Pope's homily focuses on the Holy Spirit, supernatural virtue of hope

The Holy Father's homily, given today in Washington, D.C., from the USCCB's Papal Visit site:

In today's Gospel, the risen Lord bestows the gift of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and grants them the authority to forgive sins. Through the surpassing power of Christ's grace, entrusted to frail human ministers, the Church is constantly reborn and each of us is given the hope of a new beginning. Let us trust in the Spirit's power to inspire conversion, to heal every wound, to overcome every division, and to inspire new life and freedom. How much we need these gifts! And how close at hand they are, particularly in the sacrament of Penance! The liberating power of this sacrament, in which our honest confession of sin is met by God's merciful word of pardon and peace, needs to be rediscovered and reappropriated by every Catholic. To a great extent, the renewal of the Church in America depends on the renewal of the practice of Penance and the growth in holiness which that sacrament both inspires and accomplishes.

"In hope we were saved!" (Rom 8:24)." As the Church in the United States gives thanks for the blessings of the past two hundred years, I invite you, your families, and every parish and religious community, to trust in the power of grace to create a future of promise for God's people in this country. I ask you, in the Lord Jesus, to set aside all division and to work with joy to prepare a way for him, in fidelity to his word and in constant conversion to his will. Above all, I urge you to continue to be a leaven of evangelical hope in American society, striving to bring the light and truth of the Gospel to the task of building an ever more just and free world for generations yet to come.

Those who have hope must live different lives! (cf. Spe Salvi, 2). By your prayers, by the witness of your faith, by the fruitfulness of your charity, may you point the way towards that vast horizon of hope which God is even now opening up to his Church, and indeed to all humanity: the vision of a world reconciled and renewed in Christ Jesus, our Savior. To him be all honor and glory, now and forever. Amen.

Read the entire homily.

I didn't see the Mass on television. Life is a bit crazy here at the Olson household at the moment, so I'm catching most everything after the fact, focusing on reading what the Pope has said. But it sounds as though there has been a lot—a lot!—of discussion about the music played at the Mass. Amy Welborn is clearly annoyed by what she heard:

The core problem with this liturgy was that it had such a heavy performance vibe to it. Commenters have called it a “review” and I think that’s apt. I don’t want to make the multiculturalism the center of any critique myself. I don’t think that’s the point. The point is that, for example, after the Holy Father intoned the Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer, what happened next? A solemnly chanted “Amen” fitting in with what he had just done?

No - we get freakin’ trumpets - the same trumpets that preceded all three of the Mass parts used from the Mass of Creation.

There was a bombastic, almost frenzied sensibility, as various musical styles were pulled in, Cantor A was replaced by Cantor B and every Mass part had to be introduced by overwhelming musical stylings of someone.

I am not sure how, exactly, one could pull of a Mass in a stadium with 50,000 or so people without making it big in this sense. I don’t know if there is a bigness possible that would pull everyone present into the ritual while at the same time respecting the fact that this is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, not Talent Night At St. Hippodrome’s. Someone can, perhaps enlighten me on that score.

She writes more here. The New Liturgical Movement blog has this to say (and Fr. Z. offers commentary here):

In the name of "multiculturalism," the Pope was subjected to music more suitable to dingy dance halls than Churches. The Psalms of David were distorted to the point of ear-splitting dissonance. The congos, pan flutes, meringue rhythms, the jazz and blues and rock, the swaggering vocals, the puffed-up soloing, went beyond even the most pessimistic predictions.

And the Sacred Music for the  New Millennium blog offers an apology to the Holy Father.

The Washington Post has a rather curious piece about the music and the reaction to it; it ends with this comment about "guitar Masses":

In defense of guitar Mass, was it really so bad? It was the soundtrack of a lot of social justice efforts. The St. Louis Jesuits stuff conjures up, for many, memories of food banks and felt banners, of youth group carwashes and, more nobly, martyred nuns and priests in Central America. Maybe that was the problem for some churchgoers? The groovier music really was of its time, and came with an agenda?

"What about silence?" wonders Day, the music professor, 18 years after he wrote "Why Catholics Can't Sing."

If he has any prescriptive at all for Mass music, he says, "it would be to cool it. Pick plain, simple music. Plain, square hymns with reasonable accompaniment. And listen to silence occasionally."

Yet another reason I am thankful to be able to attend a Byzantine Catholic parish. We don't have fights about who plays guitar, or how many people should be in the orchestra. There are no instruments. And there is not place for that weird nostalgia that informs the "guitar Mass" movement (if that's the right term for it). Personally, I don't like going to Mass or Divine Liturgy and hearing '60s guitar music, or '80s drumming, or 21st-century rock licks. And one simple reason—apart from the significant theological issues involved—is that I can hear that stuff anytime and anywhere; it is the soundtrack of our culture. Going to Mass should be different because it is should be clearly distinct from cruising in the car, dancing at a wedding reception, or attending a rock concert. Okay, so I'm talking the choir; enough of that for now. I'll just leave this brief quote from then-Cardinal Ratzinger:

On the one hand, there is pop music, which is certainly no longer supported by the people in the ancient sense (populus). It is aimed at the phenomenon of the masses, is industrially produced, and ultimately has to be described as a cult of the banal. "Rock", on the other hand, is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe. The music of the Holy Spirit's sober inebriation seems to have little chance when self has become a prison, the mind is a shackle, and breaking out from both appears as a true promise of redemption that can be tasted at least for a few moments.

• Music and Liturgy | Joseph Ratzinger | From The Spirit of the Liturgy
• Cardinal Ratzinger on Liturgical Music | Michael J. Miller (July 2000; Homiletic & Pastoral Review)

Comments

[Ben George]

WHAT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY.

If the Pope himself can't even control the Masses over which he presides, what hope is there for those of us out in the pews?

[rd]

where i come from, there's still one option on sundays: go to the earliest morning Mass. no choir. just old ladies in the pews chanting traditional hymns in the native language. very solemn.

[rd]

let me add also that i did get a chance to see the Mass online. even though i don't have a problem with st louis jesuit music, the music in the nationals park Mass was confused and distracting. and too loud. not conducive to prayer.

didn't Pope Benedict recently replace the chief liturgist?

[padraighh]

One needs to remember that the mass a Nationals stadium was crafted
for the mass media -not for the pope -and certainly not for those present.

If one thought that the full range of multiculture America was represented then there were some notable lapses.

1) where was the Irish band and the Irish pub songs?

2) there was no German Octoberfest band

3) No emotional Italian arias about Sorriento 'Vid o Mare quanto bella..'

4) No French can-can ala Offenbach

5) No Russian boat songs

6) No Argentine Tango - Ok, I take tha one back

[Gail F]

Was there a tango song? My parish music director plays one every Easter. ("Rescucito" --probably not spelled right) A gentleman named Miguel on another blog (Amy Welborn's, I think) said he find it insulting when churches play so-called Hispanic music to be "inclusive," because it is always the well-intentioned idea of people who don't know what music Spanish-speaking people really want to hear, they just pick some. That certainly seems to be the case at my parish. We do have some Spanish-speaking people, but as far as I know no one has ever asked them what music would make them feel "included" (assuming they don't already). We also have some French speakers, but we never have any French music. Probably because there isn't any on our music books.

[padraighh]

Many of the great Christmas Carols are french though rarely sung in french.

The Great Picardy hymn -Let all mortal flesh keep silent-
is certainly familiar to the french.

And, yes I think there was a tango at least in my house
we used the tango step during that particular performance
but as I am not a dance instructor I may have chosen to lead
improperly - perhaps it was salsa -
but my wife refuses the salsa step in public.

[padraighh]

It is often better to laugh than to cry.

[Augustine II]

The liturgical planners behind this debacle were obviously spitting in the Holy Father's face. Surely they knew of his comments on such filth.

[John Herreid]

The liturgical planners behind this debacle were obviously spitting in the Holy Father's face. Surely they knew of his comments on such filth.

Augustine, I don't think comments like that are particularly helpful.

I have no doubt that the people who put this Mass together did so in good faith. Some of them may have even read the Pope's words on the subject. But some people, especially it seems in the liturgical realm, cannot hear what they do not wish to hear. They most likely were thinking that this was the best America had to offer, and if it was something that they like, the Pope must like it. It's a mode of thinking that seems to be prevalent among those who only associate with like-minded people. It's not malicious so much as ham-handedly ignorant.

Yes, it was pretty bad. But it was still the Mass, and it was still the Pope. I'd have loved to be there, music and all.

[Augustine II]

This spectacle among the best arguments I've yet seen for the traditional Mass. Benedict himself didn't seem too pleased about it either.

[Augustine II]

This spectacle was among the best arguments I've yet seen for the traditional Mass. Benedict himself didn't seem too pleased about it either.