GERRY FIZPATRICK reflects on the heady days of Vatican II and the implications of the first of its documents on the reform of the liturgy.

It helps if you know some history. The Church and the churches of the Reformation have maintained a deep respect for scripture. The Catholic Church would not have hymns at Mass until about 1959 (to promote participation) and the Church of Scotland officially allowed hymns in its liturgy only in the 1890s – the psalms were the standard songs. In the Catholic Church there was a strong impetus to restore plainsong in parishes from the 1830s onward and it bore much fruit, but the limitations of music in Latin gradually became clear when there was an immense flowering of vernacular hymnody for devotions, novenas and Benediction (instead of Vespers). Some of our most popular hymns and translations of the canticles and the hymns of the first millennium came from that period – Soul of my Saviour, Hail Queen of Heaven, Praise to the Holiest, I rise from Dreams of Time, Praise to the Holiest, Lead Kindly Light, Sweet Heart of Jesus...

Monsignor Gerry Fitzpartrick is the parish priest of St Leo’s, Glasgow, Director of Music in the Archdiocese of Glasgow and founder member of St Mungo Singers.