?God dwells in light inaccessible. God is Light, Goodness and Beauty. Man is constantly in search of God, his Creator. We seek to know Him and imitate Him. We wish to love Him. All that we have comes from Him. All material creation is God?s gift to us and is the only means we have of coming to Him. We use those material things to find Him and to come to Him. We call the highest perfection of man?s use of the material universe art, the ultimate beauty, goodness and truth, a reflection of God Himself. Art is our means of reaching God. We use architecture, painting, gold, silver, embroidery and music set to sacred texts. Music used to carry us to God must have two qualities: it must be sacred and it must be art. ? Only true art can be used in God?s service. The Church is the ?Person of Christ,? who is the reflection of the Father, and thus only in beauty can it offer the Father the adoration of the very Person of Christ that it is. A false art, even if it glimmers and attracts, does not lead to God since it is unworthy of the Father. Art must be the very best of which the community is capable.?

With these words Msgr. Richard J. Schuler, pastor Emeritus of St. Agnes Church in St. Paul, MN began his homily to a full church on Pentecost Sunday. It was the occasion of the unveiling of a new addition to the repertory of the Twin Cities Catholic Choral, which sings at the 10 a.m. High Mass at the parish on thirty Sundays of the year.

The new work was Mass in E minor, Op. 87 of the much ignored Austrian born Heinrich von Herzogenberg (1843-1900), who wrote very much in the romantic style of Johannes Brahms. His some 150 compositions are now coming to light, some being recently rediscovered, and are being recorded and performed more frequently.

Musically the Mass is huge, calling for a large choir and orchestra. On Sunday the choir loft of the massive Austro-Hungarian baroque church held 4 soloists (SATB), 60 chorus members, sundry 1st and 2nd violins, viola, cellos, basses, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 3 Bassoons, a bass clarinet, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, 4 french horns, timpani, and of course the king of instruments and church music, the pipe organ. Robert Peterson, recently retired as chairman of the music department at Macalester College in St. Paul directed and Mary Le Voir was the organist. The Holy Mass was also enriched by the Gregorian chant Proper sung by the parish?s schola cantorum under the guidance of Paul Le Voir and also by stunning organ music: Nicolas de Grigny?s Veni Creator as a prelude, Maurice Durufle?s (1902 - 1986) Variations on the Veni Creator Spiritus at the offertory, and as an organ postlude Louis Vierne?s Carillon de Westminster.

It was beautiful, holy and open to everyone who cared to walk in and sit down. St. Agnes Church is often described as looking rather like the United Nations on a Sunday and also weekday Masses. Holy Mother Church has for many centuries been the greatest patroness of the arts in history. She provides beauty which is also sacred and for the worship of God, a chief duty of all human beings, for every one of every class background and level of education or culture. This is a common patrimony for every person who lives and it transcends economic levels, nationalities and age groups.

Msgr. Schuler, 82, was the celebrant for the Mass, which was sung entirely in Latin but for the spoken vernacular readings. I had the great privilege of participating in this Mass in choro, that is, in choir dress (cassock, surplice and biretta) together with other clergy, seminarians, and nearly 20 altar boys (sans birettas, of course). During the Mass the many altar boys, ranging in age from 4th grade to highschoolers were focused and attentive, an amazing thing to see in this age of video games, sound bites and TV eye candy. Under the guidance of another octogenarian, the Rev. Mr. Harold Hughesdon, a permanent deacon who in his youth had learned his liturgy in service at the altar of Westminster in London, these young men and boys carry out intricate rubrical movements and sometimes complex tasks, always performed with both comfort and grace.

After the Mass concluded and the procession wended its way back to the sacristy, the postlude still thundering in the church behind us, I queried some of the altar boys who had served what they thought of the new orchestral Mass. Keep in mind that these young men and boys are veterans of years of service at these orchestral and choral High Masses, sometimes lasting nearly two hours. One of them, perhaps 10 years of age, said, ?It was really cool. I liked the Sanctus.? Another young fellow clearly endowed with a critical ear and sharp mind said after regarding me for a moment that he liked the new Mass very much, but added thoughtfully, ?I like the ?Saint Cecilia? by Gounod better.? This pre-teen was referring of course, to the lush orchestral Messe solennelle de Ste. C?ile by 19th c. composer Charles Gounod (1818-93). I suppose that rather few altar servers in other places on that Sunday would have even known that Church music not sounding like the Campbell Soup jingle even exists, much less be able to remember the name of the composer, the nickname of the Mass, and then make critical judgments about them. A tree is known from its fruits. These young people are shaped by what they experience. The music, the sacred action of the liturgy, the sound teaching from the pulpit of St. Agnes Church and good example of the priests has also produced over 20 vocations to the priesthood in as many years. As a matter of fact on the previous Sunday there were celebrated two First Masses of new priests ordained the day before, both from the parish. The music for those Masses? Joseph Haydn, Pauken Mass and Palestrina's Missa Aeterna Munera Christi.

Msgr. Schuler has over a period of several decades built up the music program at St. Agnes, adding a new Masses each year or so. ?We have about 25 Masses in the repertory now,? Monsignor tells people. Why did he choose this new and relatively obscure Mass to work on? ?We already have sung a good deal of the Schubert, Beethoven, Mozart and Hayden Masses. We have been going toward a more romantic style. This Mass of von Herzogenberg was just rediscovered and published. I heard a recording of it from Europe and decided that I would like to do it.?

The choir liked the Mass. ?It was a lot of work,? said Msgr. Schuler. ?We started working on it last fall. It is not something you pick up and just sing. On the other hand there are no great rhythmic or melodic problems with it. It is just a lot of music. ?

The Twin Cities Catholic Chorale has been singing these Austrian orchestral Masses since 1974 to the number of about 30 Sundays a year. I doubt that there is anything else like it anywhere. Notable for their exceptional achievements in Church music are Assumption Grotto Shrine in Detroit and St. John Cantius Church in Chicago, but they do not attempt anything on quite the same scale as you find at St. Agnes. I doubt you could find anything this ambitious in modern day Vienna. The first they did was the Little Organ Solo at Holy Childhood in St. Paul in 1950.

The right combination of factors contributed to the growth of this incredible experience of the Church?s liturgy each Sunday. First, the parish was built up by immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. These people enjoyed a rich music and architectural tradition. Thus, they built a large baroque style church, which was part of their heritage, and endowed it with a vast choir loft to facilitate the music they loved. Next there was a series of sound pastors who maintained a strong tradition of good liturgy. In what can be only described as both grace and good luck after the Second Vatican Council there was named as pastor Msgr. Rudolph Bandas who had been a peritus at all the sessions of the Council. When he took up his pastoral duties he implemented in the parish the liturgical changes that the Council Father?s had actually asked for without the oddities of illicit experimentation according to the iconoclastic ?spirit of Vatican II? that devasted the Church?s musical and liturgical landscape in the 60?s and 70?s.

God?s favor again was work when, just before the advent of the Novus Ordo in 1969/70, Fr. Richard J. Schuler was appointed pastor, bring with him decades of experience as a Church musician on even an international level. He maintained and fostered the German/Austrian identity of the parish and added to the liturgical stability and excellence an ambitious but patient program of the finest repertoire that the Church?s treasury of sacred music has to offer. And so it began.

Msgr. Schuler had started the Twin Cities Catholic Chorale long before he was named pastor of St. Agnes and then transferred it that church. Musing about the very origins of the TCCC he said, ?The first Mass they did was (Hayden?s) Little Organ Solo at Holy Childhood in St. Paul in 1950.? ?I was said at the time to be a very bad priest because we were having instruments in church!? At that time Pius X?s legislation was in force and it was thought that you could only have Gregorian chant and polyphony in church, that instrumental music of this nature was forbidden. ?That was a misinterpretation,? the Monsignor clarified. ?Today we have the same problem. Today we have people in charge of liturgy in this country who didn?t know one note from the next.?

They know their notes at St. Agnes in St. Paul and the newest addition to the list of Masses that you can hear so often demonstrates this fact. The Mass in E minor by von Herzogenberg was dedicated to the memory of Philipp Spitta (+1894), a great friend of von Herzogenberg. Spitta had been a Latin teacher and a then great figure in Bach scholarship, publishing a seminal and still consulted biography of J.S. Bach in 1873. He composed it in the short time between May and June 1894 and conducted it for the first time in Berlin on 2 Dec following.

Msgr. Schuler says, ?Music of this caliber, if we have the resources, is what the Vatican Council was aiming for in its discussions of Church music. We have a great freedom now to do these great things. And all that is required is that the music be truly artistic and that it be truly sacred.?

?I certainly wouldn?t expect that every parish church have something like this. But in a large metropolitan area a Cathedral and the major churches should have good music programs? he explained.

?What is a parish for but to worship God. The school, societies and so forth all have one purpose: to prepare people for the worship of God.?

On the feast of Corpus Christi we will hear in St. Thomas Aquinas? sequence Lauda Sion the lines:

Lauda Sion Salvatorem,
lauda ducem et pastorem,
in hymnis et canticis.

Praise, O Zion, your Savior,
praise the leader and shepherd,
in hymns and songs.

Quantum potes, tantum aude:
quia maior omni laude,
nec laudare sufficit.

However much you are capable of, that much dare to do:
for He is greater than every song of praise,
nor does singing praise suffice!

?? quantum potes, tantum aude?however much you are capable of, that much dare to do?? St. Agnes Church in St. Paul has responded well and boldly to that invitation one more time.

Used with permission from The Wanderer, issue of June 19, 2003.
The Wanderer is a national Catholic weekly based in St. Paul, Minn.; 651-224-5733