Daniel Martín SalvadorMusic must reinforce the Word".When music sows hope in the face of deathLiturgical music is a perennial reality in the history of salvation. Some scholars want to find the beginning of liturgical singing in the King David's "reform". However, Scripture is full of this sacramental manifestation from the beginning, and how can we fail to recognize in the song of Moses crossing the Red Sea with the people one of the foundational liturgical hymns of the Judeo-Christian tradition?
Throughout the centuries, the Church has been heir to this form of worship of God and has expressed the faith "musically". In other words, it has celebrated the faith by praising and singing, just as the apostles learned from the Son of God himself. This fundamental element of the celebration of the Christian mystery has developed over the centuries and across cultures, becoming a vehicle not only for the worship of God but also for evangelization and catechesis. Through music, Christians have proclaimed the kerygma and learned the catechism.
Faithful transmission of the faith
To such an extent has religious music been important in the transmission of the truth of the contents of the faith that the Church, throughout the apostolic succession, has always taken care to discern and verify the concrete expressions and forms of the various musical creations. In fact, Catholic pastors, preachers and missionaries have often made use of this means to transmit the dogmatic formulas of the Councils, and thus make the complicated simple to the people.
Who has not learned the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed by singing it in the liturgy of the Church? Now, also the schismatics and heretics throughout the centuries made use of religious songs to spread their errors. It is famous how the Arians spread among the faithful their denial of the divinity of the Son of God through simple and catchy songs. For this reason, councils such as that of Laodicea (364) or our Third Council of Toledo (589) came to prohibit certain songs full of errors that eventually managed to confuse the faith of the simple.
In recent years, our liturgical communities and assemblies are experiencing a new explosion of musical creation. This phenomenon, far from being a cause for concern, should be seen as a real opportunity to promote evangelization and renew the liturgical and spiritual experience of our faithful. Thanks to music, and quality music, the people of God can be sustained in the Christian life and nourished in their journey of spiritual maturity. Nevertheless, learning from other periods in the history of the Church, it is appropriate to accompany these new musical forms and manifestations appropriately, as well as to carry out theological and pastoral discernment. In the following, we would like to point out certain aspects to take into account and to evaluate some of the more and more common manifestations.
Religious music and liturgical music
First of all, it is convenient to state that not all religious music is liturgical music. In fact, music with religious content (such as pop, rock or Christian folk music) is not the same as religious music, also known as popular music, which has a context of devotion, prayer, praise or pilgrimage. In other words, one thing are musical phenomena such as Hillsong, Marcos Witt, Danilo Montero or Matt Maher, and another, musical compositions such as a saeta for a Holy Week procession. This distinction does not pretend to be a value judgment, since all this type of music has a great value, but also a specific nature and context. In the same way, general Christian and religious-popular music is not the same as liturgical music.
This distinction has its own value, since logically each expression of the Church's pastoral ministry and mission will need a particular expression. There is a difference between a first proclamation event, a playful-festive day of the youth ministry of a diocese or parish, a catechesis for children or a solemn vespers in the village church on the occasion of the feast of the patron saint.
Chanting the liturgy
Having made this first distinction, it is worth recalling a basic axiom of liturgical music on which we wish to focus. This idea could be expressed as follows: The liturgy is not sung in the liturgy, but the liturgy is sung.. In fact, the ecclesial tradition has always taught that music is an intrinsic element in the nature of the liturgy (as well recalled by the Vatican Council II). In the celebration of the Mystery, the music is not decoration or complement but the same ritus and the same prex.
The gestures and words intrinsically united in the sacramental celebration are sung, and it is for this reason that in the liturgy the melody has always been at the service of the words and the meaning of the rite being celebrated and not the other way around. In this sense, the constant effort of the ministers to ensure that the people of God sing the liturgy and that the liturgical compositions accompany the rite, the sacred text, the liturgical season and the correct expression of Catholic doctrine is commendable.
Musical tradition
The musical tradition of the Church itself bears witness to this reality. The passing of the centuries and the discernment of ecclesial authority have been the appropriate sieve that has allowed the transmission of only those hymns and liturgical chants that possessed true artistic quality, as well as a correct expression of Catholic unity and truth. Think of Gregorian chant as one of the greatest treasures of our tradition.
Today, this explosion of musical creativity must be accompanied from a liturgical, theological and pastoral point of view. A first question in this last area should be addressed by pastors: Is the new musical current of the last 25 years succeeding in expressing the true faith of the Church? Is this type of music "pop music" for singing, or is it "pop music" for singing, or is it "pop music" for singing? in the liturgyor is it true "liturgical music", for the purpose of singing the liturgyIs it not observed, rather, that what this new music is achieving is to express mere religious feelings, or to connect with religious feelings of the postmodern subject?
Right place, right time
Without wishing to generate any controversy but with the desire to establish a serene and constructive dialogue, as Pope Francis asks today, we would like to show two examples among many of how Christian pop music used uncritically in the liturgy may not respond to the proper nature of the liturgy: to celebrate the faith of the Church.
The first example is a song that has been sung at expositions of the Blessed Sacrament in our parishes for years: "Miracle of Love". The second is one of the most recent hits of the Christian music scene that is already being sung in the liturgy: "La Fila". These compositions, without underestimating the musical value they may have as a popular movement, should attract the attention of every minister of the Church. Even more so, when it can be a means of learning the faith and expressing the spiritual and liturgical experience of our young and not so young people.
In these songs one can find statements that in a "pop" sense could perhaps be interpreted (with effort) catholically, but which, in any case, for liturgical celebration carry such imprecision, even doctrinal error, that ecclesiastical authority should consider their acceptance.
Miracle of Love
In the first song, we hear the following: "Jesus, here present in real form. [Miracle of love so infinite that you, my God, forget your glory and your majesty for my sake". This song, beyond the strong individualistic and intimate imprint that detracts from the mystery of ecclesial communion that is the Eucharist, contains two ideas that are not found in the faith of the Church. In the first place, Jesus Christ in the Eucharist is in sacramental form, not real. His presence is real and true, but the external form - the species - is that of the Eucharistic bread.
If one could speak of a presence in real form, beyond the strangeness of the expression, it would be the real form of Jesus Christ in heaven that the sacrament makes present on the altar and in the soul of the faithful at communion. If this idea can be "forcibly" understood in the Catholic sense, it is the second one that cannot be admitted. Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist has not been stripped of his glory and majesty, for the presence in the sacrament can only be that of heaven, exalted in glory and seated at the right hand of the Father.
In a way, it seems as if the letter wanted to rely on the Pauline doctrine of Philippians 2:6-7, but this is only attributable to the incarnation of the Word, not to the transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. In the Eucharist, Christ no longer possesses the condition of a slave but that of "constituted Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by the resurrection from the dead" (Rom 1:4). The sacramental form, although it veils the exalted and glorified condition of Christ, does not divest him of it.
The Row
For its part, the second song has at least a couple of doctrinal errors no less serious. Errors that, as was the case in Nicene times, the faithful can sing them unconsciously, but which should not be disregarded by the ministers, who must watch over the pastoral good of the simple faithful. The song "La Fila" begins by singing: "The most important Fila of my life, a few minutes separate me from the moment of meeting my lover face to face, with God the flesh...".
This musical expression, which represents sacramental communion as an intimate encounter between spouses (a similarity that is not common in the tradition to speak of the faithful who receive the Eucharist), speaks of the sacramental encounter as a "face to face" encounter. This formulation does not express the true faith of the Church, denying the reality of the "veil" or "garment" of the "sacred sign" and disfiguring both the sacramental and the eschatological dimension of our faith.
Precisely, sacramental communion is a grace of real union if the faithful receive communion in grace, but "in mystery", under the sacramental veil. Communion "face to face" is proper to the beatific vision in heaven. What idea or expression of faith can one who interiorizes the meaning of this letter heard virally and repeatedly attain?
The Word becomes flesh
A little further down, another expression of the song states so clearly a doctrinal error that a correct interpretation is difficult. This is how this musical hit sings: "And slightly elevated, and with an answered amen, at last I see a bread that has become human". This lyric, which is already being sung in our Eucharistic celebrations, affirms a reality totally foreign to the Christian faith.
Who has become human is the Word of God. "And the Word of God became flesh". This is confessed and sung in the liturgy of the Church, for God has truly become man without ceasing to be God (Council of Chalcedon). The "hypostatic union" is a fundamental key to our faith that is sung in wonderful ways in liturgical music.
Transubstantiated bread and wine
Moreover, if God has never become bread (the Church already condemned in the ninth century to speak of the substantial change of bread and wine as if it were in the image of the incarnation of the Word), what has no precedent in the history of theology is that "the bread of offerings becomes man". Our faith confesses that the whole substance of the bread is transubstantiated only in the substance of the body of Christ, making the whole Christ present by the "real concomitance".
The same is true of the wine, which is transubstantiated only in the blood of Christ, making the whole Christ present by the "real concomitance". Therefore, not only does it not make sense to speak of "a bread that becomes man," but, if one could speak in this way very figuratively, it would not express the nature of the new reality operated by the Holy Spirit in each species. To top off the picturesque expression, that conversion of the bread into "a human" leaves the divinity of Jesus Christ in such a disheartening silence that it is difficult to accept a reading respectful of the Eucharistic faith.
Some of us might think that such an analysis of Christian pop songs used in the liturgy is an exercise in "scrupulous theology and pastoral care". The present article only wishes to launch a challenge to all those pastoral agents who wish the best for our faithful, that is, a pastoral that leads them to live a true mature experience of faith in the Church and in our society. A challenge that may involve effort and even incomprehension, but which is always carried out by the pastors of the Church as a consequence of love for the Church and the people of God.
