Bishop Athanasius Schneider: A quiet voice of reason in a world of noisy insanity.

One of the most memorable scenes (at least for me) in C.S. Lewis's famous book, The Scewtape Letters, occurs when the senior devil writes this to his apprentice, Wormwood:

My dear Wormwood,

So! Your man is in love — and in the worst kind he could possibly have fallen into — and with a girl who does not even appear in the report you sent me..... I have looked up this girl’s dossier and am horrified at what I find. Not only a Christian but such a Christian — a vile, sneaking, simpering, demure, monosyllabic, mouse-like, watery, insignificant, virginal, bread-and-butter miss.The little brute. She makes me vomit. She stinks and scalds through the very pages of the dossier. It drives me mad, the way the world has worsened. We’d have had her to the arena in the old days. That’s what her sort is made for. Not that she’d do much good there, either. A two-faced little cheat (I know the sort) who looks as if she’d faint at the sight of blood and then dies with a smile. A cheat every way. Looks as if butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth and yet has a satirical wit. The sort of creature who’d find ME funny! Filthy insipid little prude....the very house she lives in is one that he ought never to have entered?...The whole house and garden is one vast obscenity. It bears a sickening resemblance to the description one human writer made of Heaven; “the regions where there is only life and therefore all that is not music is silence”.

Music and silence — how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell... no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise — Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile — Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress. Meanwhile you, disgusting little...

[At that point Screwtape turns into a centipede.]

I refer to this episode because I'm reading Bishop Schneider's book, The Catholic Mass. Each chapter focuses on an aspect of the Mass. The Mass is prayer, the Mass is adoration, the Mass is ritual, the Mass is splendor, etc. But the chapter that most impressed me so far is The Mass is Listening which focuses on the two things Screwtape hates most -- music and silence. 

One of the false accusations of the modern liturgy wreckers is that prior to the post Vatican II liturgical revolution Catholics were not involved in the Mass but were simply observers. It was never true, of course, for serious Catholics.  The irony is that, with the changes, the Mass often became more of a theatrical production for the people rather than a sacrifice of adoration to God. Believe me, I suffered through many of these abusive liturgies in churches decorated with crepe paper rainbows and cracked pots, holy water fonts filled with sand, and showmen priests cracking jokes. I shudder to remember them.

Consider the extravaganzas at the annual Los Angeles Religious Education Conference with liturgical dancers, a stage rather than an altar of sacrifice, etc. Clown Masses, polka masses, guitar Masses, mariachi Masses -- they all focused more on entertainment than worship with the promise that this new approach would attract the youth and keep people in the pews. It hasn't worked out that way as Bishop Schneider's more recent book, The Springtime That Never Came illustrates.

L.A. Religious Education Congress

Bishop Schneider's chapter on The Mass as Listening,  emphasizes the necessity of silence. It begins:

Listening to the voice of God who speaks to men through His Revelation is a divine command. God commands us to hear Him so that we may rightly obey His holy will and thus express our love for Him. In the Old Testament God often repeats these words: "Hear my voice!"

If you're not silent and listening, you can't hear! And we know that God often speaks in silence and in the "still small voice" with which He spoke to Ezekiel [1 Kings 19:12]

Psychologist talk about "active listening" which involves more than hearing, but absorbing what we hear and participating in the words another speaks so he knows he is heard. To say that those attending Mass in the silence of worship are not actively participating is, in my opinion, shallow and insulting. What a blessing if the clergy would emphasize the active participation of those who sit in silence and listen, not only with their ears, but with their minds and hearts as well:

People must be properly disposed to listen to the words, prayers, and hymns. They must listen not only to the readings in the the first part of the Mass, but also to the other parts, which have been compiled over two thousand years; the Preface, the various prayers and chants. Listening is a vital aspect of the active participation of the faithful. [my emphasis] One participates fully when one listens.   

Bishop Schneider also emphasizes the role of sacred music which has been so trivialized in 
the modern church with banal hymns that often reduce the Body and Blood of Christ to no more than bread and wine. The Arians spread their heresy through music and it seems that at least some of the modern hymn writers deliberately or ignorantly walk in their footsteps. While such music might inspire the congregation to tap their feet, it is unlikely to inspire anyone as sacred music did for St. Augustine whom Bishop Schneider quotes:

I wept at the beauty of Your hymns and canticles and was powerfully moved at the sweet sound of Your Church's singing. Those sounds flowed into my ears and the truth streamed into my heart: so that my feeling and emotion overflowed and the tears ran from my eyes and i was happy in them. [The Confession IX, 6, n. 14] 

According to the bishop, the "state of sacred music in the liturgy is characterized by an almost general anarchy. Worldly entertainment music...[has] invaded churches." In many places Gregorian Chant, which was supposed to receive "pride of place" according to Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concilium, has all but disappeared.

Near the end of the chapter, Bishop Schneider gives us a quote from Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, held for thirteen years in a Vietnamese Communist prison. The Cardinal's moving testimony affirms the value of both silence and music. During his ordeal, the cardinal spent nine years in solitary confinement with no contact except two guards. Think of the days and nights of silence. He spent his days walking back and forth in his cell to help preserve his health:

...praying with songs like the Miserere, Te Deum, Veni Creator, and the hymn, of the martyrs, Sanctorum Meritis. These humns of the Church, inspired by God's word provided me with a great deal of courage to follow Jesus. To come to truly value these beautiful prayers it was necessary to experience the obscurity of prison to become aware that our sufferings can be offered for the Church's fidelity. I sensed this intention, which I directed to jesus in communion with the Holy Father and whole Church, in an irresistible way when I repeated throughout the day: "Through him, with him, in him...."

Silence and sacred music was the refinement process experienced by so many saints throughout history. Let us embrace them both to grow in our love for Christ and Holy Mother Church. I recommend everything Bishop Schneider speaks and writes. He is a voice of reason in world of noisy insanity.