Three Paths to Sacred Music

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In conversations over the years with people who have caught the sacred music bug, I've noticed certain patterns over how they initially came to fall in love with Gregorian chant and polyphony, the music codified as proper to the Roman Rite.

There are patterns that emerge in one's life experiences that correspond in an interesting way to church teaching on the marks of sacred music itself, and I seriously doubt that these patterns are a coincidence. You might recognize yourself in these patterns.

I'll start with my own story because I know it best. My own background in religious music was in a Baptist church that spared no expense in putting together over-the-top production numbers. We had a well-paid music minister, a choir of fifty voices, and we frequently hired full-scale orchestras to play on Christmas and Easter. These productions came complete with t-shirts and advertising blitzes. We sang Handel and Mendelssohn, and our ideal was driven by visions of brass choirs on balconies and hundreds of voices singing praises. The more …