The Christmas Carol Question

As our schola faces last-minute choices about Christmas liturgy, our first instincts are to follow the usual Catholic practice of loading up the Mass with Christmas carols, since people adore this music. Carols also enjoy the distinction of being the only slice of the traditional repertoire that the partisans of commercial stylings seem to approve of in liturgy. Not even the text of the basic carol repertoire seems to have been modernized. And truly, carols do one thing that music is supposed to do: unite people across the generations and connect us with our heritage and faith.

But then there are second thoughts.

By the time Catholics get around to singing the carols, evangelical Christians, along with consumers in general, are already fed up with them. As much as we may try to keep Advent and Christmas separate, it is impossible to do in our public lives. We've heard the carols in stores, offices, and on the radio since the day after Thanksgiving. In a society that values that which is first past the post—whether in commerce or elections—Catholics seem rather pathetic behind the times in beginning to sing the carols only when everyone else has packed away their CDs and the stores have moved on to New Year's and Valentine's themes.

In addition, by the time the genuine Twelve Days of Christmas comes around, the carols have taken on a different cultural import than one we associate with liturgy. They suggest celebration, community gatherings, parties, and shopping, but they do not necessarily suggest the holy sacrifice of the Mass. And so importing the carols into liturgy can seem to partake of the great liturgical error of our age, which is to attempt to make the liturgy more like everything else in life rather than something out of time and place and into eternity.

We should remember, too, that carols are not actually intended for liturgy as such. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports that certain popular airs achieved quasi-liturgical status early in Church history, but most of what we call carols today are 17-19th century creations. While it would be a mistake, then, to say that they should never be sung, we should consider avoiding total immersion and remember than liturgy should sound and feel differently from the rest of life. It should be slightly unfamiliar, for example, so that it entices our imaginations and becomes memorable on its own terms, and doesn't just wash over us like the white noise of a shopping trip.

Processional and recessions are one thing, but let us not leave out entrance antiphons and communions from the Graduale (English or Latin), if possible. The Gloria need not be over-the-top (with endlessly repeated phrases to "Angels We Have Heard on High") but rather be based on plainsong. There is celebration in simple lines of music.

Our Schola will sing a polyphonic Ave Maria by Monteverdi, the Exaudi Deus by G. Groce, and, for the second year, the schola will sing the hymn Puer Natus, which anyone can pick up very quickly. (Here is a nice edition that fits on two pages). Other choices that are less familiar among the shopping set and more suggestive of the liturgical tradition are "Of the Father's Love Begotten" and "Low How a Rose."

As we return home and enjoy Christmas revelry, may the traditional carols and even beloved secular Christmas music fill our homes and workplaces. But may our spiritual imaginations be enlivened by that special peace that comes from truly liturgical sounds we can only hear at liturgy.

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