Music During Lent

by Rex Rund, OLMC Liturgy and Music Director

Lent, of course, is a time of simplification and sacrifice, aimed at drawing closer to Christ and preparing to celebrate His resurrection. This is true in prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, and it’s also true at Mass. In the liturgy, the Church directs that we “fast” both visually and aurally during the Lenten season. Visually, fresh flowers are not permitted in the sanctuary in Lent. Aurally, the Church permits the use of musical instruments only to support the singing of the people. One parish I was in interpreted that in the strictest form, doing all six weeks of Lent completely a cappella. 

In both Lent and Advent, the festive hymn “Glory to God” is omitted from every Mass except on Solemnities and Feasts. The hope is that its absence will create a longing to sing it with more gusto than ever come Christmas and Easter! Similarly, in Lent, we fast from the great Easter acclamation, “Alleluia,” so that our Alleluias in the Easter season will ring even more joyously for having been sacrificed for so long. After all, if one has given up chocolate for Lent, that first dark chocolate bunny ear on Easter morning tastes especially spectacular, does it not? It’s the same principle.

But what about Latin? For well over a decade we at OLMC have sung a cappella Latin (or in the case of the Kyrie, Greek) Mass parts each Lent. Is that sacrificial, too? Well, for some folks it might be, but that’s not the idea at all. Our choice of Latin in Lent is more because of the Church’s call to simplicity. Of all the musical settings of the Mass, the Latin chants lend themselves best to simple, a cappella singing. Since the texts are the exact same texts we sing at Mass all through the year (e.g. “Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of hosts…” or “Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world…”), it’s very easy for us to understand what we’re singing.

And the use of Latin is not some longing for the return to a pre-Vatican-2 liturgy. Rather, the post-Vatican 2 liturgy calls very specifically for all Catholics to be familiar with a few prayers in Latin. One (of many) instructions on this comes in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal: “Since the faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is desirable that they know how to sing together at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin” (GIRM #41). Thus, our singing together in Latin signifies and promotes the universal unity of the Catholic Church, both geographically and throughout history. Indeed, anyone who has attended a Mass abroad has likely experienced the unitive power of these ancient Latin melodies and texts; they make us feel at home in the Catholic Church. No matter where we travel, we can sing along! And it’s beautiful to reflect while singing these chants that our ancestors sang the same melodies centuries ago, and our descendants will certainly still be singing them long after we’re gone.

In this Lenten season, let us embrace anew the spirit of simplicity and the ancient beauty of these chants that unite us with fellow Catholics around the world and through the course of history.