Antiphons are Scripture

Peace be with you. 

One of the things I learned in seminary is the latin phrase “lex orandi, lex credendi”, which can be translated as “the law of prayer is the law of faith/belief”. Another way you could express this is that we pray what we believe. If our prayer contains incorrect or false theology, then we are liable to believe those incorrect or false things. Imagine if our opening song was “There are four persons in the holy trinity” or “Jesus wasn’t really divine, he was only human”.

  The trouble with a lot of church music in hymnals other than the one we use is that the theological problems tend to be more subtle. Many emphasize the human side of Jesus to the exclusion of his divine side. Some emphasize a works-exclusive vision of salvation without grace. Some are even Protestant hymns that were written to refute Catholic theology. “A mighty fortress is our God” is basically the Lutheran national anthem. “The Church’s one foundation is Jesus Christ our Lord” is meant to answer the Catholic theology that Jesus built the church on the rock of St. Peter. 

As you have experienced, we’ve been using antiphons for the last several years. I know many of you appreciate them but I also know that some of you don’t. Antiphons are scriptural. They aren’t a paraphrase or someone’s interpretation of scripture or theology. They come straight from the Bible, usually from the Book of Psalms;.I hope you have noticed that, at the beginning of Mass, I’ve been taking a few seconds to connect the Antiphon that we just prayed to the readings we’re about to hear. I’m doing that as a way to clarify right from the beginning of Mass that everything is intentionally chosen in such a way as to be integral to our prayer. We don’t have a happy song with words that are completely unrelated to everything else. The words of the prayers all matter. 

I completely understand that it’s too difficult to pay attention to every word that happens at Mass. I go to Mass four times on a weekend and there are several times I hear something at Noon Mass that I simply didn’t hear at any of the other three Masses I’ve celebrated. That’s why it is so important to me to not have potentially confusing or misleading prayers in the liturgy. It affects what we believe. And, in today’s church, there’s already too much confusion about what the church teaches for us to add to it in the Liturgy.