Achieving Liturgical Musical Literacy

You need to read the documents? A question, (or sales pitch? "But wait, there's more!")

You need to read the documents. A statement.

Okay, here's someone who knows the difference between engaging in a Music Ministry and a musical APOSTOLATE.*

I don't know who eft is, someone I met at a colloquium or class? someone from whom I took a class?
In any case, God bless him and prosper him in his work, (in His work.)

Here are the preparatory actions:

(*) go to your nearby office supply store and purchase
a 2-inch binder
a set of dividers (5 tabs to start, probably will need 15 or more)
a ream of paper (500 sheets)
a set of hilighters

(*) pick the language citation best suited to your needs, print the document, three-hole-punch, put into binder

Here is the challenge:

(*) read the documents in historical order (old to new)

(*) a document must be skim-read in one sitting
use a [highlighter] to place a mark [punctum?] at each music word (chant, sing, instrument, ...)
maybe use different colors for different words or purposes
(e.g., orange for ordinary-related [kyrie,gloria,...], purple for proper-related [introit/entrance,psalm,...])
the marks will help whenever you re-visit the document in the future

(*) visit this discussion and post your status and thoughts on the doc you just read

Here is the document list (so far):

1903-nov-22 Tra Le Sollicitudine

[English, no Vatican website translation]

1928-dec-20 Divini Cultus Sanctitatem

[Latin]
[English, no Vatican website translation]

1947-nov-20 Mediator Dei

[Latin]

[English]

1955-dec-25 Musicae Sacrae Disciplina


[English]

He will update this as time goes along.

I am not suggesting you take it so much as a challenge, but as a study method, particularly if you are at that moment of realizing, "Gee, golly, gosh almighty, why didn't anyone tell me that we don't have to keep re-inventing the wheel, er, I mean buying 'guides' to planning the liturgy, we don't need any one of the (Big :oD) Three Initialed Entities† that's a component of the LIC ‡ telling us the Church's mind on these matters, the Church has already told us Herself."

Because its all there.
(I have reformatted to "quicken" the links, and removed vernacular links other than English.)
The one suggestion I would make, is that if you can, is that besides printing yourself a hard copy, you leave them in an accessible electronic state, so that they are most readily searchable, for reference purposes.
And a word of warning -- you will discover that there are those who will not welcome your attempts to share any of newly-discovered truth with them.

Now sure, it may be because you are too zealous, that you have the excessive enthusisiam of the newby or convert; or because you are an unpleasant, and confrontational piece of work like me; or because you caught them on a bad day; or because there are extenuating circumstances that you don't know about.

But there are others whose resistence to the truth is less benign.
They don't wanna know, they don't care, they wish you would shut up and just program All Are Welcome; or even worse, they do know and don't care and have a stake, for whatever reason, in assuring that the knowledge you are acquiring does not become universal.

But I've seen enough Saturday morning cartoons to know that the Good Guys always win eventually.


* "A person is not a minister simply in performing a task, but through sacramental ordination."
† Hereinafter referred to as TIE.
‡ You know what that's short for, but I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.