What a pity, His Grace should have stuck to his guns

Horrid music will continue to blight Holy Mass. Regular readers may recall an earlier post where Bickerstaff congratulated Bishop W. Shawn McKnight of the Diocese of Jefferson, Missouri, for banning some of the particularly egregious hymns often used in the mass. Your Tatler, a former Episcopalian having some knowledge of hymns, praised His Grace on the bold action and urged him to continue the purging of Muzak hymns. There certainly is a plethora of them.

Naturally, there was an enormous outcry from tone-deaf musical ignoramuses who, believe it or not, consider “Gather us in” and the like the ne plus ultra of hymnody, not that complicated stuff protestants like to sing. Unfortunately, Bishop Mcknight caved and withdrew his order. Mediocrity triumphed.

Coming from the Anglican tradition, Bickerstaff rejoiced when after seven months of intense cathechizing, he embraced the fullness of the faith on Easter Eve years ago.

Just the same, the awfulness of contemporary Catholic church music and liturgy was and is something of a let down, especially considering the glorious musical tradition of our Church in the past.

Bickerstaff has an easy solution to the woes of poor liturgy and music in Holy Church today, though he knows full well they would never be implemented. It is presented below, nevertheless.

And now, for your reading pleasure/displeasure, presenting an absurd fantasy:

For the poor liturgy in the US, the Church should chuck the modern English of Novus Ordo and replace it with a wholesale cribbing of the 1962 Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer, after changes are made in it to conform with Catholic teachings. The 1962 Prayer Book contains some of the most glorious English ever written. Yes, it was mostly written by the heretic Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, but so what? He expropriated much of the Prayer Book’s text from the Latin Mass and translated it into beautiful English.

Regarding upgrading the music of the mass, that would be far easier. Whoever is given charge of the project only needs to get hold of the Episcopal Hymnal of 1940, considered by many the finest compilation ever of hymns and service music. It should be flipped through and a fair number of its superb hymns in it poached. The only caution would be to avoid some of the mid-century hymns commissioned by the Hymnal committee at the time; there is a small chance they may still be under copyright, and besides, most of them aren’t very good anyway. All the Vaughan Williams hymn settings, for example, would be grabbed.

And there you have it, a relatively cheap and easy way Holy Church might address the flat and dull English of Novus Ordo, as well the uninspiring, boring hymns in present use Too bad it will never happen.