Sermon for the Mass to Celebrate the 500th Anniversary of the Birth of Palestrina
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16, 2025)
Sacred Heart Parish, Grand Rapids, MI
Introduction
Think about the world that Pier Luigi da Palestrina was born into, what was going on in the history of Europe at the time: Christendom was being torn asunder, splintering into different factions all over the place; wars of religion were beginning to erupt; Europeans were exploring parts of the world they had newly discovered, and fighting with each other for hegemony over them; and, to the east, there were the aggressive Muslim incursions into Europe by the Ottoman Turks that threatened the very Christian foundation of the civilization that was Europe.
The Power of Beauty
This is the world which was just beginning to explode when Palestrina was born. With so many crises – political, cultural, religious – one would think that religious and political leaders both would set all else aside in order to focus on quelling these conflicts and solving these problems. Focus on that they did; but not exclusively. Or, perhaps better to say, not always directly. It was precisely this moment of civilizational crisis that gave birth to arguably the greatest beauty Church has ever produced. Just think of other musicians, and geniuses of the visual arts as well, who were born in this same period of time: Tallis, Tansen and Victoria; da Vinci, Raphael and Michelangelo – among many others.
Palestrina himself certainly stands as an icon of this era. Which means, he is an icon of the Church’s wisdom, for the Church has always understood the importance of the arts – the creation of sacred beauty – even in the midst of such great tumult, for the arts have a way of healing, edifying and uniting that is unique. Certainly producing tracts and founding schools and seminaries and establishing and preserving universities was all necessary, but that alone was not enough. It is the arts that shape the soul of a society, and so the Church must also utilize the transcendent of beauty, reach into it and pull out its potential for reaching souls in a much more intuitive way.
Sacred beauty gets it power from its ability to capture and reflect what is in nature, and elevate it to serve as a bridge to bring the soul up into heaven. How appropriate, then, that we celebrate this Solemn Mass to mark the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the birth of Palestrina on this feast day of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, for from the earliest biblical times Carmel was renown for its beauty. As such, it was considered to have a mystical anointing, to be a place of encounter with God in its beauty at the mountaintop overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It was there that the prophet Elijah alone defeated the 450 prophets of Ba’al, beginning a movement to turn Israel back to worship of the true God who had made a Covenant with them. It was there that monks have been present as far back as the 12th century, which led to the development of Carmelite spirituality which – thanks to St. Louis, King of France, after his visit there in 1254 – spread all throughout the Church, enlivening and enriching her spiritual life.
Polyphony as a Metaphor
Natural beauty graced by the divine: this is the power of sacred beauty to be a bridge lifting the soul up to heaven. The metaphor of the bridge, of course, is one very dear to our new Holy Father, as Pope Leo often speaks of it as an image of unity in the Church, but especially Christ the bridge who unites us to his Father. He spoke of this, for example, last May, when he addressed the participants at an event organized by the Domenico Bartolucci Foundation.
He cited his spiritual father, St. Augustine, who urged Christians to keep walking forward in hope: “Sing, but walk! Do not stray from the road. Do not turn back. Do not stop.” He then added: “Let us sing and walk. Let us build bridges of beauty and faith.” The event featured a tribute to Palestrina on this 500th anniversary of his birth, whose music Pope Leo described as having a spiritual and liturgical significance that is a “timeless expression of prayer and unity.” Of the master of Renaissance polyphony, the Holy Father said: “His compositions, solemn and austere, inspired by Gregorian chant, fuse music and liturgy in a way that elevates the soul and gives voice to the mystery of the divine.” This, he went on to say, is characteristic of polyphony: “Polyphony is not merely a musical technique; it is a form imbued with theological meaning. It takes the sacred text and ‘clothes it with fitting melody’ so that it may better reach the understanding of the faithful.” He sees in this a metaphor for the Church herself, given the multiple voices necessary to sing polyphony, each with its own melodic path, sometimes even clashing but always in harmonic interplay: “This dynamic unity in diversity is a metaphor for our shared journey of faith under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.”[1]
In this sense we can say that sacred music cooperates with the role of Church authority as a safeguard to the Church’s tradition. That is to say, it is a guardian of tradition in the text, which, as the Second Vatican Council reminds us, is the reason for the pre-eminence of music amongst the sacred arts. Sacred music does not have texts which might be sung in devotion at Mass according to one’s choosing, but rather texts which are prescribed in books handed down through the ages and officially promulgated by Church authority for use in her worship. The music is intimately united to the Latin text of the sacred liturgy, the language which Vatican II still calls to be preserved in the liturgical rites. In Palestrina, every textual detail is tightly musically controlled in order to accentuate the meaning of the words. While the words printed on the page of a Missal can be edited, the music cannot!
A Living Tradition
The intimate interconnection between text and music hands on the deposit of faith in a particularly faithful way, extending the mission of the Church to all who have ears to hear. Since the musical forms are so tightly linked to the sacred liturgy, it does not have authority over the liturgy: it is the liturgy’s servant, not its master. Thus, its parallel role to that of Church authority. As then Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) said in The Spirit of the Liturgy: “Even the pope can only be a humble servant of [the liturgy’s] lawful development and abiding integrity and identity. . . . The authority of the pope is not unlimited; it is at the service of Sacred Tradition.”[2]
Also to be considered here is the fact that the music of Palestrina stands at the apex of an organic development of the music of the Roman rite beginning from its Gregorian chant, and it has never ceased to be heard in the churches of Christendom since the time of its composition. It thus serves as an integral link with not only the composer and first singers of this music, but with the myriad Christians who glorified God through this music and encountered the saving grace of Christ in its compellingly beautiful sounds. It is music composed in a certain time and place, but its beauty and holiness have made it into a timeless treasure which is now the birthright of all Catholics. In this way, sacred music forms a bridge for us to the past and to the sources of our faith, just as those called to priestly ministry in all ranks serve in the role of pontifex (bridge-builder): the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in union with him who form the College of Bishops, and the priests under their authority as their first collaborators in the pastoral care for the people of God.
A bridge: once again, that image so beloved by Pope Leo. And what a treasure this bridge is. I sometimes encounter young people who are enthralled when they discover this treasure of the Church’s patrimony, but it is an elation tinged with a bit of anger, for they question why they did not learn this growing up as Catholic. They lament (and this is a word-for-word quote): “I’ve been deprived of my Catholic birthright.” Sacred music is a bridge that connects us to all previous generations of Catholics, forming us into one family of God, different members of the one Body of Christ under him who is our Head, who unites us to the Father. It is a treasure not only to be preserved but also developed: we in our own time are called to make our own contribution to it, using the gifts of time, talent and treasure that God has given us to do so, with the help of His grace – just as those in Palestrina’s era used their gifts to develop polyphony from chant. Pope Leo, too, reminded us of this at that event of the Domenico Bartolucci Foundation, remarking that “sacred music is not just a legacy of the past, but a living gift that continues to nourish the Church today.”[3]
Conclusion
Let us be clear, too, as to what the whole purpose of this legacy is. It is not pure aesthetics, creating beauty for its own sake (as noble of a purely human endeavor as that is). As Pope Benedict XVI (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger) famously said, “The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.”[4] That is the purpose of the beauty of the arts: to make saints! Sacred beauty glorifies God and sanctifies God’s people. Without God as the reference point, there is no true beauty in the world – which accounts for so much ugliness in the world today.
I thank the organizers and benefactors of this celebration of Palestrina here at Sacred Heart parish for carrying forward this precious legacy of the Church. Let each of us now – in our own way, as God calls us to do according to our own particular vocation and state in life – make our own contribution to the legacy of truth, beauty and goodness that we have received from our Redeemer: that we may be united as one family of faith with each other and with all those who have gone before us, so that, when we come to the end of our earthly pilgrimage, we may cross the bridge from this life to the life of heaven. May God grant us this grace. Amen.
[1] Pope Leo XIV praises the beauty and harmony of polyphony | Catholic News Agency
[2] Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy John Saward (trans.) (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000) p. 166.
[3] Pope Leo XIV praises the beauty and harmony of polyphony | Catholic News Agency
[4] The Splendor of Holiness and Art – Benedict XVI Institute
