Is there a real choir in your parish? If there is a choir, it is more probably a song group accompanied by guitar, perhaps with drums and bass guitar. The traditional choir, a mainstay of Catholic liturgy -- with a repertoire of great beauty -- has all but vanished in the parishes.

Where once Catholic choirs sang the great masterworks of Palestrina, Nanino, Victoria, Mozart, etc., now song groups gabble the pop-style pablum churned out by the powerful music publishing industry.

Where once the magnificent texts of “O Sacrum Convivium”, “Ave Verum Corpus”, and “Sicut Cervus” wove through the air drawing the listener heavenward, now the song groups are mired in secular style, and singing -- well, just what the heck are they singing?

Here’s a text that is sure to confuse.

I choose you, I choose you
You shall be the way, You shall be the truth
I choose you, I choose you.
Be the road between my people and my dreams.
“I Choose You” by Rory and Claire Cooney, World Library Publications #007343 (2000)

Just who, after all, has chosen whom? Is this a vox dei text? Is it God speaking? He chooses me? But no, we cannot be the way and truth, can we? The text continues:

I am the words you drink, written in spirit and flame
I am the words that reach you, trying to teach you my name
I am the tongue of fire that lights up with love in your eyes
I am the glimmer in your heart not to grow dimmer and die!

So this is God speaking to us, after all? No dimmer glimmer, He! Finally, the text says,

I choose you, my disciple,
my beloved child
My eyes, my arms, my truth my shelter
the tongue of flame still burning from your dreams
the road between my people
and my dreams.

What! God chooses God’s people and God’s dreams?

When I read this text to my choir, they blinked in dismay. If the choir can’t understand the text, what is the congregation to think?

But if that song is confusing, here’s one with a very clear agenda:

For ev’ryone born, a place at the table,
For ev’ryone born, clean water and bread,
A shelter, a space, a safe place
for growing,
For ev’ryone born, a star overhead.
“A Place at the Table”, words by Shirley Erena Murray, music by Lori True. GIA Publications, #G-5670 (2001)

Sort of sounds like a campaign song, doesn’t it? (A chicken in every pot!) And what “table” are we talking about? If it is the table of the true Eucharistic banquet, it is not open to “everyone born”.

The song goes on:

For woman and man, a place at the table,
Revising roles, decided the share,
With wisdom and grace,
dividing the power,
For woman and man, a system that’s fair.

I am not making this up! Imagine sitting at Mass, preparing to receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord and Savior, and hearing a song about revising men’s and women’s roles, and “dividing the power” for “a system that’s fair”. Is that why you came to Mass?

Again, let us turn to our current pope:

... when in this congregation a choir exists which can draw the congregation into the cosmic praise and into the wide open space of heaven and earth more strongly than the congregations’ own stammering is able to do, then precisely in that moment the delegated, representative function of the choir is especially appropriate and fitting. (“In the Presence of Angels I will Sing Your Praise”, AB)

Now there is a challenge! Draw the congregation into the cosmic praise! Draw them into the wide-open space of heaven and earth! The above song texts just don’t measure up to that, do they?

Perhaps all of the above songs can find a home somewhere: concerts, assemblies, special programs, non-liturgical events. But are they the right choice for the Sacrifice of Calvary re-enacted in our sanctuaries?

The untrained folks in charge of selecting music know only what the publishers send them, and these pieces, while they come with recordings (learn by listening!), do not come with warning labels as to the suitability for Holy Mass. Indeed, most music publishers would be confounded to think anyone would even question the suitability of these pieces -- the current attitude toward music for Mass is, well, pretty much, “anything goes”.

Have none of these folks read Musicam Sacram? Or Pope John Paul II’s chirograph on the 100th anniversary of Tra le sollecitudini?

The publishers whose works are quoted above do have choral pieces eminently suited for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, although they are fewer in number compared to the overwhelming piles of quasi-sacred and downright un-sacred material.

Catholic music publishers sell their products to all denominations these days. Isn’t it odd to think that, while our understanding of the Eucharist (i.e., transubstantiation) is so different from Protestant churches, that communion texts could possibly be one-size-fits-all? Or that, given the difference in our theology, anything quasi-religious is suitable for all?

Let us restore to our sacred liturgy choral texts that raise us heavenward, texts that give worship and adoration to the God of all creation, to the Son who sacrificed for our salvation, to the Spirit that vivifies us.

Let us insist on texts that draw us to the miraculous act of transubstantiation, rather than the foibles of those around us.

Let us sing to God, not glory in each other. Let us restore sacred texts of lofty nature.

Let us pray!