Why do we sing the liturgy?

If you attend the liturgy in the Catholic Church you may encounter, in additions to hymns and a psalm, words of the liturgy that are sung.

Now, in some parishes there will be no singing whatsoever. In others, the priest and congregation may sing small parts of the liturgy such as:

Priest: “The Lord be with you…”
Congregation: “…and also with you”
Priest: “Lift up your hearts…”
Congregation: “…we lift them up to the Lord”

At the other end of the spectrum, my local Byzantine parish sings virtually everything. Only two things are actually spoken during that liturgy: the homily and a brief prayer before communion. Absolutely everything else is sung,  including the prayers, readings, creed etc.

This begs the question why? Most Christian churches use music and will have some songs, but why is it that some churches (those who are more “liturgical”) sing parts of the liturgy which others will simply say?

“Make music from your heart to the Lord”

Let’s first ask a more basic question: why do we sing at all? I’m sure that there’s a deep psychological explanation for this, but I think we can simply say that there is something about music and singing which touches the soul. The Catechism answers this question thus:

“The musical tradition of the…Church is a treasure of inestimable value…

The composition and singing of inspired psalms…were already closely linked to the liturgical celebrations of the Old Covenant. The Church continues and develops this tradition: “Address . . . one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart.”

“He who sings prays twice.” – Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1156 

This last line, “He who sings prays twice” is a saying often attributed to St. Augustine, but which actually appears to be a summary of his rather less pithy commentary on Psalm 73. The explanation that the Catechism gives though is clear – we sing because we continue the tradition of the liturgical celebrations of the Old Covenant, we sing at the urging of St. Paul and we sing as an aid to prayer.

Adorning Words

I would like to end by sharing with you an answer to this question that I heard recently and which is my new favourite explanation as to why we sing liturgy. It expresses the above sentiments, but in a slightly different way.

Consider the book from which the Gospel is proclaimed at the Liturgy of the Word. The book itself contains the Word of God and, as a consequence, is something dear and important. However, we often adorn this book with a shiny metal cover, beautiful calligraphy or sometimes precious stones. We do all this to draw attention to it, to make the statement that it is something precious and holy.

In the same way that these precious things adorn the Gospel Book, our music adorns our prayers…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT9jB0ZJMZY