Why Praise & Worship Music is Praise & Worship

A few days ago, a Fr. Smith posted this article on the Chant Cafe blog: “Why Praise & Worship music is praise, but not worship.”

Here’s my response:

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To begin my response to Fr. Smith’s post, I’d like to point out that my response is written from the perspective of a “Praise & Worship” musician.  That is, I am a Catholic music minister who uses songs & instrumentation that are principally featured in the genre known as “Praise & Worship”.  While most of my experience with P&W is within the context of local prayer gathers, youth retreats, and para-liturgical settings such as Eucharistic Adoration, I do occasionally accompany Mass as a liturgical musician and employ the P&W genre in that as well.

After my first read through of Fr. Smith’s post, I was most surprised by the number of assumptions he makes on the part of Praise & Worship musicians.  This most surprised me, since it appeared through the article that his experience with the P&W genre was limited to a few poor instances of its implementation.  I noticed one commenter mentioned how any liturgical abuses that may have occurred in the name of the Life Teen Movement, have since been corrected by the youth movement itself and no longer continues under its name (hopefully).  My experience with P&W music has been, and continues to be a positive and prayerful one.  I pray that my responses to Fr. Smith’s assumptions will be received as “from the source” rather than from what appeared to be an individuals “bad experiences.” While I do recognize the value of how something may be “received” vs. how it may be in actuality, and if P&W music appears to be all the things Fr. Claims it indeed becomes a problem, I would argue that Father’s experience of P&W is not the whole picture.  Allow me to elaborate:

To begin, I started by going to the Catechism to find a definition of “praise” as a form of prayer.  CCC#2639-2642 provide the foundation for a handful of my remarks.  Father Smith starts out by stating: “P&W music assumes that praise is worship.”  He continues to define praise as a form of prayer, “typically done within an individual or small communal context in the form of culturally relevant symbols & forms.”  He calls worship a type of praise, but he tries to identify worship within the context of a “Mystery which is not of the [community’s] making.”  He also describes worship as a “corporate action, (an act of the baptized in communion with the visible and institutional Church), governed by law & tradition.”  His final contention on this point seems to be that P&W “grafts” a “freer and more individualistic nature of praise onto the communal prayer of the Church’s worship.”

CCC#2639 describes praise as, “the form of prayer which recognizes most immediately that God is God. It lauds God for his own sake and gives him glory, quite beyond what he does, but simply because HE IS. It shares in the blessed happiness of the pure of heart who love God in faith before seeing him in glory. By praise, the Spirit is joined to our spirits to bear witness that we are children of God, testifying to the only Son in whom we are adopted and by whom we glorify the Father. Praise embraces the other forms of prayer and carries them toward him who is its source and goal: the “one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist.”

After looking to the Catechism, I do not recognize Father’s assumptions of individualism or liturgically inappropriate liberality as he seems to connect them to the prayer of “praise.”

Fr. Smith goes on to assert that “P&W assumes that worship is principally something we do.”  As, the above CCC’d reference points out, praise is something the Spirit does in us – it testifies to the Son.  As Fr. pointed out the highest Praise to the Trinity is the Sacrifice of Redemption, which is exactly what P&W testifies to, especially in the Mass.  No serious P&W musician would assert that by engaging in P&W we are doing something that somehow does something to our relationship to God apart from his action in our prayer and in our lives.

Fr.’s third assumption describes, “P&W music assumes as its first principle relevance.”  It’s at this point in reading the post I had to say, “ok, enough is enough, Father, where are you getting this stuff?  As I continue reading, all I see is assumptions being made left and right from a person who, according to the article, has only ever had bad experiences with p&w.  Who is he to be making these assumptions on behalf of something he doesn’t fully understand?”

As a P&W musician father, I have learned that if my only goal is to placate the masses, then I’ve completely missed the point of giving praise & worship to God.  Favorite songs come and go, but what remains the same is the heart of worship within the musician, and the community.  You could sing a song that has been “uncouth” for the past decade, but sing it in a way that it comes from your heart and touches other people because they recognize the prayerfulness of what is happening, and then you start to understand P&W music.  Is P&W music relevant today?  Of course it is!  It’s something “new” – relatively speaking.  And for that reason, I plead on it’s behalf to let it grow.  At some point Chant was “relevant” and touched people where they were at, but it has since had hundreds of years to continue & settle.  Until P&W has that time, it will be constantly trying to stay relevant, but I guarantee that only those musicians and communities who understand the heart of P&W, what CCC6239 pointed out – will be the ones who remain and get it right.

Your fourth point regarding the “active participation of a certain age group” is “off” as much as the other points.  P&W today is composed by a wide age range of people.  Many of the P&W songs of today come straight from the Scriptures.  To paint with such a broad brush that their theology & liturgical understanding is sub-par is not accurate.  Sure, some P&W will be “off” in terms of theology or liturgical appropriateness, but it’s up to the music minister to understand the difference.  Don’t punish the genre because it’s been understood and implemented poorly by those in charge of liturgical music on the parish level.  In terms of contemplative “interior” participation in the mass, the act of “praise and worship” comes out of the silence and should always lead back into the silence where individuals and community can contemplate their relationship with God and one another in a profoundly intimate way.  It doesn’t matter if they’re clapping, jumping, singing whatever, unless contemplation is our goal, then p&w will continue to be executed poorly.

With regards to the “dividing” nature that Fr. asserts onto P&W music, I would argue that you could say the same thing against Gregorian Chant – that wouldn’t make either statement true however.  It’s true that P&W seems to come from the “ground up” as opposed to “top down”, but that doesn’t mean its “germane” and “banal” from the start.  Like I said before P&W is growing and maturing, and it appears to me that much of Father’s experience – as well many in the Chant Café, has been that of nascent, immature P&W, and that is unfortunate.

Number 6’s assumption regarding “subverting Biblical & liturgical texts during the Mass” would probably be Father’s best assumption, although I don’t’ 100% agree with it.  It is clear that the Church has prescribed general norms for music in the liturgy.  As we can all agree, Chant & Organ have pride of place, and while I am definitely of fan of this #1 slot when its executed well – just because it’s #1 doesn’t mean it’s always the best option for this reason.  Still, I agree that when possible we should look to “sing the mass” with all its texts.  Thank you SO MUCH to Adam, Jeff and all Simple Proper Project people for making this task a lot more do-able btw!

I would like to argue for a notion of “progressive solemnity” within the mass.  That is, and I can spell this out more later, it would appear to me that the Church sees within “hymnody” and “song” the potential to experience the liturgy in all its fullness.  I mean, think about it, if there were to be something “lacking” in the liturgy by using “hymnody” – would the Church allow it?  Now, obviously there’s probably a better chance of experiencing the fullness of liturgy through chant and organ, however, to me, it seems that P&W can be appropriated to the liturgy under the Church’s teachings.  I agree that the ordinaries should not be messed with, as well as any biblical texts, but I don’t think it means the complete absence of P&W in the liturgy.  Therefore as a rough draft to my “progressive solemnity” proposal: Entrance & Closing, hymnody – the closer to the Eucharist you get, the more you involve chants & propers.  (This is obviously for those who want a “both-and” approach to the liturgy)

Number 7 – OK Father, where’s this coming from?  I mean, I’m sorry, but this seemed like a straight out attack on all P&W musicians that we like the Church, and her laws for faith and morals, but when it comes to the liturgy, we say, “to hell with it, we want to do our own thing.”  Not cool padre, not cool.  I love my Church, and I only wish to serve her with all my heart, and will defend the liturgy to the best of my ability against anyone who would do damage against it musically via P&W, folk, Chant, or otherwise.

Number 8 primarily refers to immature notions and exercises of P&W.  While P&W may connect to the emotions of many of its listeners, I liken it to the wide range of chant enthusiasts who are touched by a beautiful chant piece.  It takes proper instruction and implementation for both the music ministers and the community to understand that emotions ARE NOT the goal of the p&w genre.  I believe this speaks to number 9 as well.  Both these assumptions are another example of a misunderstanding of p&w.

Numbers 10&11, see number 7.

Father, thank you for writing this blog post and giving P&W musicians like myself the opportunity to dialogue with you.  While I will admit I have been extra-sensitive to critique lately (as per my last blog post that Jeff posted that sort of called Chant-advocates “pharisees”), I found your post as a catalyst for me to continue to vocalize my desire to see communion in the Church within the liturgy for both P&W musicians and Chant musicians, as they are properly understood by one another.

For a fuller explanation of my view of P&W in the liturgical life in the Church check out this link to a paper & wrote for one of my graduate course two years ago.

http://thecatholicworshipblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Outline-of-Liturgy-Paper.doc

I’m sorry I got kind of short and casual towards the end, my two sons were starting to awake from a nap that was not nearly long enough for me   God bless!

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