is that most parishioners are so familiar with some of the current settings – such as Marty Haugen’s “Mass of Creation” – that altering the music to accommodate additional words would probably just trip people up.

Although the proposed changes still require final Vatican approval, it is generally supposed that approval will be forthcoming, and composers are already coming up with new settings.

One hundred fifty new settings were submitted to NPM in advance of this year’s convention, and attendees are getting to hear the four semi-finalists and vote for their favorite. The winner is to be announced today, Friday, July 16, and will be published by NPM.

Louis Canter, coordinator of music ministries for the Archdiocese of Detroit, said it is important for parish music directors to understand the changes so they can take a positive approach to presenting them to the congregations they serve.

“We don’t want to make the same mistakes we did with (the changes that came out of) Vatican II at the beginning, when there wasn’t a lot of catechesis,” Canter said. “Archbishop (Allen) Vigneron has made it very, very clear he doesn’t want that to happen.”

Tim Smith, a composer with liturgical music publisher OCP, said, “Any time there’s change, there’s going to be the challenge of catechesis – of understanding it and communicating it.”

Smith called it “a welcome thing” that the revised texts “are more true to the original,” but he said parish musicians face the challenge of learning new musical settings and helping parishioners understand the changes.

Although his regular work as a pastoral musician now just involves playing the organ on Sundays at the Shrine Chapel of Our Lady of Orchard Lake on the Orchard Lake Schools campus, he spent 16 years as music director at St. Mary of the Hills Parish in Auburn Hills.

Karen Hope, director of music liturgy at St. Charles Borromeo Parish in Fort Wayne, Ind., said the convention is giving her the chance to learn more about the changes coming in the Mass and to hear new musical settings.

She acknowledged that she had welcomed the idea of changes, because she dreaded having to listen to all the complaints she expected from members of the congregation. “But, hopefully, if we do good catechesis, it won’t be such a problem,” Hope added.

Just as there were many Catholics who balked at the introduction of Mass in the vernacular four decades ago, some parish music directors are expecting some members of their congregations — especially some of those who were young when the post-Vatican II changes were introduced — to resist the changes coming next year.

“I think you’re going to lose some people, at least temporarily,” said Matt Kush, director of music and worship at St. Kieran Parish in Shelby Township.

He said Catholics generally know all the current responses by heart, and he doubts whether they would be willing to have to hold something in order to give the new responses correctly.

“They don’t want to have to pick up a book; it’s hard enough to get them to pick up a book to sing a song,” Kush said.

Mitchell Owens, formerly of St. Cyprian Parish in Riverview, but now at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Chicago, also said he expected some resistance. “I agree with Matt; I think most Catholics are on auto-pilot,” he said.

Ron Vanadslen, another transplanted Detroiter, said his colleagues’ concerns just emphasized the need for music directors to manage the way the changes are introduced to their congregations.

“LTP, one of the publishers that’s exhibiting here, has a great package they’re promoting. They’re recommending that, eight months before the changes officially go into effect, we should introduce the new Gloria, and then some months later introduce the new Creed,” said Vanadslen, also formerly at St. Cyprian in Riverview, and now director of music ministry and organist at St. John Brebeuf Parish in Niles, Ill.

In her keynote address at Monday’s opening session, Sr. Kathleen Hughes, RSCJ, seemed to assume that most of the pastoral musicians at the convention shared her lack of enthusiasm for the coming changes.

Sr. Hughes, a former member of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy, the body that developed the current English translation of the Novus Ordo Mass, nevertheless counseled attendees to “make a choice now not to be cranky about the new translations and focus on this word or this phrase.”

Besides not doing any good, she said such crankiness could lead to depression.

Instead, she recommended the musicians and liturgists “develop generous hearts about the tastes, practices and beliefs of those with whom we disagree.”

Rather than becoming fixated on the details of ritual prayer, Sr. Hughes said it was more important to focus on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Trinitarian life of God.

During the course of the July 12-16 convention, attendees heard other speakers, participated in workshops on various topics, and attended musical presentations and liturgies.

A 24-hour power outage affecting public buildings in downtown Detroit from Saturday through Sunday morning caused “quite a scramble” to get everything ready for the official opening, said Msgr. John Kasza, who chaired the registration and publicity committee for the convention.

Dozens of exhibitors were present, from publishers to pipe organ builders and electronic organ manufacturers, to show their wares to the pastoral musicians.

“We exhibit at a number of conventions, but this one is my favorite,” said Mark Wick, president of Wicks Organ Co., a pipe organ builder from Highland Ill.

“We’re a Catholic family, and we can meet people here who are genuinely interested in what we do and can give us a chance to provide a proposal.”

Even some non-Catholics saw opportunity in the NPM convention. Detroit gospel singer Anna Marie McCutchen was there on Monday, giving copies of her CD, “Increase My Faith,” to convention attendees who were taking a break between sessions.

“I’m here because I go out and about, and promote myself to people I think might be interested,” said McCutcheon, a member of the Pentecostal Church of Jesus Christ.