Pints With Aquinas - Restoring Sacred Chant in the Liturgy w/ Dominican Brs. Stefan and Alexandre

Episode Date: April 13, 2021

I talk with Brs. Stefan and Alexandre about restoring sacred chant in the liturgy. Then we take your questions! Go check out their website - https://opchant.com/ 🔴 FREE E-book "You Can Understand Aquinas": https://pintswithaquinas.com/understanding-thomas 🔴 SPONSORS Hallow: http://hallow.app/mattfradd STRIVE: https://www.strive21.com/ Catholic Chemistry: https://catholicchemistry.com 🔴 GIVING Patreon or Directly: https://pintswithaquinas.com/support/ This show (and all the plans we have in store) wouldn't be possible without you. I can't thank those of you who support me enough. Seriously! Thanks for essentially being a co-producer co-producer of the show. 🔴 LINKS Website: https://pintswithaquinas.com/ Merch: teespring.com/stores/matt-fradd FREE 21 Day Detox From Porn Course: https://www.strive21.com/ 🔴 SOCIAL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Twitter: https://twitter.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd Gab: https://gab.com/mattfradd

Hello, hello, and welcome to Pints with Aquinas. I am so glad you're here. My name is Matt Fradd, and today we are going to be talking to two Dominican friars about restoring the beauty of sacred chant in the liturgy. Thank you so much for being here. If this is the first time you've showed up at a channel like this, you would really help us out by clicking the thumbs up button and subscribe and then that bell button so you can make sure you don't miss out on upcoming videos. Before I introduce you to our two friars today, I want to say thank you to Catholic Chemistry for sponsoring this show. You know, obviously all of you are being called to be Dominican priests.

We all know that. But there might be some of you who aren't. I don't know, maybe 1% of you. But those of you watching right now, you might be a single lady or a single gentleman, and you do feel a call to marriage, but you're finding it very difficult maybe to have good relationships in this COVID era. Go check out my friends at Catholic Chemistry. It is run by a solidly orthodox, since this is a group we're talking about chant, Latin Mass Catholic. He's the guy who founded this. It's a beautiful website that will help you meet people who are more serious about their love for Jesus Christ than they will ever be for their love for you.

But their love for Jesus Christ will lead them to love you in the appropriate way. This is a wonderful website, and I know several people who have found their spouses on this website. So click the link in the description and go check out Catholic Chemistry. You can do video chats with people so you don't have to give them your number, your Skype information right away. And you'll meet people who are super serious about their faith. Catholicchemistry.com catholicchemistry.com brothers lovely to have you on the show thank you so much for having us yeah honored let's do me a favor and maybe we can go one by one and uh just tell tell me a little bit about yourselves Well, I can start. I'm Brother Stefan, yes, from the Netherlands. So I started my novitiate

a few years ago in Cambridge in England, because I'm from the Dutch province of the Order of Preachers and we don't have enough vocation to run our own novitiate. So we started in Cambridge and after that I came to Freebook to study philosophy and theology here and there we met each other, Paul-Alexander and me. And yes, we have started this project a year ago. So that's a little bit of information. I'm from a Catholic family, big Catholic family in the Netherlands and always have been very much interested in Gregorian chant and in the traditions of our church. Beautiful, beautiful.

Brother Alexander. Exenda, sorry. Yeah, I'm from Switzerland, and I entered the order, the Dominican order, one year before Stephan. So five years ago already. Oh, my God. five years ago already. Oh my God, five years ago. And also in Switzerland, we don't have enough vocations to have a noviciate, a proper noviciate in Switzerland. So I went to France in Strasbourg,

in France to do my noviciate. And then I came back to Fribourg, where I studied before being a Dominican. And I met the brothers there, actually. And I came back to Fribourg to complete my theological studies. And I just finished my master in theology back at Christmas, last Christmas. So then I left Switzerland for France. And that's why Stefan and I are not together tonight.

We are this morning. We are, I'm in France in Lille for six months for apostolic work, modern studies. And then coming back to Fribourg. Very good. Well, it's great to hear from you. I got people in the chat

who are telling me that we've got some kind of static in the audio, which I think is on my end, so I apologize. Can you brothers hear that? Yes, I do a little bit. Okay, well, I'll do my best here. I think what I'll do is I'll ask the questions and then I'll mute myself. I apologize for that. But it is so lovely to have you on the show. You know, maybe we could just kind of begin with a simple question. And that is to say, tell us a little bit, let's start really general about the importance of beautiful music in general beautiful music in the liturgy and why this is a passion of

yours well i think um in our liturgy it's very important to have not only texts but also art forms of art that can actually help us to to elevate our souls towards uh towards christ and that it's just the fact that that works better with music so if we only use use text for that that's not the same experience we have then so um in our liturgy in general it's important to have these these these these very sensitive things which help us to go towards the truth of our liturgy. So it's a way to actually get towards the essence of our liturgy, which is an encounter with Christ, of course, in the sacraments, especially in the Holy Eucharist. But these texts are really embodied by the music itself. And because of the music, it helps us to have this real personal encounter. So not just an intellectual one, but something with our entire being, with our emotions, with our entire person.

And I think that is very important because our Christian faith is not just a faith of dogmas and everything. That's very important indeed. But that helps us to have this living encounter with Christ himself. And that's a personal encounter. And music helps a lot to have this personal encounter with Christ, I think. That's one of the reasons. There are, of course, lots of reasons.

Brother Alexander. Yeah, and also for a lot of people who come to our church, Dominican Church, in Europe and in Switzerland, a lot of them don't know a lot theologically about faith or about the doctrine of the church and so beauty and sacred music is really a way for them to enter a celebration, to enter a liturgy and it gives them another path towards understanding what they are living with God, their relation. And so in that sense, beauty is really, really, really important, I think.

Were you raised with beautiful music? I certainly wasn't. It was sort of warmed over bad Protestant hymns or wishy-washy terrible, I shouldn't blame the Protestants, we did it to ourselves, Catholic hymns that weren't terribly inspiring at all, that were kind of cheesy and made the faith feel as such. Did you experience that or were you raised with this beautiful music? Yeah, in Switzerland, I have the same experience as you. We have all these tries of translation of Latin texts from the 60s and the 70s in French. And they are not musically bad but the translations and even some of them,

a lot of them actually musically speaking are quite bad. And so it was certainly for me a way to renew my experience of God and my faith by discovering Gregorian chant. Because that's very personal, but you cannot beat Gregorian chant in terms of musicality for a liturgy, I think. For me, it was different, because in the Netherlands actually it's still very much present. So after the Second Vatican Council, we didn't stop using Latin, for example, in our liturgies. So in our parish, where I came from, we had weekly Gregorian chant masses, and we had polyphony and everything, but the in the new in the new right actually it was very interesting that in the netherlands uh these these places of worship of dignified worship are still very much present um even though of course the country is very secular but um i think there's uh there's

still a lot of beauty there and it also helps that i'm coming from uh from a catholic family big catholic family so my mother is a musician herself. She has a choir. And, well, there's this entire culture still in the house of playing music together, singing together. So that also helps to really have this musical aspect. And so it was always part of my life. It was never really absent of my life. But I think I'm a little bit of an exception, even in the Netherlands.

Yes. In Australia and here in America, it feels like we've gone through decades of subpar, less than beautiful, I'm trying to be charitable, music. But it does feel like there's this desire to reconnect with the tradition that people our age weren't necessarily given. Some of you were, but I wasn't. Where is this hunger and this longing coming from? And give us some signs of hope that you see as Gregorian chant is beginning to be implemented in more liturgies. Perhaps one of the signs we see very concretely in our communities or among the believers who come to our Dominican priories is that the new generation is not ideologically conflicted with Latin mass and Gregorian chant and

so the if we offer them Latin sacred chant and Gregorian chant they are they are really discovering it from from zero the the they just didn't know it so that's a sign of hope because they are as soon as they come to church by themselves they discover Gregorian chant and it becomes the the way to express their faith. It's normal for the new generation and that's a sign of hope we can achieve by keeping working and giving the internet and our communities the Grigorian chant. Yes and at the same time I think, which is also interesting, it also connects the generations. So it's not only a way to distinguish our generation from the older generation, but it's interesting to see that even though certain teachings of the church

might not have been very popular with the older generation, they've always kept the sensibility of the Gregorian chant. So I remember once I was in a monastery in the Netherlands, lots of old sisters there, and I was chanting some of the Christmas chants there. And these sisters, they knew them by heart, and they said to me, "'Well, actually we don't sing them anymore, "'but we would love to sing them again.'" So there's something of this quality of Gregorian chant which transcends

the generations and also connects them to each other. And that's beautiful. And are you, in your experience, are you seeing more local parishes adopting this and trying to learn it? Because it can be intimidating when you first hear it. It sounds so glorious and majestic that you think, gosh, it wouldn't be possible to get a few people together to learn this, but that's not necessarily true. So, you know, maybe tell us a little bit about that, the encouraging signs that you're seeing of it being brought back into the liturgy and your experience of perhaps teaching this to people and how they find it as they're learning to sing it? Actually, as Brother Stefan said, we see at least in Switzerland, because that's what I know,

in Switzerland, because that's what I know. And in Switzerland and also a bit in France, you've got little small choirs of Gregorian chant, which are flourishing here and there because of individual

initiatives from young people in general. But then in the choir you find all the generation all the general generations which are coming together to sing again we go and chant and these kinds of a scholar or a choir are flourishing again. But we had to wait like 50 years to see this revival, we can say. I have a question. Why is it, do you think, that we abandoned Gregorian chant? If this is so beautiful, so majestic, so uplifting to the soul, which it undoubtedly is,

what happened that it felt like almost universally we ditched it and in its place brought in these songs, you know, let us build the city of God, oh Lord. How did this happen? I think it, first of all, it has to do with the fact that after the Second Vatican Council, we allowed the Mass to be said in the vernacular, in the language of, in the other languages, so not just in Latin. And then we thought, well, we will compose new music. But not everyone... So that's one aspect of it. But another aspect of it, which is also very important, I think, is that it's not easy. It's not easy to sing it, actually. So it should be part of a certain formation of priests, of religious. And if it's not

part of the formation, it's very difficult to have this group of people chanting Gregorian chant together, because of course we can read the text and we can try to sing it, but there's really also a certain spirit of Gregorian chant which you have to learn, and the only way to learn that is by doing it. So I think after the Second Vatican Council, there was this general movement to get a little bit rid of the Latin, which was never of course part of the documents, because in Sacrosanctum Concilium we read that Gregorian chants should have pride of place in the liturgy, but well, not everyone took that very seriously. But I think it has to do with that. So we said we will celebrate in the vernacular, and then we will compose new music in the vernacular,

which is not a bad thing. I'm not against that at all. But I'm just saying that I think it's, that has really contributed to the fact that we have left a little bit the path of Gregorian chant. And we said, well, if you cannot understand it, well, why should we actually do it? But that's, of course, terrible to say,

because if we think about music as being a little bit more absolute than just subjective feelings and everything, that you can be touched by music even without understanding it. Because I remember when I was a child we had this Latin mass every week. I was completely impressed by it. I almost, I think I found my vocation partly in that liturgy and it's's terrible then to say, well, because you don't understand, you cannot be touched by it. I think we really underestimate the beauty and the tradition and the power of that tradition, which can help us to enter into the mystery of our liturgy. Yeah, I'm kind of almost ashamed to say that I used to, you know, we had a little band, you know, we would, we even played a Metallica song in one holy mass.

Would you believe that, brothers? Please don't hang up on me. Which one was it? It was Mama Said from Load. So at least it wasn't a heavy metal ballad. I think once we played Nothing Else Matters instrumentally, and part of me feels, I am embarrassed to say that, but honestly, I was never taught that music ought to be good and beautiful. We were just told, do whatever you want.

People wanted to get the young people involved in Holy Mass, and so that's what we did. It's kind of sad that we did that. Here's a question for you. Someone might be watching right now, and they think, golly, I go to a church, and the music, you know, you've got some guy on the guitar and the djembe and these instruments are fine in and of themselves, but we would like to raise the level of the sort of sacredness of the liturgy. What do they do? That's a very good question. That depends, of course, on the parish, because you also need the capacity to do it. So you need people which have a little bit of a background in music because it's it's very important to have this natural understanding also of what music is

and how to breathe, for example, how to use your body in the music. All of this is very important for Gregorian chant also. We could also use the the dominican philosophy of well grace elevating nature so you should first be very of course be very careful to to know the the natural understanding of what what music is and how to sing before you can elevate it by grace and by this beautiful tradition of our revelation of our church um then also there's a beautiful website which i use a lot it's an american website actually it's called cc watershed ccwatershed.org and there you have beautiful um introduction for

gregorian challenge you have all the ways of reading gregorian chant and there are so many resources on the internet and cc watershed gives you all these databases of gregorian challenge and also all the ways to sing it and the technique. But you should have some people which have a general background already in music, I think, that really helps to then also get used to Gregorian chant. And also Gregorian chant during centuries and centuries of religious life or monastic life, they had no scores. Only the cantor had the score. So Gregorian chant, I think more than any kind of chant or music,

is a great way to enter in music and in sacred music because you can you can just imitate it it's you can that's exactly what we do it, to sing along with us and to learn by imitating and by repeating and repeating. It's really a normal tradition. It should not be, at least at first intellectual so just go to if you want to if you want to begin gregorian chant and to to sing it in your parish ask your priest before and then go to your to your library uh christian library and you you just buy theuale Romanum the books from the Church of Rome and you buy some you made photocopies for your fellow

singers and you just go on with YouTube and you find Watershed or Musica Sacra and just go, imitate it with YouTube and you find Watershed or Musica Sacra and just go, imitate it and don't be afraid of the Latin text and the apparent complexity

of the notes and just go for it and if also Gregoire Chant is made for churches with nice acoustics and uh if your church is is uh is flattering with uh the acoustics it's a it's a it's a one more reason to to go with the gregorian chant it's like singing in the shower. Everybody thinks they sound better in there than they may actually be. In the end it's for the Lord, so just go with it. Also one

little advice. One little advice would also be to start with the things that don't change in the liturgy. So the parts of the liturgy which stay the same. So we have the ordinary of the liturgy, which is Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, all the parts that don't change. Pater Noster, the Our Father, we say in all the liturgies. And then you have the proper parts and that will be the next step.

So the first step will be to understand how do I sing a simple Kyrie, Lord have mercy, in English, I believe. And glory be to God, so that we will be the Gloria. Yeah, I would like you to email me some links that I can share with our viewers. I'll put them in the description once you send them to me after this interview. But I know you have your own channel. Could you talk a little bit about that, how people can find it and why they should check you all out? I let Stefan do that. Thank you so much.

I'm flattered. Yes, no problem so we started one year ago a little bit more than a year ago during the season of Advent and we started this channel because we had Gregorian chant lessons every two months and we were singing of course Dominican Gregorian chant that means the chant that is really part of our own Dominican order, which is different than the Roman chant. But the problem was there was no way to actually repeat this online because there were no examples on the internet.

There was nothing. Well, of course, there's the famous Salvareggina from theicans, the Olumen from the Dominicans, and some other things. But there was not a systematic database, a library of all our Gregorian chants. So then we decided to do this ourselves. So we started with the Todeum, actually, which is one of the chants which we sing in our Office of Readings, the Office of Metons, which we traditionally of the chants which we sing in our office of readings, the office of metans, which we traditionally sing, sang always very early in the morning. And we recorded that in Chalet. So Chalet is a beautiful place in France. It's very close to the Carthusian monastery of La Grande Chartreuse. And there we started our channel and then we were completely overwhelmed by the response because there were lots of people were actually

watching the channel and we thought all we are only going to do this to actually help help the Dominicans to rediscover their patrimony their Gregorian chant but actually it was way bigger than that. So people from all over the world started sending us emails and responses and everything. And then there were some big news websites who made articles about our project. And in that way, actually, we said, well, we really have to continue. We have to create a library of Dominican Gregorian chants. And since then, we have actually said, every week we will publish a piece of gregorian chant at least one sometimes two three or four so it depends a little bit on

the on our mood and if we have time because we also need to preach and to study and to contemplate so we cannot just sing all the time but it's very so that's how it started. So it started as a way to teach Gregorian chant for other Dominicans and it's still used. I know for example some brothers in Oxford are using it, in London. So that remains the primary goal of the project. But now it has become a project which is way bigger than that. It's also evangelizing the world. We have so many people who are emailing us, Catholics, but also Protestants, atheists, Jews, Muslims, lots of people who are completely overwhelmed by the beauty of this Gregorian chant. I think due to the abuses that have taken place after, not necessarily because of, but after the Second Vatican Council, and due to the frustration many people feel about this, this can lead some people to say things that aren't faithful to the church. They say things like the Novus Ordo is not a true mass. It's not valid. And they go to the extreme and they can fall into the temptation. And none of us are immune to this.

So I put myself in that category of looking down their noses at people who are not true, quote unquote, true Catholics. How can we guard against this mentality? true Catholics. How can we guard against this mentality? Again, a very good question. Maybe Alexander can respond to it. I'll try my best, but perhaps one thing is to remind people that actually, musically speaking the Gregorian chant, Latin chant, is the chant of the Church, is officially the chant of the Church. And all the other things that we did in vernacular languages, we can do it, but it was, as the council said, wrote, it was ad libitum, it was a possibility. It was not the main thing to do.

But at least in Europe, I don't know in the United States of America, but in Europe, they understood it completely in reverse. It was okay, now we are doing everything in vernacular languages and we are moving, we are letting down Grigorynchen. But a way to reconciliate the two profiles you mentioned, the two profiles of people you mentioned, is perhaps to reimplement Grigori Enchant in normal parishes, to show that to show traditionalists that normal catholics or less true catholics are are actually also singing singing the the official chant of the church and as the traditionalists and so we are And so we are together in the end. And that's, I think, the message we should bring out, at least as preacher. We cannot divide. That's not our aim. And chant, Grigori chant and sacred music is also there to reunite us among Catholics.

Yes, I completely agree. And I think also this has to do with the fact that the Mass after the Second Vatican Council is sometimes not celebrated in the most dignified manner. But if we actually take very serious the documents of the council, and if we have also, and I find this more and more important, if we have the inner disposition, if we have a living faith with Christ during the day, if we have a conversation with Christ during the day, if we live in the presence of God every day of our lives, and especially as preachers and as priests, that will change the way we celebrate Mass. It doesn't, of course,

it's the same text because in the Roman liturgy we very much emphasize the objective text of the church so it doesn't really matter who is celebrating and because jesus is the same in that sense but it does help us if we have priests and religious people who are really trying to live out that that relationship with our lord in the most intimate manner, because that helps us also to celebrate that Mass with an inner disposition, a disposition which should always be part of our cult, so to say. So it means also when we, I speak from my own experience,

when I go to the Lords or to the Vespers before that, I make some silence in my heart, and I'm doing this to make sure that I have this real relationship with our Lord, that I'm conscious of the fact of what I'm doing. I'm not just saying psalms. We are trying to enter into this relationship. And I think that's very important, and that's a danger for everything which we repeat. For example, the rosary or the mass

all these things at a certain point we can say oh we are we're going to do it again same text same our father same but we have to try to to get into this very intimate relationship with our lord and then it will change the way we we say the texts and the way we pray um this i think that is so yeah sorry sorry to interrupt you. I say this could be analogized to my relationship with my wife. We go on another date. We have dinner the same time.

We come home. We're intimate. Why do we do the same thing? What needs to change is not the date night, but my love. Yeah, exactly. We should see our religion more as a friendship in the first place

than only a theory. Of course, that's very important. And we want to know everything of our friends. So, of course, we study and we contemplate and we do all these things. But, yeah, it's also very important to have this relationship and this friendship. This is the first thing, always. It seems to me that if the church does not create and offer a sacred space

where we can, as it were, fall to our knees, kiss the earth, who will provide that space? And as our states become increasingly secular, as our households become increasingly secular and divided, it seems to me that modern man wants desperately to find a place where he can know his place in the hierarchy of being, that he can kneel down, open up his mouth, receive our Lord, know his place as it were. And I do think that this is the hunger that many young people, I'm not that young, but young people have where they don't want to go to church where people

shuffle about the place like it is a 7-Eleven or a Walmart. And we all kind of, we speak the same, we dress the same as everywhere else. We just want to go somewhere where our desire for the infinite and all good God is treated with respect and seriously. And if you give me talking among other things and bad music and sloppy liturgy, I feel offended because my love for Jesus Christ, my desire for Him is not being treated seriously. I feel I am being patronized. And nobody likes to feel that way. But your message, Matt, is really wonderful. And that's our responsibility as priests, as brothers, to hear just what you just said because

when we are boss of a parish we need to listen to the message that people sent us and to understand that the believers

need a place which is intimate, which is respectful for God. A lot of times that's the responsibility of the priest and he should

take it. I hope a lot of priests and brothers are listening now and have heard what you said. Okay, well, I'd like to take some questions soon from our live audience. We have almost 200 people who are watching right now, and it's lovely to have them all here. We have lots of questions from people coming in, So if you're watching in the live stream right now, please feel free to send a question in. Maybe I'll begin with a question. If somebody has no experience of sacred chant,

of singing it themselves, is there a particular song that you might suggest they learn to become more comfortable with singing in this sort of way that's not too intimidating? So then I would say parts of the mass which don't change, so the ordinary part of the mass. For example, if we talk about the Goran chant, then something which comes up every now and then, every mass of course, every office also, is the Our Father, so the Pater Noster. That's not very difficult to learn actually. That might a good way a way to start also to to learn the the acclamations um so the the way to respond to the priest uh so when this

priest sings dominus that you know that you have to respond exactly that's it these kinds of things Exactly, that's it. These kinds of things. I love the Dominican Salve. It is the most beautiful song to Our Lady that I've ever heard. It's very difficult. Very difficult. What is the more traditional or the more common Salve? What is that referred to as? Salve Regina Mater. What's this called? It's the Roman Salve Regina. And it's actually, we say the tonus simplex. Simple tone.

Would you like to know? It's a good story. Would you like to know how I first learned this? Yeah, of course. I hope you say yes I was sitting in a CD do you say that word like a rundown pub in Michigan with the founder of Ignatius Press, Father Joseph Fessio. And we were having a meeting there because it was by our hotel, and we had just finished a beer. And he says, well, why don't we finish with the Salve?

And I did not know this. And so we sat there around the sticky bar table. Salve, Regina. And it was the most beautiful thing. And so the next day on my plane flight home, I downloaded that and I just sang it again and again and again and again until I finally could sing it. And now it is my son Peter's favorite part of the rosary. He wants us to hurry up so we can sing the Salve together. Oh, that's beautiful.

Okay. So we have some questions, and so I'll throw them up on the screen here. And let's say I'll move them so we can see you. This comes from Adam. He says, why did Latin become the traditional language in the church as opposed

to Greek or Aramaic, for instance? Want to take that, Alexander? I'm not sure I know the answer, but part of that answer is why Latin? Because since the church is in Rome, it means since Peter and Paul the language was Latin for the theology also

and the Gregorian chant and Gregorian texts comes from the translation of the Bible the Vulgata for example which is in Latin and all the theology was also in Latin in the occidental

part of the of the world so very early on you have Latin is really dominant in occidental Europe Western Europe. But for example, I think it's a matter of geography. Because also the early councils, the first councils of the Christian era, they were translated in Latin, the Acts of the Council were translated in Latin for the Western European theologians like Saint Ambrosius or Saint Augustine, they wrote in Latin. Yes, so it's proper to our Roman tradition. But that doesn't mean that you cannot celebrate in other languages also, of course, because the Orthodox Church, for example, they have that liturgy in Greek.

And we also have some in the Middle East. We have some churches which are connected to the Catholic Church. I don't know the specifics of that, but they celebrate also in Aramaic, for example. So it's because the Roman liturgy, it's proper to the Roman liturgy, and the Roman liturgy is what we celebrate in most Western countries in Europe. And also it's like, sorry, it's like Latin back then is like English today. It's really universal among all the dialects in Europe. Latin was mastered by everyone, at least the clerks, so it was easier to communicate. Okay, another question from Chad Meyer who says, how can we as the laity develop a more robust liturgical piety?

Oh, I like that question. That's a very good question, because I think it helps a lot when we, for example, before Mass, when we read some of the readings for the Mass, that helps us to already enter into, well, what is Christ going to say to us in this particular Mass on Sundays? Silence is very important. So before Mass, we have this disposition of silence before we enter, before we enter our church.

Well, what can we say? Yeah, go on, Alexandre. A great way, liturgically speaking, a great way to become more robust is to introduce yourself or your parish to the liturgy of the hours, to pray sometimes the Vespers for the Sundays or Lodz in the morning or a shorter version of L or of Vespers.

But it's liturgical and it's the prayer of the church. Okay. We have a question from a Muslim friend who is here and it's an honor to have you, Harris. Thank you for your open-mindedness and being here he says how do you feel about being called the brothers of the Christ so again this is coming from a Muslim question a questioner and perhaps he perhaps yes so perhaps he means I mean he's coming from Islam where God is viewed differently and he is just

asking two brothers, religious brothers, so he may, I'm not sure his familiarity with Christians, how often he interacts with them, but he says how do you feel about being called the brothers of the Christ? I'm not sure what this means and I apologize I can't interpret it correctly or may I may not but perhaps he means if Christ is God how do you have this familial relationship with him? That's how I interpreted it. I think I would completely agree. One of the great things that Thomas Aquinas taught us is that the human nature, well, actually also the church fathers, but Thomas Aquinas makes a synthesis, of course, of all the church fathers but Thomas Aquinas makes a synthesis of course of all the

church fathers but that the human nature of Christ is the way to enter into the divinity to enter into the divine so in God the father himself so it's this participation in divine life of Christ which is made possible by the humanity of Christ himself. So in that way I completely agree with what is stated here, Christ in his divine nature and his human nature which is unified in one person. And because we are ourselves humans, we have this possibility to elevate our souls through the human nature of Christ himself towards the divine. human nature of Christ himself towards the divine. Okay, this question here.

Thank you, brother. You look like a priest. Okay. Thank you for the compliment. The sacred council asks for the liturgy of the hours to be the public prayer of the universal church, also for priests to do so in the parishes, at least Lords and Vespers. How to promote that? Perhaps you should try to convince your priest that if you take on that engagement to do loads

and to promote load and vespers in your parish it would it would have more time for other things to organize other things so it would let you do it and you you could promote liturgy of the hours as as the the church wants it exactly and that can start very very you can start very easily with just saying it for example and then you add certain parts of it you sing for example the pattern Oster what we said in Latin for example then you then you add certain parts of it. You sing, for example, the Pater Noster, what we said in Latin, for example. Then you can actually add psalm tones to it. So you can say, we start in English, for example, with Gregorian psalm tones.

And in that way, you introduce, every time you introduce something new, and in the end, you have solemn Gregorian vespers after a few years with incense and everything. That's good. Here's a question that I have. I think more and more people having become disillusioned by the lack of the sacred in their parishes are turning to Eastern Catholic churches

because there they celebrate the Divine Liturgy and there's a sense of reverence there. What is your opinion on this? Is this something that we should perhaps look down upon and say, listen, stay within your tradition and elevate it, or do you think this is a fine thing for people to do? I think that certainly they are, to use the expression which was just mentioned, they are brothers in Christ. So certainly they have a beautiful liturgy, and they can help us to understand some aspects of our liturgy which we have forgotten, for example.

But at the same time, if we are Roman Catholics, of course, the normal way to celebrate would be in the Roman liturgy. But I know, for example, some brothers who actually every now and then visit an Eastern Orthodox liturgy. I do that myself sometimes, but it's not to replace the Sunday liturgy which we have here or the conventional liturgy. May I clarify? I do not mean Catholics attend Orthodox churches who are in schism. I mean Catholics attend Eastern Catholic churches

which would fulfill their Sunday obligation. So there is nothing prohibiting them from doing this. I wouldn't make that statement. But I wonder what you think about this, kind of almost like, well, I haven't been given a tradition, and I'm in a part of the world where there's a lack of reverence, and I see people, myself included at one point, turning to the East. I just wanted to see if you had opinion on that. It perhaps, it really depends. But it can be that during a period of your life you you need to be to be nourished and so just just go there and take your uh if i can say so take your uh your weapons but come back where where you belong to bring what you what you you learned there in in terms of uh sacred liturgy and the beauty of celebration and yeah taking the

time the time and the respect for the sacred and I think it's like I don't know how is it called in the gospel in English but the the Stefan you could help me for that it's like the Levin on a pot in French no I don't know that I understand what you mean but yeah to stay where you belong and to grow from bloom where you're planted in it yeah okay thank you uh harry uh waddington says how might one best learn how to conduct gregorian chant and then there's a word that i do not know chironomy is that how you say that i've never heard of the term well how about just the first just the first question? How might one best learn how to conduct Gregorian chant?

Yeah, go on. Okay. To conduct Gregorian chant, you don't have any rhythm, any indications of rhythm. So to conduct Gregorian chant, you need your singers to look at you all the time during the chant. And it's a matter, it's really a matter of breathing. Exactly.

That's very important to breathing you you you you in gregorian chant you direct you conduct less less with your hands than with your uh breathing expressions and that's that's also why in most scholars in most scholars you don't really see someone in front of the choir most of most of the time the conductor is himself in the choir, integrated in the choir himself, so in the circle, so to say. And this is one very important aspect actually, that the ideal situation in Gregorian chant

is to sing with one voice. So to really listen to each other and to have this unifying aspect, to sing together and that's very important that's very difficult um to sing exactly in the same manner and to sing like one voice but when you have this blending of voices um that's quite magical i have to say we have experienced it a lot in yeah if you if you die if you want to conduct we go and chant with hands because that's almost a... So, chironomy, that's almost a reflex. It should not show the tempo, like...

But more the... In French, what we call the... The direction of the breathing. So, it needs to be really smooth and it's not your classical classical music director it's it's yeah breathing in and out it's more big gestures like slow because the square notes are quite a recent development because in the beginning we only had these neumes,

these waves, so to say, which we would follow. And that we still do, as Alexander said, in the Graduale Triplex, for example, you still have the neumes which are shown in the book itself. Thank you. This question comes from Bo Beckwith. He says, I am a trained vocalist and convert from Protestantism and recently started cantering. How can I, and is it proper for me, to influence the music style practice at my parish? We have addressed this, but maybe you'd like to say something else

well i think one important aspect is that we um as as promoters of gregorian chant we don't sing in the liturgy but we sing the liturgy itself so what is very important is that as a musician you have a knowledge of how the liturgy works there are lots of musicians we don't we don't have this knowledge only have a professional knowledge of how the liturgy works. There are lots of musicians who don't have this knowledge, only have a professional knowledge of secular music. But there's really a structure in the Mass with an introvert, for example, an offertorium, a communio. So all these texts have been given by the church. And it's our task as musicians to be at the service of this liturgy, not to distract the people, but to lift up their souls towards Christ.

So that means we have to respect the liturgical texts which are in the books. And if we cannot, we search for something which is very close to the liturgical texts, of course. But the ideal is that we sing the text itself, which has been given to us through the perennial tradition of the church. And often they are of course texts from the Bible itself, from the Psalms and from the… we are singing scripture, holy scripture. Yes, okay, a question here. Can you speak a bit about mixed scholars, men and women? Should scholars usually consist of only men or only women with exceptions here and there for mixed voices? It depends really of why you are singing together.

For example, in a priory, in a brother's priory, it's not imaginable that we sing Grigouin chant with a mixed scholar because it doesn't go well. But if you are... I know a lot of choirs in Switzerland who are mixed choirs and they sing some Grigorian chant but outside of liturgy for concerts

and it works very well. But it really depends. For me, there's no... The only rule here to apply is where and why is the choir constituted. Yes, I find it quite beautiful, for example, to have some parts of the mass which you alternate between man voices and woman voices. For example, the Alleluia, you could say the woman do that. example the Alleluia you could say the woman do that or you say for the intro it that the man starts with the with the intro it and then the verse the

song verse that the woman take that aspect of the of the intro it and also of course the sacrosanct concilium doesn't only talk about the Korean chant but also about polyphony and for that you certainly need woman voices. So if you have woman voices, it also helps to have this rich tradition of polyphony, which you can also integrate in the liturgy. Thank you. Joey, thank you for your super chat, Joey. Appreciate it. He says, what period of the liturgical year contains your favorite sacred chant and why? Go on, Alexandre.

I think we agree, actually. Yeah, I think that's the same for you. Tell me. For me, the period of the liturgical year is the most favorite is the Triduum, the three holidays before Easter. Next week. Next week.

You have magnificent Gregorian chant, which are deep, which are telling us about really the center of the Christian life, of the mystery of Christ and of why I gave my life

for the passion of Christ and the resurrection and we are singing that the lamentation of Jeremiah the prophet the exultate which is the the pre-coniumcal, the most wonderful piece

for me. The exulted for me is the yeah, you announce the resurrection. I have nothing to add to that question. We may have already touched upon this, but maybe just answer this quickly, maybe. What are your brother's favorite chants? Well, because we're still in the season of Lent, one chant which I love a lot is Media Vita. It's a chant which speaks about in the midst of life, we are in death. which speaks about in the midst of life, we are in death.

So really about the fact that we are all mortal beings and that we always should have this resurrection in front of our eyes because that's where we are going. We are going to die at a certain point in our lives. And that's one of the chants which also moved Thomas Aquinas a lot. He was in tears. That was one of the favorite chants of Thomas Aquinas. Media vita in mortis sumus that's a beautiful chant maybe Alexander has some others well there's so many but

I don't know I agree for example another one is Vexilla Regis which we sing in this week that's the hymn for the Vespers in the in the passion week so the week before the holy week um speaks about about the cross it's really a um a him towards the cross so to say but i'm not sure i'm not sure if this one is a proper from our dominican tradition but still it's a very nice chant yeah that's true it's not proper that's really yeah okay um i just forgot what i was gonna ask thank you for the correction oh man okay here's a question um i i presume you have some familiarity either with you know buying or listening to music online, yes?

Sorry, I didn't understand. Do you use Spotify, iTunes? You listen, I don't know what it's like over there, and you guys are brothers, so I'm not sure, but you listen to Gregorian Chant online, I presume? And if so, what is the best album we can all go and listen to right now? Oh, I sent you the link for the description. But for me, the best Grigori Enchant album for me is the one from the book of Job. So it's a Cistercian Gregorian chant sung by the Gregorian chant choir of Paris and that's you

you cry instantly. Thank you I will be sure to put these in the description to all of your watching so you can find it for yourself yeah you can find it find it on YouTube but I'll pass you the link thank you brother Stefan any anything yes well it depends a little bit on your school and on your mood, because sometimes you are in, well, yeah. So for example, I love a lot also, it's a complete other interpretation of Gregorian chant. It's very, what we say in English, I think, virile.

So it's the style of Marcel Peres from the Ensemble Organum. It's a very archeological approach to Gregorian chant, but of course we don't know exactly how it sounded in the first centuries and everything of the church. But this is a very interesting way with also some Byzantine influences. So it's a very strong way of singing a Gregorian chant. Sometimes you need that. So that's another school.

So because there are so many schools in Gregorian chant, it's very difficult to pick one album because every album has their own way of interpreting the Gregorian chant also. The Dominican Gregorian chant is also different than Benedictine's, for example, or the Cistercians. Strong Gregorian chant may be a necessary initial, what do you say, remedy to the effeminate and awful music we've been subjected to these last few decades. Okay, I got to ask this question because I think it's a great one. And let's see here. It comes from Daniel.

Is it possible to pray the Holy Rosary in Gregorian chant form? I would like to learn how to if it is prayed in this way. And are there some resources to learn from? and are there some resources to learn from? I think it's not proper to the tradition of the rosary to sing it that way. It is possible, of course, to artificially do that with Hail Marys. For example, you sing an Ave Maria every time, a Pater Noster and everything.

But I'm more of someone of the school that prays the rosary every day during my work also. It's a very practical prayer. It's not a prayer prayer which i that's supposed to go for two hours yeah exactly it's not it's not supposed to be there to to continue and continue and continue so i'm you can you can channel of course and feel free to do it but it's not my personal uh preference so to say because it takes very long then you are it takes like an hour you can do that for example in a church that's beautiful to do it for for a sunday liturgy or something like that to do something for the sunday um with a group of people in the

parish that's beautiful but to have every day to sing every day the rosary would be a little bit too much i think for me personally if you if you really want to to do it that way you can just go on the website grego base grigo base.com and you find paternoster the the roman one vatican exactly you you learn it and Ave Maria, also the simplest one, and you learn it, and then you can solemnize it in your church or in your parish if you want. Okay, well, hey, this has been really enlightening and a fantastic chat. I appreciate you guys taking the time.

As we wrap up, would you tell our viewers how they can learn more about you? And, yeah, well, that's it. they can learn more about you and and yeah, well, that's it how to learn more about you and the work you're doing. Of course, so we started the channel OP chant, which is short for order of preachers and chant. And we publish every week on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash OP chant, we publish a video of Gregorian chant. You can also find us on Facebook via the same name.

So OPChant also. And we started also. So you can also help us out financially because the cameras and the traveling. And it helps us to improve the project even more. So it's a weekly thing. Every week we publish new videos. Excellent. Yes.

Today is the Arorata, as you can see, because today we celebrate the Annunciation. It's the Solemnity of the Annunciation. So the Arorata is the video which we have published out. Yes, lovely. Yes, everyone, as you can see here, we're looking at the website right now. So people could come here to op, for order of preachers, chant.com.

And look at this down here. Watch all of our videos. What does this say? By clicking our logo below, you have access to all of our videos. What does it say? By clicking our logo below you have access to all of our videos. Boom. And then you have all the videos on YouTube. Beautiful. Oh man, this is so lovely. So yeah. We are preparing for the early week next week. we have at least i think 10 videos coming out 10 new new chance and then every week at least one we we try we we follow the liturgical calendar

so we are not uh giving a lent chant during advent we are really following the liturgical calendar because it's also pedagogical for people to learn about the tones and the atmosphere of each liturgical season. And also we are on Facebook. We have a little Facebook page which is also called OP Chant,

where we post our videos from YouTube, but the day of the feast. Exactly. The chant of the day. We also put out commentaries there, because of course,

these are, as I said, these are parts of the scripture of the holy scripture so we try to interpret the gorgor and chant also and to actualize it in the liturgy of the day which helps people to understand actually uh what we are singing today i want to um just maybe conclude by sharing sierra dante's comment here because i i think a lot of people feel this way. She says, How do we get our bishops to allow this beautiful tradition

to be incorporated into the Mass? Many parishes resist change, even though this was the tradition, so frustrating. Now, let me say something. Yours will be more helpful than my advice, but I'll say something in general. I think that when you sense that somebody is frustrated, and maybe you're just using this, you're not actually frustrated yourself,

but I can imagine people being angry and frustrated. And this doesn't inspire, and it doesn't spread like enthusiasm and love does. So I think that those of us who would like to see sacred chant reintroduced into Holy Mass, we should be just sharing what we love with people. This is, and I think that kind of enthusiasm where we're not talking all the time about what we don't like, we're sharing the beauty that's always been there in the tradition that we do love. And I think often that this is a more effective way of communicating this. But what would you all say? Yeah, so I would say that it's a local thing. At first, it's a local thing. So it has to start in the parish itself. So the bishop in that sense doesn't have lots of things to do with that,

because it's the local parish council and the pastor in the parish who can help you to introduce this to your parish. And as Matt says, if you show a lot of the passion for this concordance, I'm sure that he will be in favor of integrating it. But you need a group of people, so not on your own. You need to do it with other people who are also passionate about this. It's also one thing to go to your priest or bishop and say, make this happen, to prelates who are presumably already very busy. It is another thing to say, we have this choir, and we are really, really good, and we would like to offer this. I think many priests would be like oh thank

god i don't have to take on something else this is something you can take on exactly yeah yeah so it has to really ask sorry no please no no i only wanted to say that i think it also helps to to organize some for example some extra liturgical services in the parish. For example, a rosary vigil. And if you do that and you show that you actually sing Gregorian chant in that vigil, then you can actually show the parish priest or other people around, well, I'm serious about this and I'm passionate about this and look what I can do. about this and I'm passionate about this and look what I can do and then you can help introduce this aspect of the liturgy in the liturgy itself during Sunday Mass at a certain point but you have to show that it's possible of course that's what we did actually we showed that it's possible to sing a

Goren chant and we are singing more and more Goren chant in our respective communities so it's really by doing it that uh that you can change something okay well hey thank you so kindly for your time big thanks to everybody watching i'll be sure to put links to op chant and these other things that i should have put but forgot to as soon as this live stream is over uh brothers may may our Lord Jesus Christ bless you and bless your efforts. And thank you so much from the bottom of my heart and those who are watching for your good work.

This is very important stuff. Thank you. Thank you for the interview. We'll pray for you. yeah សូវាប់ពីបានប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពីប្រាប់ពាប់បានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបានបា Thank you. Bye.