As a follow-up to Music in Catholic Worship, issued by the-then Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy in 1972 and revised in 1983, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops promulgated Sing to the Lord in 2007.
“By its very nature,” says this document in paragraph 2, “song has both an individual and a communal dimension. Thus, it is no wonder that singing together in church expresses so well the sacramental presence of God to his people.” Paragraph 26 advises that “singing is one of the primary ways that the assembly of the faithful participates actively in the liturgy.”
In one form or another, I have been involved in music ministry for many years. Helping and encouraging other members of the liturgical assembly to sing has been a source of joy for me, even when I am not formally a member of a choir. However, in autumn of this year, I contracted what was for me a long-lived strain of laryngitis. Even after I recovered my voice, sustained talking (or singing) triggered coughing fits. For weeks, I was unable to join the singing of the assembly. To an extent, I felt myself cut off from the communal and sacramental dimensions of shared song.
This experience invited me to ponder anew the idea that it is the entire assembly that celebrates liturgy, Christ the head and body. Liturgical celebration is not a mere juxtaposition of like-minded people nor even the mere amalgamation of their efforts. It is the Spirit who animates the assembly to be *one* assembly gathered in the name of Christ and it is Christ who celebrates even when my voice is silenced.
Twice citing the 1967 instruction Musicam Sacram, Sing to the Lord 12 declares:
Participation in the Sacred Liturgy must be “internal, in the sense that by it the faithful join their mind to what they pronounce or hear, and cooperate with heavenly grace.” Even when listening to the various prayers and readings of the liturgy or to the singing of the choir, the assembly continues to participate actively as they “unite themselves interiorly to what the ministers or choir sing, so that by listening to them they may raise their minds to God.”
My throat condition forced me “merely” to listen to the singing of the assembly around me. However, this “merely” listening is not like the “merely” listening I do to a radio station playing in the waiting room of a doctor’s office. Liturgical listening invites me to hand myself over to the singing of others, to let my prayer / hopes / concerns be borne up by the graciousness of others. The experience reminds me that even when I sing in full voice, my prayer is borne up by the graciousness of others. My singing is never “my” singing. It is always I who sing as part of the “we” that has gathered. Though it is right to delight in adding my voice to the voices of others, I must bear in mind that “because the gathered liturgical assembly forms one body, each of its members must shun ‘any appearance of individualism or division, keeping before their eyes that they have only one Father in heaven and accordingly are all brothers and sisters to each other.’” (Sing to the Lord 25, citing the General Instruction of the Roman Missal 95)