St. Augustine, music, and Christ the King feast day

This, the final Sunday before the beginning of Advent (the four weeks leading up to celebrating the Nativity of Jesus Christ, Christmas) is the Feast of Christ the King.

Here is a small excerpt from St. Augustine: Christ King and Priest:

Psalm cil.
V.1. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: let him praise be in the church of the saints.

1. Let us praise the Lord in voice and mind; let us praise him in doing good; and as this pslam bids us, let us sing Him a new song.

For it is so the psalm begins: Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle. For the old man an old son; for the new man a new song.

The Old Testament is an old canticle; the New Testament a new canticle.

In the Old Testament the promises are temporal and terrestrial. He who loves earthly things will sing the old song.

He that would sing the new song, let him love eternal things. Love itself is both new and eternal: It never grows old, therefore is it ever new.

***

I LOVE that Pope Benedict XVI is bringing back Gregorian Chant and the other classic religious music. Remember that Gregorian Chant and the other classics are not "the old" but they are what the Church intended to be "the new." The great and reverent music, such as Gregorian Chant, was developed over a thousand years after St. Augustine wrote these words. While he was speaking metaphorically of the song of worship it is so very timely and apt to remember this as the great Pope Benedict XVI is so rightly and refreshingly restoring exactly what was new, the new canticle, all along, which should not have been replaced with such irreverent sub par popularized musical material, inappropriate for the liturgy of the Mass.

I remember buying Gregorian Chant back in the days when it was modern to have cassette tape players. Even some college radio stations would occasionally play chant! At last to have it back where it belongs!