liturgy

Liturgy is the customary public ritual of worship performed by a religious group. Liturgy can also be used to refer specifically to public worship by Christians.

Liturgical music therefore would be a music that lives out the liturgy. They are basically in form of chants for instance the Gregorian chants, Sacred Polyphony, Sacred Music for the Organ and other approved instruments and Sacred Popular music approved by the Church.

It is ultimately about helping the people of God to achieve full, active, and conscious participation and through that participation leading them into a fuller sense of worship of God. Music as part of the liturgy is meant to play a role in the sanctification of the faithful as they lift their voices in worship of God.

By its very nature, it forms part of the Liturgy, of the Word. It should be performed with all seated and listening to it - and, what is more, participating in it as far as possible.

Anything liturgical is related to a public religious service or ritual. An example of something liturgical is the Catholic service when the Eucharist (wine and crackers, also known as the blood and body of Christ) is given.

There are three aspects to Christian liturgy: the celebration of divine worship, the proclamation of the Gospel, and active charity (CCC, §1070).

A working definition of 'liturgy' that is helpful is 'The official, public worship of the Church'. Some of the best-known forms of liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church are: Mass (or Eucharist) Baptism.

Types

• The Catholic Mass is the service in which the Eucharist is celebrated.
• Lutherans retained and utilized much of the Roman Catholic mass since the early modifications by Martin Luther.
• Protestant traditions vary in their liturgies or "orders of worship" (as they are commonly called).

In all official Vatican documents, the term "sacred music" is used to name the music used at, or appropriate for the liturgy. Musicam sacram (1967) expanded the current definition of sacred music beyond gregorian chant and polyphony to include music indigenous to missionary countries.

Secular music is music that is intended for a non-religious audience, while sacred music serves a particular religious purpose in both Catholic and Protestant Christian traditions. The earliest recorded secular music (at least in the European tradition) was probably written for the entertainment of the rich.

First Principle Liturgical music must, first of all, be objective in character, that is, it must be directed to God and not to Man. It must not be "art for art's sake," but "art for worship's sake." It must extol the glory of God and not the glory of the musician, whether singer, organist, or choir.

The Mass consists of two liturgical parts: the Ordinary (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei), which remains textually fixed, and the Proper (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia/Tract/Sequence, Offertory, Communion), which changes with each day's liturgy according to the temporal or sanctoral cycle.