THE SPLENDID AND THE RUSTY; Modern Catholic Music and the Liturgy.

THE ABSTRACT.
This article explores the danger posed to the sacred liturgy of the Catholic Church by the unreflective modern catholic music, which in recent times has become so famous in the East African world. The article begins by pointing out that songs are not just decorations to make the worship more colourful, but they are the worship itself since antiquity. As long as humanity existed, it had gods, and as long as humanity revered gods, it sang. Christ enters time and builds his Church and the singing goes on, but as time goes on, the songs have began missing the mark. Rather than reflecting the mystery of God, they begin celebrating the physical things of the world around us. In doing so, they detach us from the Spirit and plunge us into the worldly creation, so that going to Church becomes a movement from one place to another, maybe from home to the parish, but never a transcendence from flesh to the spirit. As a result true worshipers of the Father who worship in Spirit and truth vanish amid the music organs and the drums and the dance moves. What a danger, when the Church becomes a social place and not a communion of Divine encounter! This article is not meant to blame or condemn anyone, but to trigger us to realize that we need a major liturgical reform in our today's Catholic liturgical music.

THE AGELESS GODS AND THE AGELESS MUSIC.
As old as humanity itself is the worship of the gods, and as old as the worship of the gods is the music. Across all world cultures in history, humanity has never put aside music in their spirituality. Songs have been cherished in honor of the deity, or as a gift from the deity; worship songs, love songs, heroic songs, and many other kinds of songs for special occasions. From the early beginnings of humanity in the book of Genesis, we already see figures like Jubal described as patrons of musical instruments (cf. Gen 4:21). It tells you that music was a common practice in those primeval times. In ancient Egypt, music was sacred in the religious and mystical systems. Deities like Ihy and Hathor were considered gods and goddesses of music, joy, and love. Special titles such as "Chantress of Amun" belonged to great women musicians in the temple cults. Ancient Mesopotamian religions used music and instruments in worship; the epic stories of the ancient Sumerian gala priests reveal this without doubt. As late as the days of Jewish captivity, we see music deeply embedded in the worship of gods. In the book of Daniel, a record shows King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon elevating a big idol for worship, and a command goes: "As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up" (Daniel 3:5). Israel's temple worship was full of songs and psalms. Jesus himself and his disciples sang a hymn on the Passover night. The New Covenant Church is urged to impart the Christological message in psalms and hymns and songs (cf. Col. 3:16). All African cultures have songs for different occasions, and they are deeply connected with the spirituality of the communities. To date, music runs in all spheres of human influence. All this leaves us with an undoubted realization: music is a human offering,l to the one adored, reaching beyond the physical world into the spiritual realm.

THE UNCEASING MUSIC IN THE CHURCH ERA.
Therefore, when we come to the Catholic Church and her Solemn Liturgy, which is a supreme Act of Christ worshipping the Father by the means of us who, filled by the Holy Spirit of baptism unite into one man- Christ the High Priest in the holy Church, as it is in all worship across ages, music becomes primary and central. The Catholic Church has never stopped chanting the holy music. The Canticles in the New Testament epistles reveal a singing Church since apostolic times. The medieval Church rolled the wheel further, with great musicians like Guido of Arezzo, Perotin and Guillaume de Machaut among others. Gregorian chant is the most magnificent proof that music is inseparable from the Catholic worship. Age after age to date, music has been intertwined with Liturgy. The book of Revelation points at a music sang beyond the present age in the heavenly dimension. Music therefore must be an eternal gift bequeathed man since the beginning, to contemplate the inexhaustible glory of infinite melodies and the perfection of rhythm and harmony, all of which point to something beyond the physical.

Music in this case becomes not just a tool of worship, but the worship itself. Through music, we connect with the Spirit of God. We are elevated to a higher plane where communion with God is established. The soul burns with the love of the Divine, and what the words can't express bursts forth from within our souls. How often has music aided prayer or meditation, touched the hearts of heathens and converted many, caused renewal in the Church and increased the love of God in the hearts of many. This reveals the truth about music, that it is not just lyrics or midi programed in a computer, it is something spiritual and peculiarly human, offered to God in the context of the Church.

THE CONSPIRACY.
The enemy of human souls has always sought ways to destroy the communion of God and His people in the Church of Christ. He always does not invent a new fruit into the garden, rather he manipulates the fruit that is already in the garden, so that shame substitutes glory and death substitutes life. He does so in a sustained conversation of goodwill, one that lies that it'll give joy and more vitality, more life which abandons the ancient roots, and causes us to stretch out our hands to do it our own way, a way which is new and more pleasant to the eyes, to the ears, to our feelings. The more we sustain the conversation, the deeper the rift gets between us and God, and the happier the enemy becomes. It is sad to say that the conversation has already began in the garden of Catholic Music, and the longer we sustain it without acting on it, the more the harm we do to our faith and worship experience. This is the nature of the conversation: A MUSIC SO VIBRANT AND ENTERTAINING THAT ALIENATES THE GODLY AND FEEDS THE HUMAN. For legal reasons, I won't mention any music title or composer but I'll draw a distinction between the Liturgical intention of the sacred music and the dilute or empty music of our generation.

THE DUAL MAN.
The very first verse of the holy Bible announces the totality of reality. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. This is not an upper space of the stars and the lower ground of dust, it is a merism declaring something deeper. God created the heavenly and the earthly, that is, the spiritual and the physical, the immaterial and the material. That is the totality of everything that exists; it is either material or immaterial, physical or spiritual. All things are either physical or spiritual, except one - the man.

(When I say man I mean humanity, both male and female). Spirits have no matter, and physical objects have no spirit. It is only man who is a spirit that exists in flesh, making him both spiritual and material. Since ancient times, philosophers have always commented on this dualism.

It is this two in one nature that has made man the alter and the priest. Man becomes an interesting point for the heavenly and the earthly, a point of intersection between the material and the spiritual. He is both spiritual and material, in the likeness of God the Son, and nothing else is such. Therefore, God reigns the physical world through man, because man is the only creation whom the spiritual can intersect the material. Man is both in heaven and on earth, making him a Bethel, in the image and likeness of Christ.

WORSHIP- AN OFFERING OF THE WHOLE.
To worship is not just to close eyes and shout out or mumble words. Worship is an extreme moment, a moment like no other, where Christ becomes all in all, and is offered to God as the Supreme Act of Worship. When the man offers himself wholly, Christ becomes the Act of Worship. For man to offer himself whole, he must offer himself physically and spiritually. He must be present in the Church, both bodily and spiritually. He is the synthesis of the physical world in his body, and in that body he lifts the whole physical world to God through transcendence in spirit, and this is the doing of Christ. In his offering of the whole self, he must offer his body and his spirit. His body entails his physical presence, and whenever possible, the things he has achieved by the labor of his body such as bread and wine, money, harvests and such physical gifts. His spirit entails his consciousness during liturgy, a presence from within so that all his mind and soul are present, and in that presence, he brings forth with him the spiritual gifts, great of which among others is the music. This is what I have been driving home. The song offered to God (because we usually say repeatedly that we are singing to the Lord) must come from the depths of the spirit, not just from the memory and tongue. In singing, it is not just a song we are giving out, it is soul we are offering. The way bananas are packed and offered in a basket, the spirit of man is packed and offered in a song. This is what men of all ages did in their temples and shrines. They sacrificed a physical victim in their place, and accompanied by songs from their spirit, they offered themselves wholly to their God or gods. In our age, Christ offered himself wholly in our place, and through him we renew the worship day after day, offering ourselves wholly through him, and in doing so it is no longer us but him. Our song therefore must go beyond the physical, and scoop from the depths of our spirits our wholeness. But how will the songs go deep into our spirits if they have been composed pointing at the physical? If I sing a love song to my fiancè, my heart and soul goes to her. If I sing a song dedicated to a nationalism spirit, my heart and soul goes there. If I sing a song composed in the light of God's mystery, my heart and soul penetrates into the mystery of God. Now, what are our modern catholic songs pointing at?

THE CONTRAST: Modern Music vs the True Nature of Liturgy.
In a very simple explanation, liturgy begins with the entry of man into the mystery of Trinity via Christ the Man and concludes with the same man being sent to go and live that mystery. Liturgy therefore becomes an extremely holy and glorious experience, that must fill a man of sane senses and mature spirituality with awe. Unfortunately, in our age it rarely happens that way. Instead, we see many thrilled by the tune but not amazed by the mystery, entertained but not converted, dancing but not amending, memorizing but not reflecting. This is not an accident, it is the way the game has been drafted without the knowledge of many. After Vatican II, something shifted drastically in the Catholic worship. The Church was free in the unbounded velds of the famous inculturalization, and with such freedom, many began making uncensored movements into the unmarked territory of Catholic liturgical music. Despite there being Episcopal regulations on liturgical practices, the rain is always wider than the umbrella. Any random man or woman can compose a random song and fix it in the songs list of a random Sunday high mass. If the choir sings it excellently, it carries the day. The calamity occurs if the song was not centered on the celebrated mystery of God.
This common and repeated pattern has led to a Church that forgets and eventually becomes ignorant of what is happening during the mass. Many forget or fail to learn the true things, and end up assuming the wrong ones. Take for instance, the so called "Entrance songs." After a careful scrutiny on what appears on public domains and publications, I found out that more than 75 percent of the entrance songs view the beginning of the holy mass as an entry into a house. For a simple Catholic faithful, that sounds as entering the door of the church building. The spiritual significance of entry into a "temple not made by human hands" is lost. By the way, what is the entrance all about? It is the man who, weak and unworthy as he is, enters into something higher - a higher dimension where he is no longer the human but Christ the true Human is, and bearing witness in the Holy Spirit, becomes the offering with, through Christ, to the Father. In simple terms, entrance is not entry into a building, but into a high spiritual dimension, into the Trinity. It is not a human act, but a spiritual one, a pilgrimage to the new Zion.

It is a movement from the physical world into the spiritual realm, not a movement from the outside into the inside the church building. Unfortunately, modern entrance songs point at the latter, diluting the spiritual significance of the entrance ritual. As a consequence, many enter the Church, and never go beyond the pew where they are seated. They are inside the building, but never inside the mystery. Place a classical hymn side by side with a modern catholic song, and the difference is in tremendous volumes.

Take for instance a classical hymn like Dan Schutte's " City of God" and its famous lines such as The Lord of our longing has conquered the night or Proclaim to My city the day of her birth. It gives a picture of transcendence, unlike most of our modern songs which are centered on let's dance, let's ululate, let's walk flossing or majestically going into the house of God. They seldom remind us that we are the temple, instead they point out at the temple outside us, one we enter by feet and not by spirit. That's why we never experience God within, instead we are always glaring at the clouds to see God there! Our songs never see the Trinity as the house we are entering into, they reflect a people entering the physical building.

You are not scandalized enough if you don't wait until offertory time. A special moment of Love's exchange has been reduced to a mere transaction of our temporal goods. What happens exactly during offertory? In the very beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, Abraham the man of faith meets Melchizedek the Everlasting Priest on the summit of Love's devotion to His people. Man ascends carrying the material and by the Act of the Holy Spirit Christ descends to meet man at his quest for the Spiritual.

Our faith comes into an encounter with Christ's gift of his very self. The Church teaches so well, in coherence with the holy scripture, that Jesus Christ alone is the befitting high priest of God the Father. God who is infinite cannot be offered something finite, and the only worthy offering is the infinite Son, Christ the victim and priest. Our material offerings such as our bodily presence, money and harvests accompany bread and wine, clearly showing our willingness to come in flesh, to come carrying the fruits of the physical world, into a place where the Spiritual will be "infused" into, and a blessing will eventually manifest among us in our physical predicament. At the end of it all, it is Christ who becomes the offering to God, not our money or pumpkins. These are essential, for they communicate our physical presence on the alter of the offering, but they don't replace or stand side by side with Jesus the eternal offering! Jesus Christ alone suffices, and us only through him.

Jesus Christ assumes us to Himself when he offers himself as the acceptable sacrifice to God. We don't make the second sacrifice so that there are two or more, Christ and ours. The offertory song therefore must embrace this fundamental truth, that it is Christ who is the offering, not our money or gifts. Ours through Him yes, but He is the one.

Yet this is not the case in many of the offertory songs sang in the church. Majority of our offertory songs point at our pockets and not at the cross, at our livestock and not at the humanity of Christ the Lamb of God, at our gardens and not at the True Vine, at what we have but not who Christ is. The intention is good, but the design ends us up into the depths of the unreal. Christ the true offering is buried beneath the fruits and the vegetables and the offertory baskets. Our temporal gifts are magnified while the real eternal offering remains unseen. Gradually, those who have nothing to offer abstain from attending mass with an excuse "sina sadaka," as if to say theirs is the offering and Christ, even if he offers himself in the holy mass, is not the sadaka. Not because an heretic preached the absurd doctrine, but because our favourite songs have become the tools. Tools which urge us to arise and go and contribute, but never praises Christ who has already offered himself. Tools which warn us that if we don't give out we will not be blessed, but never remind us that the offering of Christ himself is already a supreme blessing for us. Tools which pray that God may receive ours, but forgets in many instances to mention Christ. A silent relegation of the True, and promotion of the shadow.

These two instances above are just a sample mirroring what happens in the entire holy mass. The entire celebration loses spiritual touch and appeals to our feelings and interests. With time, we begin to say that the mass was beautiful not out of the encounter we had with the divine, but because we danced much and enjoyed singing songs that never transcended beyond the senses. Gradually, even the sacred songs of the rite are sang by the outer man and not the inner man, because the outer man is present, but the inner man never entered into the mystery house. We begin to sing "Lord have mercy" without any contrition of heart or humility of disposition. We sing hosanna without reflecting what it really means, without any vision of beatific glory in our hearts. Our Marian songs begin to paint a picture of a mere statue in our souls, not of a real, alive, active, real person we can have an encounter and a relationship with.
Our communion songs become an accompaniment, not a prayer of a thirsty or a grateful soul. In extreme cases, Jesus has been described as a chef, making the Eucharist a mere food, a thing and not a person, as well as creating a boundary between Jesus and the Eucharist so that they become two, one preparing the other! A tragedy keeps encroaching slowly, because we have made our songs look like the very us who live in the physical and rarely make inward journey into the depths of our spirits. We want to enjoy, to feel at ease, to sing of the things we are familiar with, not the things above us, things of the promise, things that uplift our souls from slumber and cause the Holy spirit to replace us with the Human Jesus Christ. We even introduce the dancing styles from the secular world to top up the enjoyment, yet some gestures and dancing styles have already been offered in very dark festivals to the unknown gods! From ancient times, songs were not sang in temples for entertainment, they were a transcendence of the soul towards the divine. Hearts and souls sang, not just the mouths.

THE AFTERMATH.
Our spirits have become alienated from the Spirit of the Liturgy. We go to Church, but never to Christ. We have a huge junk of memorized lyrics, but we are very poor in our Christian doctrine. Then comes the massive exodus. Other pagan avenues have mastered the trend and given an alternative music genres such as gengetone and hip-hop, shifting the entertainment venue elsewhere from the Church. Without a solid catechism and depth of the Christian spirituality, we become the seeds that fell on a rocky soil. How then can we claim to be evangelizing with our songs? Look and see, that in recent times, the artists and the choirs are more famous than the message they preach. It is no longer about the message, but more about the production details, the attire in shooting and the views on YouTube and how we trend. Read this well: we trend, using the gospel as the tool, not the gospel trending with us as the tools. The deception is almost impossible to notice.

THE INVISIBLE WINNER.
The invisible winner in the midst of these well done vocals magnifying emptiness is the prince of violation by abundance, who uses the logic of familiarity to breed contempt. He uses a smart approach, of devaluing through commonality. Make something or someone very common and familiar to lessen his importance. Come to think of this: food which is rare to find becomes precious, while the one we eat daily will soon be loathed. Money which is not so common has value whereas money that is abundant to everyone leads to inflation and becomes valueless. Your president does not walk in the streets daily, or else his importance and dignity will devalue. Such is the case with God. When he becomes too common to us without a deeper spiritual reflection on Him, he loses meaning to us. He becomes something we just exclaim randomly, unconsciously. We assume songs are holy because his name appears in them, yet we have artists who constantly mention the name of God while they truly belong to satanic kingdom. We also assume that because the song talks about God we can sing it at will in liturgy. At the end, we have many godly songs, sang by people who sing them well but never contemplate God. How many people have been singing out about how Almighty God is, yet they are not convinced about that, and even have some other gods? How many people sing in a choir about how God's blessings to them are abundant, yet cry behind closed doors feeling desolate because the song they sang at choir was not a honest expression of their soul but rather a random composition? And of late, our Catholic Music has began taking the shape of the protestant gospel of prosperity, and as Sir Francis Drake the famous poet of "Disturb us Lord" would say, "in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim." It is unbelievable that when modern songs speak of God's blessings, they mean more of material abundance. Spiritual gifts are invisible, nearly forgotten. Then soon we will stop dreaming of the heavenly, and eventually our spiritual desire will die.

RECOMMENDATION.
Liturgical reform must get initiated immediately, one that focuses it's lens on the songs sang during the Liturgy, especially during the holy mass. We must embark on this collective initiative with humility that allows us to be flexible and open to change, change which may demand the sacrifice of our ego and preferences. Without blaming anyone, and without anyone feeling sad, we must erase some songs from our liturgical hymn books. Bishops must come up with special delegates in their various dioceses and even at the Episcopal conference level to spearhead these reforms and cushion the Splendid Liturgy of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church from future corruption. In collaboration with all the priests, songs for liturgy should be screened before they are sang, to confirm if they reflect the mystery of Christ celebrated in Liturgy. Liturgical music is not something for everyone, it must be an exclusive business of those who compose after deep prayer and meditation. These reforms may take time to implement, and they require zeal and positive response from every Christian. To sit back and watch indifferently is a mortal sin, sin of letting the worldly shine splendidly while the sacred gets corroded in the pits of forgetfulness and a masked idolatry of the physical.