"The fact is that, in one respect, the rude, ignorant peasantry of the middle ages were a great deal more learned than the pupils of our modern schools. In a certain sort of way, every child was rendered familiar with the language of the Church. From infancy they were taught to recite their prayers, the antiphons, and many parts of the ritual of the Church, in Latin, and to understand the meaning of what they learnt; and hence they became familiar with a great number of Latin words, so that a Latin discourse would sound far less strange in their ears than in those of a more educated audience of the same class in the present day. In many cases, indeed, the children who were taught in the priest's, or parochial school, learned grammar, that is—the Latin language; but all were required to learn the church chant, and a considerable number of Latin prayers, and hymns, and psalms. This point of poor-school education deserves more than a passing notice. Its result was, that the lower classes were able thoroughly to understand and heartily to take part in the rites and offices of Holy Church. The faith rooted itself in their hearts with a tenacity which was not easily destroyed, even by penal laws, because they imbibed it from its fountain source—the Church herself. She taught her children out of her own ritual, and by her own voice, and made them believers after a different fashion from those much more highly educated Catholics of the same class who, in our day, often grow up almost as much strangers to the liturgical language of the Church as the mass of unbelievers outside the fold. Can there be any incongruity more grievous than to enter a Catholic school, rich in every appliance of education, and to find that, in spite of the time, money, and method lavished on its support, its pupils are unable to understand and recite the church offices, and are untrained to take part in church psalmody? The language of the Church has, therefore, in a very literal sense, become a dead language to them, and it is from other and far inferior sources that they derive their religious instruction. Thus they are ignorant of a large branch of school education, in which the children of a ruder and darker age were thoroughly trained; no doubt, on the other hand, they know a great many things of which children in the middle ages were altogether ignorant; and the question is simply to determine which method of instruction has most practical utility in it. Without dogmatizing on this point, we may be permitted to regret that through any defect in the system of our parochial schools, Catholic congregations should in our own days be deprived of the solemn and thorough celebrations of those sacred offices which in themselves comprise a body of unequalled religious instruction; and that, in an age which makes so much of the theory of education, we should have to confess our inability to teach our children to pray and sing the prayers of the Church as the children of Catholic peasants prayed and sang them six hundred years ago. The English schools of that period enjoyed the benefit of no other inspection than that of the parish priest and the archdeacon, 'the eye of the bishop,' as he was called; and if their pupils knew little about 'monocotyledons,' the 'crustacea,' or grammatical analysis, they were able to recite their Alma Redemptoris and their Dixit Dominus with hearty, intelligent devotion.[146] They knew the order of the church service, and could sing its psalms and antiphons in the language of the church, and to her ancient tones."
The last words of this most interesting extract will spare us the trouble of insisting at any great length upon the point chiefly in question. The sacred offices of the Church, to whose due celebration and to their intelligent participation in them the faith and piety of our ancestors is in great measure to be ascribed, and the peculiar and inimitable melodies, yet, happily, undivorced from their language of prayer, ever formed one inseparable whole.
A revival of those offices in the spirit of their ancient fidelity to the ritual is, as all must allow, a revival of Gregorian chant. The project of substituting in its place a selection of solos, duets, etc., either culled from threadbare compositions of the two last centuries, notorious for their sensuousness of style and over-wrought "word-painting," or such melodies of the modern schools as our present masters are able to produce, would be unhesitatingly ridiculed on all sides.
Far be it from us to be guilty of the presumption of questioning the wisdom of the Church in permitting to the clergy the individual and private recitation of the Divine Office; but it is beyond dispute that so much of it as is enjoined to be performed publicly, in choir, on Sundays and festivals, is not absolved by the bravura singing of some "choice musical selections" in an organ-gallery, and the private recitation of the real office meanwhile by a lonely celebrant in the sanctuary. Moreover, the people are thereby greatly hindered in their devotions and deprived utterly of the spiritual fruit the sacred office so abundantly affords. If we gave the people a chance, we would very soon see how joyfully they would sing their Credo, and heartily chant their Dixit Dominus, as of old. "I do not like the Vespers in —— street," a well-instructed servant was lately overheard to say; "it is nothing but a concert of four opera-singers, and I'm all astray while it's going on. Nobody seems to make it out but the Protestant ladies and gentlemen, who do nothing but talk about it all the time. Give me the singing at Father ——'s church, where all the clergy sing, and where I can sing in the Tantum Ergo myself at benediction, if I like."
What we are arguing for is a strict, rubrical celebration of High Mass and Vespers, the two public offices enjoined upon the clergy in this country. When the rubrics for these offices are observed to the letter, we shall have no fear for the fate of plain chant, which has proved itself by the experience of so many centuries to be the only adequate and satisfying expression of the spirit of prayer that breathes through all the solemn ritual service of the Holy Church.
The words of the pious and erudite Benedictine monk, Dom Gueranger, Abbot of Solesmes, are again ringing in our ears. We cannot refrain from closing our article with a quotation from the preface to his Liturgical Year, the beauty of which will be a sufficient apology for its length:
"The prayer of the Church is the most pleasing to the ear and heart of God, and therefore the most efficacious of all prayers. Happy, then, is he who prays with the Church, and unites his own petitions with those of this Spouse, who is so dear to her Lord that he gives her all she asks. It was for this reason that our Blessed Saviour taught us to say our Father, and not my Father; give us, forgive us, deliver us, and not give me, forgive me, deliver me. Hence, we find that, for upward of a thousand years, the Church, who prays in her temples seven times in the day, and once again during the night, did not pray alone. The people kept her company, and fed themselves with delight on the manna which is hidden under the words and mysteries of the divine liturgy. Thus initiated into the sacred cycle of the mysteries of the Christian year, the faithful, attentive to the teachings of the Spirit, came to know the secrets of eternal life; and without any further preparation, a Christian was not unfrequently chosen by the bishops to be a priest, or even a bishop, that he might go and pour out on the people the treasures of wisdom and love which he had drunk in at the very fountain-head.
"But for now many past ages, Christians have grown too solicitous about earthly things to frequent the holy vigils and the mystical hours of the day. Long before the rationalism of the sixteenth century became the auxiliary of the heresies of that period by curtailing the solemnity of the divine service, the days for the people's uniting exteriorly with the prayer of the church had been reduced to Sundays and festivals. During the rest of the year, the solemn and imposing grandeur of the liturgy was gone through, and the people took no share in it. Each new generation increased in indifference for that which their forefathers in the faith had loved as their best and strongest food. Social prayer was made to give way to individual devotion. Chanting, which is the natural expression of the prayers and even of the sorrows of the Church, became limited to the solemn feasts. That was the first sad revolution in the Christian world.
"But even then Christendom was still rich in churches and monasteries, and there, day and night, was still heard the sound of the same venerable prayers which the Church had used through all the past ages. So many hands lifted up to God drew down upon the earth the dew of heaven, averted storms, and won victory for those who were in battle. These servants of God, who thus kept up an untiring choir that sang the divine praises, were considered as solemnly deputed by the people, which was still Catholic, to pay the full tribute of homage and thanksgiving due to God, his Blessed Mother, and the saints. These prayers formed a treasury which belonged to all. The faithful gladly united themselves in spirit to what was done. When any affliction, or the desire to obtain a special favor, led them to the house of God, they were sure to hear, no matter at what hour they went, that untiring voice of prayer which was for ever ascending to heaven for the salvation of mankind. At times they would give up their worldly business and cares, and take part in the office of the church, and all still understood, at least in a general way, the mysteries of the liturgy.
"Then came the Reformation, and, at the onset, it attacked the very life of Christianity—it would put an end to the sacrifice of man's praise of his God. It strewed many countries with the ruins of churches; the clergy, the monks, and virgins consecrated to God were banished or put to death; and in the churches which were spared the divine offices were not permitted. In other countries, where the persecution was not so violent, many sanctuaries were devastated and irremediably ruined, so that the life and voice of prayer grew faint. Faith, too, was weakened; rationalism became fearfully developed; and now our own age seems threatened with what is the result of these evils—the subversion of all social order.
"For, when the Reformation had abated the violence of its persecution, it had other weapons wherewith to attack the Church. By these, several countries, which continued to be Catholic, were infected with that spirit of pride which is the enemy of prayer. The modern spirit would have it that prayer is not action—as though every good action done by man were not a gift of God; a gift which implies two prayers: one of petition, that it may be granted; and another of thanksgiving, because it is granted! There were found men who said, Let us abolish all the festival days of God from the earth; and then came upon us that calamity which brings all others with it, and which the good Mardochai besought God to avert from his nation, when he said, Shut not, O Lord, the mouths of them that sing to thee!
"But, by the mercy of God, we have not been consumed; there have been left remnants of Israel; and the number of believers in the Lord has increased. What is it that has moved the heart of our God to bring about this merciful conversion? Prayer, which had been interrupted, has been resumed. Numerous choirs of virgins consecrated to God, and, though far less in number, of men who have left the world to spend themselves in the divine praises, make the voice of the turtle-dove heard in our land. This voice is every day gaining more power; may it find acceptance from our Lord, and move him to show the sign of his covenant with us, the rainbow of reconciliation! May our venerable cathedrals again reëcho those solemn formulæ of prayer which heresy has so long suppressed! May the faith and munificence of the faithful reproduce the prodigies of those past ages, which owed their greatness to the acknowledgment, which all, even the very civic authorities, paid to the all-powerfulness of prayer!
"For a long time a remedy has been devised for an evil which was only vaguely felt. The spirit of prayer, and even prayer itself, has been sought for in methods, and prayer-books, which contain, it is true, laudable, yea pious thoughts, but, after all, only human thoughts. Such nourishment cannot satisfy the soul, for it does not initiate her into the prayer of the Church. Instead of uniting her with the prayer of the Church it isolates her. Of this kind are so many of those collections of prayers and reflections which have been published, under different titles, during the last two hundred years, and by which it was intended to edify the faithful, and suggest to them, either for hearing mass, or going to the sacraments, or keeping the feasts of the church, certain more or less commonplace considerations and acts, always drawn up according to the manner of thought and sentiment peculiar to the author of each book. Each manual had consequently its own way of treating these important subjects. To Christians already formed to piety, such books as these would, indeed, serve a purpose, especially as nothing better was offered to them; but they had not influence sufficient to inspire with a relish and spirit of prayer such as had not otherwise received them.
"But this liturgical prayer would soon become powerless were the faithful not to take a real share in it, or, at least, not to associate themselves to it in heart. It can heal and save the world, but only on the condition that it be understood. Be wise, then, ye children of the Catholic Church, and get that largeness of heart which will make you pray the prayer of your mother. Come, and buy your share in it, fill up that harmony which is so sweet to the ear of God. Where would you obtain the spirit of prayer if not at its natural source? Let us remind you of the exhortation of the apostle to the first Christians: Let the peace of Christ rejoice in your hearts—let the word of Christ dwell in you abundantly, in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual canticles, singing in grace in your hearts to God."
HINTS ON HOUSEKEEPING
BY A GRANDMOTHER.