Eucharistic Reflection - Entering Deep and Contemplatively In the Sacred

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The Eucharistic journey deep into the sacred reaches its summit in Holy Communion, a moment calling for the utmost receptivity to God and the utmost response of love, epitomized by the words of the Apostle Thomas confronted by the glory of the Risen Christ, “My Lord and my God!”...

It can become much more difficult to enter deep and contemplatively into the sacred if the liturgy is not celebrated in a reverent and fitting manner. Unfitting “activity” during the Mass, [Alice] von Hildebrand observes, such as the congregational singing of music devoid of a genuinely sacred character, thwarts our ability to enter the depths of the sacred, our contemplation of the sublime celebration of the Holy Eucharist. The motivation behind such an approach to music for the liturgy, that the congregation needs to be given something to do, something to busy themselves with during the Mass, so that they don’t get bored, is in von Hildebrand’s words comparable to “the treatment of little children who are given a picture book in their hands so that they do not get bored during the Mass".

By contrast, truly sacred music, and in a paramount manner Gregorian Chant, fosters within us a contemplative receptivity to the Mass, enabling us to journey deep into the sacred. As von Hildebrand explains, Gregorian Chant is “the unsurpassed ideal music for the divine cult,” possessing “an eminently contemplative character,” one could say “a quasi-sacramental character,” able to give “full expression to the sublime ardor of the heart” while retaining “a sacred sobriety”. There is also the God-given “sound- track” of silence that helps us to make the journey into the sacred, delivering us from the din of the world.

(James Monti – The Journey Deep Into The Sacred in his Restoring The Sacred column published in The Wanderer on September 5, 2019)