Music in the Sacred Liturgy

I like contemporary Christian music, but I don’t like it during Mass. I realize and respect that there is room for various forms of music in the Sacred Liturgy, but if it aint traditional, it aint for me. My church, like many churches, has a contemporary music Mass on Sunday. I know and love all of the people involved, but I really don’t care for the music or the instruments used to perform it (guitars and electric piano). It is very distracting to me.

I don’t like the idea of trying to make the Mass ordinary or contemporary. It is a 2000-year-old form of worship in which we hear the Word of God and take part in His eternal sacrifice of the cross. How does a modern Top 10 Christian Billboard artist fit into that? I don’t think he or she does. Maybe for some people, that kind of music helps them worship fuller, but for me it constantly reminds me that I am in the year 2000 and takes me away from the historical event we are re-presented with in the Mass, Christ’s Sacrifice.

Another reason I don’t believe liturgical music should be contemporary is that contemporary music is unproven. It fades. It might not be around in five years. The Holy Mass deserves better than some fleeting attempt at art. It is the equivalent of using glass chalices. We shouldn’t use them because they might break. Jesus deserves better than that.

I don’t want to rob people of their contemporary music if it truly helps them worship, but I don’t want to lose the traditional music I feel is proper for the Sacred Liturgy either.

If 12:00 PM Mass is contemporary music, then lets have the 8:00 AM Mass at the other end of the continuum. Organ, choir, Gregorian chant, songs written more than 100 years ago. Sacred music. Music, which has stood the test of time. Music worthy of Christ’s Mass. That’s what I want.