Is Nothing (or Anything) Sacred?

June is the month that is most closely associated with weddings. Don't ask me why. But while we're on the subject, let's talk about the possibility of secular music at sacred occasions.

In particular, let's set our sights on one particular piece of music, the favorite or whipping boy of choice when Catholic weddings are planned, “The Wedding Song” originally composed by Noel Paul Stookey (the party of the second part in Peter, Paul, and Mary). A growing number of parishes and dioceses are forbidding its use, because it is a popular music selection, which is to say, secular music, making it inappropriate for sacred use.

So, if you never heard it on the radio or anywhere else, but you heard it at your friend’s wedding, you’d say: “Duuude, that’s not sacred music, that’s a pop song!”

Or would you?

You see, I don’t think people take that position with this song because their disapproval has any merit. I think they take that position because most guitarists suck at it. They don’t play it even close to the way Stookey composed it. As you can hear in the first video, his own performance at a 1986 concert, you probably don’t hear it sound like that anywhere else.

And there’s a reason.

Behind The Music

But first, some background on the song, from the “Shout Music Factory” YouTube channel.

”Wedding Song (There Is Love)" is a song written by Noel Paul Stookey in the fall of 1969 and first performed at the wedding of Peter Yarrow - Stookey's co-member of Peter, Paul and Mary - to Mary Beth McCarthy at St Mary's Catholic Church in Willmar MN: Stookey was best man at the ceremony which took place in the evening of October 18, 1969.

Stookey had written the song on a midnight flight between PP&M concert dates in San Jose and Boston setting out to write a song for Yarrow's wedding which would convey Stookey's Christian convictions while respecting Yarrow's Jewish faith.

According to Stookey, "the melody and the words [of 'Wedding Song'] arrived simultaneously and in response to a direct prayer asking God how the divine could be present at Peter's wedding." (The first two lines of the song's second verse: "A man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home/ And they shall travel on to where the two shall be as one", is largely a paraphrase of the text of Genesis 2:24: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.") Believing he could not take personal credit for composing "The Wedding Song", Stookey set up the Public Domain Foundation which since 1971 has received the song's songwriting royalties for charitable distribution.

So, everybody can relax, no one is making a living off this little ditty, are they? Try claiming that about the stable of artists at Oregon Catholic Press, which for nearly half a century has succeeded in dumbing down the music programs for more than half the parishes in the United States. (There’s a secret to how they do it, and my Very Close Personal Friend Jeffrey Tucker explains it all for you.)

The song doesn't celebrate those who hear it, and not really the bridal couple. Whatever one thinks of it, the song celebrates how God is love, with the scriptural references to bring the point home.

Behind The Details

I was certain that Stookey played it in an alternate tuning (that is, a tuning other than E A D G B E, from sixth to first strings), which was the only explanation for its very modal quality. I was surprised to learn that, other than tuning the guitar down three half-steps (Db F# B E G# Db), or four half-steps (C F Bb Eb G C), depending on who you ask, standard tuning and chording is applied. It’s how he takes it from there (as seen in the second video by some anonymous guy who actually doesn't suck at it) that sets it apart from all the wannabes. There are plenty of websites that have the tablature to show how it’s really done, so you have no excuse to play it badly.

To put it another way, you have no excuse to suck at it.

It also doesn't hurt that Stookey uses a twelve-string guitar, both in the original recording and in the live stage example shown here. We all know at least one guy who plays only a twelve-string for the sole purpose of sounding more obnoxious than the next guy in a jam session (or at the parish "folk Mass"), but they really do serve a specific purpose in adding an additional texture, especially with picking or fingerpicking styles (as opposed to the average flattop flogger who should either invest in a six-string, or just stay home).

Roma Locuta, Causa Finita

Let's put the hit parade aside for a moment. What does the Church say about sacred music? Quite a bit, actually. In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, issued by the Second Vatican Council in 1963, says that music for sacred worship must serve "the glory of God and the sanctification of the faithful." (Sacrosanctum Concilium, 112) Further, the 1967 instruction on sacred music in the liturgy, Musicam Sacram, states that it must "be holy, and therefore avoid everything that is secular," and further, that such criterion must be "universal" in its understanding. In other words, it must not be subject to the passing whims of popular culture and fashion.

Most important, inasmuch as lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of praying is the law of believing, in other words, as we pray, so we believe), the words of the composition must be doctrinally sound. It must serve, and not offend, the Truths of the Faith and the glorification of God.

However ...

Having said this, we could subject many of the English-language hymns of the late 19th and early 20th century to the same scrutiny as luminaries of the 1960s "folk scare." One saccharine example is "Mother At Your Feet Is Kneeling," its composer identified only as "Sister SC," and composed as early as 1929 or as recent as 1952, depending on whom you ask. It was recorded for the popular charts by such crooners as Dennis Day and Bobby Wayne, and can be found in a number of preconciliar (and ostensibly traditional) hymnals.

What is it about sugary sentimentality that was acceptable before the 1960s, that suddenly becomes anathema after the 1960s? If the Psalmist wrote of praising the Lord "with trumpet sound ... with lute and harp ... with timbrel and dance ... with strings and pipe ... with sounding cymbals" (that's Psalm 150; read it and weep, suckas!), is it conceivable that He can be praised with the guitar, the stated preference by the Church for the organ in Sacrosanctum Concilium (120) notwithstanding?

So, Now What?

We may still insist that secular music has no place in a sacred setting. But if a band of monks can hit the Top 40 with an album of Gregorian chant, there’s always that chance of it cutting both ways. There's also that chance that walking the fine line between sacred and profane didn't start with Ray Repp and a bunch of singing nuns. Music is sacred on the basis on its own merits and objective characteristics, not some arbitrary classification of who did it first or how, or in which section at Barnes & Noble you find the recording.

If we want to get people to start making sense in choosing sacred music, it helps to know that to which we are both referring, as well as not referring, don’t you think?

Or don’t you?

(NOTA BENE: The above is proposed by this writer as a gedankenerfahrung, a "thought experiment," and does not take away from his dedication to the restoration of the sacred in Catholic worship, and his active promotion of Gregorian chant, the treasury of sacred polyphony, and the Traditional Latin Mass.)
 

A Tale of Two Weddings

The wedding of my parents was a relatively simple affair.

My father's Air National Guard unit had been activated, and he was heading off to join the occupation forces in Germany. But about a week before he shipped out, he married Mom. When I was a boy, I would ask him where they went on their honeymoon. He said he was still on it. Only years later did I learn, that it too was rather scaled-down as well.

IMAGE: The wedding of Dorothy Rosselot to Paul Alexander, with their attendants, Margery Rosselot and Raymond Alexander, St Patrick Church, Fayetteville, Ohio, June 1952.

That was sixty-five years ago this past summer.

Closer to the present, it was just thirty-five years ago today, that I was treated to the most fun I have ever had at a wedding -- believe it or not, my own.

The day was picked out well in advance using The Old Farmer's Almanac, and we got the sunny and mild weather that was predicted. It was meticulously planned to the last detail, with invitations personally silk-screened by the groom, and addressed by hand in calligraphy. As it was a daytime wedding, the groom and his attendants wore morning coats. God forbid they appear in black tie before six in the evening. There were little more than a hundred people in attendance, making the little church just over half full. The choir from the parish in Georgetown where I sang was present, singing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and Duruflé's Ubi Caritas in Latin, as the Divine Liturgy was chanted throughout in English and Slavonic. We exchanged custom-designed rings, each bearing a simulation of the wreathed crowns that we wore as the Gospel was proclaimed.

IMAGE: A scene from the author's first marriage, Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church, Annandale, Virginia, September 1982.

The reception was held at the old Evans Farm Inn in McLean, Virginia. (A luxury townhouse neighborhood now stands in its place, for reasons that defy all good sense.) Papa was a rough-edged steel mill foreman from Cleveland, who dropped out of school in the ninth grade when his father died, leaving him to support the family. By this time retired, he would accept nothing less than a show of his generosity. And so, the bridal couple's choice of chicken cordon bleu for dinner was abandoned in favor of prime rib, and the event is, to this day, the only wedding I have ever attended, with an open bar.

You read that right. Open, as in, all you can drink without falling down.

We had an old-fashioned square dance. Obviously the amplification did not blow the doors off the place, so people of all ages could relax and hear themselves think. Indeed, it was a central tenet of the couple's plans, that everyone of all ages and stations in life would feel comfortable at the event. Even the priest stayed for dinner. (They don't always, usually for reasons stated above.) As for the then-happy couple, they were last seen at ten o'clock in the evening, dancing with "Doc" Botzer on the piano, doing the Salty Dog Rag.

VIDEO: Dancing to Red Foley's 1952 hit song, "The Salty Dog Rag" has been a Dartmouth College tradition since 1972, where it is taught to freshman during orientation. Don't ask me why.

The total cost of the 1982 event was roughly four thousand dollars, an expense shared between the bride's parents, the groom's parents, and the couple themselves (with descending percentages of the share in that order). Using the consumer price index, this amount would translate in 2017 to just over ten thousand dollars. The average cost of a wedding in the United States is presently estimated at just over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

The bride's sister later said that the wedding was not only excruciatingly correct, but was one where everyone was made to feel at home. The marriage was a complete disaster, but the event that started it, in this writer's estimation, is a model for all the world to follow.

The marriage lasted just under ten years. After twenty-five years, if I tell a devout Catholic that I've been divorced all this time, they'll go "Awww" and tell me how sorry they are. I state here for the record that, first, she left me, and second, after a quarter of a century I'm not sorry anymore.

+    +    +

It is the observation of this writer, generally speaking, that there are only six kinds of people for whom a Catholic wedding in this day and age, especially in North America, is suited in terms of feeling at home.

1) The bride and groom (we can only hope),

2) The bridal party, as the event revolves around them, if to a lesser degree than the couple,

3) The families of the bride and groom,

4) Single young men and women of marriageable age, as such events tend to inspire them to follow suit,

5) Other married couples, for whom this occasion is to welcome the newlyweds to their mutual state in life, and finally

6) Two or more women in a group, if only to talk about what everyone else is wearing.

IMAGE: The author plays his great-uncle's 1916 Stewart banjo with the band. Fiddler-pianist Dennis "Doc" Botzer is to his left. Opposite is the renowned dance caller Louis Shapiro.

Now that may appear to cover a lot, but you may notice the absence of two categories.

One of them is celibate clergy. Priests who officiate at weddings are often invited to the reception, but they usually leave as the party is getting started. Such events as these are not the most comfortable for those who choose the celibate life, and after some years of taking the cloth, they develop an aversion to very loud music, (I'm a musician by avocation, and even I don't get the idea of cranking up the volume.)

The other is divorced or unmarried people of middle age, especially men, especially when unaccompanied. The best dancer among them will be turned down, either by many a married woman for whom this is not her husband or close friend, or an unmarried and eligible woman who does not see her unborn children in his eyes. (See item 4.) Of course, it is ill-mannnered to presume to bring a guest who is not invited by the bridal couple. It is certainly not for relationships that are less than serious, and publicly so. The guest must receive a separate invitation, or the invitation may be addressed to the invitee "and Guest."

IMAGE: In an old Eastern European custom, the bride relinquishes her veil for the babushka, signifying her entry into womanhood. Note the bridesmaids' dresses (from Garfinkles), in a style which they would be most likely to wear again.

A few years ago, one of the best friends I ever made in this God-forsaken city after more than three decades, married a young woman who is just right for him. I had occasion to meet her and her mother for brunch after Mass. The groom has also met Sal, and we have both been to his house. Our association was no secret, and he had no cause for that association as a source of scandal. So when I received the invitation, I was taken aback that it was addressed to me alone. Now, Sal is a woman of a rather high degree of breeding, born and raised in the Philippines to be well-versed in old world Spanish manners. If she was insulted by the exclusion (and she was), then she had a reason.

Nevertheless, it was the prerogative of the happy couple to decide that which was in their interest, and one should take pains here to lay stress. Mine was to decline the invitation, send them a very nice gift, and wish for them nothing but the best. He and I are still friends, but it's not the same.

Harry Truman was right about this town. If I had a much bigger place, I'd get a dog.
 

Merry Christmas, Catholic Girl

... is the story of a devout Catholic woman, a mother of two children from a marriage now broken after a life of alcohol and abuse. Finding little solace in a local parish reeling from a history of dysfunction and public scandal, our anti-heroine seeks shelter from the storm at a convent where the Latin Mass is celebrated on Sunday. The story begins with a brief flashback, and continues as she moves on with her life, rediscovering the stirrings of the heart.

Little man big man what's inside?
It's all in the places
Where we find our pride.
If there was a soul lost by the road,
Who'd pass by,
Who'd take it home?

(from the song "Little Man Big Man"
music and lyrics by Glen Philips
for the 1997 album "Coil" by Toad the Wet Sprocket)

Catholic magazines don't handle stories like this. Catholic magazines don't handle the issue of divorce any better than many Catholic priests, never mind other Catholic media outlets. These stories are dirty, they are tawdry, wallowing in the seamy underbelly of life, in which many suffer, often through no fault of their own, and out of which many must climb. Stories like these tell us what we don't want to hear, that marriages are not made in heaven, that grace does not always succeed where nature is found wanting. The fighting, the betrayal, the abandonment, the court hearings, the custody battles, the supervised visits, the estrangement from children -- your Catholic cable channel won't admit to such a life out there, one that is all too real for so many, whether they "experience the healing" from the panacea of an annulment or not.

This is my fourth Christmas as a divorcee.

Four Christmases ago, my so-called husband left me with a broken-down house, a five year old Chevy van, a basement full of water and an utterly empty bank account. Plus a frightened seven year old, and a very angry teenaged girl.

When he threatened us, I made several trips to the police station to beg for help. Finally, one cop took pity on my terror. He solemnly advised me to change our locks and to keep the outside lights on.

Also, never, ever, to let my ex back in the house.

“If he, ah, does something you don’t like once he’s inside,” he told me, burly arms crossed in front of him. His warm brown eyes were sympathetic. “Then our hands are tied. Because you let him in. You understand my meaning?”

For any Catholic magazine to take this story on is daring. For the same magazine to handle it well is ... epic.

Regina Magazine began this past year as the brainchild of Beverly De Soto, a veteran writer-editor of the New York City financial world, at a time when numerous print periodicals, particularly in Catholic media, have either gone digital, or under. She has gathered other creatives of like mind, so that the beauty of truth, and the truth that is found in beauty, may reach new audiences, and revitalize old ones. There are many reasons for a Catholic woman to subscribe to Regina, and probably more than one reason for a Catholic man to at least give an issue the occasional perusal.

The result is a great Christmas gift, one that would carry the spirit of the season well into the next year.
 

Two Weddings and a Funeral

IMAGE: The wedding of Dorothy Rosselot to Paul Alexander, with their attendants, Margery Rosselot and Raymond Alexander, St Patrick Church, Fayetteville, Ohio, June 1952.

The wedding of my parents was a relatively simple affair. My father's Air National Guard unit had been activated, and he was heading off to join the occupation forces in Germany. But about a week before he shipped out, he married Mom. When I was a boy, I would ask him where they went on their honeymoon. He said he was still on it. Only years later did I learn, that it too was rather scaled-down as well.

That was sixty years ago this past summer. Closer to the present, it was just thirty years, one month, and one day ago, that I was treated to the most fun I have ever had at a wedding -- believe it or not, my own.

The day was picked out well in advance using The Old Farmer's Almanac, and we got the sunny and mild weather that was predicted. It was meticulously planned to the last detail, with invitations personally silk-screened by the groom, and addressed by hand in calligraphy. As it was a daytime wedding, the groom and his attendants wore morning coats. God forbid they appear in black tie before six in the evening. There were little more than a hundred people in attendance, making the little church just over half full. The choir from the parish in Georgetown where I sang was present, singing Mozart's Ave Verum Corpus and Duruflé's Ubi Caritas in Latin, as the Divine Liturgy was chanted throughout in English and Slavonic. We exchanged custom-designed rings, each bearing a simulation of the wreathed crowns that we wore as the Gospel was proclaimed.

IMAGE: A scene from the author's first marriage, Epiphany Byzantine Catholic Church, Annandale, Virginia, September 1982.

The reception was held at the old Evans Farm Inn in McLean, Virginia. (A luxury townhouse neighborhood now stands in its place, for reasons that defy all good sense.) Papa was a rough-edged steel mill foreman from Cleveland, who dropped out of school in the ninth grade when his father died, leaving him to support the family. By this time retired, he would accept nothing less than a show of his generosity. And so, the bridal couple's choice of chicken cordon bleu for dinner was abandoned in favor of prime rib, and the event is, to this day, the only wedding I have ever attended, with an open bar.

You read that right. Open, as in, all you can drink without falling down.

We had an old-fashioned square dance. Obviously the amplification did not blow the doors off the place, so people of all ages could relax and hear themselves think. Indeed, it was a central tenet of the couple's plans, that everyone of all ages and stations in life would feel comfortable at the event. Even the priest stayed for dinner. (They don't always, usually for reasons stated above.) As for the then-happy couple, they were last seen at ten o'clock in the evening, dancing with "Doc" Botzer on the piano, doing the Salty Dog Rag.

VIDEO: Dancing to Red Foley's 1952 hit song, "The Salty Dog Rag" has been a Dartmouth College tradition since 1972, where it is taught to freshman during orientation. Don't ask me why.

The total cost of the 1982 event was roughly four thousand dollars, an expense shared between the bride's parents, the groom's parents, and the couple themselves (with descending percentages of the share in that order). Using the consumer price index, this amount would translate in 2012 to less than ten thousand dollars. The average cost of a wedding in the United States is presently estimated at just over twenty-seven thousand dollars.

The bride's sister later said that the wedding was not only excruciatingly correct, but was one where everyone was made to feel at home. The marriage was a complete disaster, but the event that started it, in this writer's estimation, is a model for all the world to follow.

+    +    +

It is the observation of this writer, generally speaking, that there are only six kinds of people for whom a wedding in this day and age, especially in North America, is suited in terms of feeling at home.

1) The bride and groom (we can only hope),

2) The bridal party, as the event revolves around them, if to a lesser degree than the couple,

3) The families of the bride and groom,

4) Single young men and women of marriageable age, as such events tend to inspire them to follow suit,

5) Other married couples, for whom this occasion is to welcome the newlyweds to their mutual state in life, and finally

6) Two or more women in a group, if only to talk about what everyone else is wearing.

IMAGE: The author plays his great-uncle's 1916 Stewart banjo with the band. Fiddler-pianist Dennis "Doc" Botzer is to his left. Opposite is the renowned dance caller Louis Shapiro.

You will notice the absence of two categories.

One of them is clerics. Priests who officiate at weddings are often invited to the reception, but they usually leave as the party is getting started. Such events as these are not the most comfortable for those who choose the celibate life, and after some years of taking the cloth, they develop an aversion to very loud music, (I'm a musician by avocation, and even I don't get the idea of cranking up the volume.)

The other is divorced or unmarried people of middle age, especially men, especially when unaccompanied. The best dancer among them will be turned down, either by many a married woman for whom this is not her husband or close friend, or an unmarried and eligible woman who does not see her unborn children in his eyes. (See item 4.) Of course, it is ill-mannnered to presume to bring a guest who is not invited by the bridal couple. It is certainly not for relationships that are less than serious, and publicly so. The guest must receive a separate invitation, or the invitation may be addressed to the invitee "and Guest."

IMAGE: In an old Eastern European custom, the bride relinquishes her veil for the babushka, signifying her entry into womanhood. Note the bridesmaids' dresses (from Garfinkles), in a style which they would be most likely to wear again.

I am fifty-seven years old, and divorced for over twenty years, through no wish of my own. Tomorrow, one of the best friends I ever made in this God-forsaken city after more than three decades, is getting married to a young woman who is just right for him. I had occasion to meet her and her mother for brunch after Mass. The groom has also met Sal, and we have both been to his house. Our association is no secret, and he has no cause for that association as a source of scandal. So when I received the invitation, I was taken aback that it was addressed to me alone. Now, Sal is a woman of a rather high degree of breeding, born and raised in the Philippines to be well-versed in old world Spanish manners. If she was insulted by the exclusion (and she was), then she had a reason.

Nevertheless, it was the prerogative of the happy couple to decide that which was in their interest, and one should take pains to lay stress thereto. Mine was to decline the invitation, send them a very nice gift, wish for them nothing but the best, and be saddened by the loss of a friend (who, fortunately in this case, does not read weblogs).

Harry Truman was right about this town. If I had a much bigger place, I'd get a dog.