Why “Anima Vocis” ?
I while ago, I was pondering the possibility of creating what is now animavocis.org… at that time is was my own website focused on repertoire I had learned as well as promoting any and all concerts I had on my calendar.
In addition, I offered pages where my choir could find music and ordos for the upcoming Sunday and music that I had composed or arranged.
While this was all well and good, I thought that there might be the possibility for something that was simply “more” than what I was currently doing. My friend, James Richardson had been offering his own online presence as a personal apostolate for his ministry at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Parish in Goshen, IN, and now at the Cathedral of St. Augustine in Kalamazoo, MI.
While he is a much more prolific composer and operates at a level far beyond what I will be able to offer here, I found his model to be one of genuine love for Holy Mother Church as well as the Goodness, Truth, and Beauty offered to us in her most Holy and Sacred Liturgy.
I spent much time thinking about my trajectory and what I desired out of this website - what I wanted to offer, how I would go about making it available, and what I needed to consider and do in order to make this fruitful for myself and all the others that would venture out of their way to look at whatever online presence I desired to offer.
We fast-forward to a random day when I was perusing the Church Music Association of America’s resource page and came across the following quote:
“Song is natural to man, and is already discernible in ordinary speech. Man, in speaking, naturally raises and lowers his voice, thus producing a kind of music: the accentuation of language. ‘Accentus’ = ‘Ad cantus’, that is, a series of inflections of the voice which, without being precisely a song, is something approaching it. ‘Accent is the soul of language’, ‘Accentus anima vocis’. When, in speech, thought takes wings and feelings are heightened, accentuation is intensified as well, bringing itself into musical accord with what the soul is experiencing. It assumes a richer and more powerful form: it turns into song.
The music can divest itself of the word. It can seek the effects of art, since there are innumerable metrical or melodic ways of combining the notes, which are distinct, now, from the words. In general, such effects are more inclined to flatter the senses than to assist the soul. Sacred music, which speaks to the soul to unite it to God, particularly Gregorian chant, which is sacred music par excellence, makes little use of these effects of art, or at least rejects whatever is too human in them.
It is always the words that inspire the chant. And the chant, which is the height of accentuation, breathes life into the words, imparting to the rhythm its characteristic ease and freedom, which is comparable to the rhythm of speech. For the rhythm always flows from the words as from its original and natural source.
-The Right Reverend Dom Joseph Pothier
Accentus anima vocis. Accent is the soul of language. Quite poignant… but when we understand (and maybe even dissect) those few words in a theological light, we come upon an understanding of the human voice which goes beyond all things that we think of ourselves…
It was stated most beautifully by Dr. Mikail Whitfield of St. Mary’s Seminary and School of Theology in Cincinnati at their recent (July 2024) conference on sacred music (and I paraphrase): “the purpose, the end of man, is to give voice to creation, so that we do not sing only of ourselves to God, but to give voice the very stones which cry out to their creator.”
To give voice to creation, to sing daily the song of the three young men from Daniel is to give voice to the song of our souls, that song of the whole of creation to the Godhead… The voice of the soul is that which is given by God alone to be given back to Him in endless praise.
- Nicholas Liese
“Accentus anima vocis’. When, in speech, thought takes wings and feelings are heightened, accentuation is intensified as well, bringing itself into musical accord with what the soul is experiencing. It assumes a richer and more powerful form: it turns into song.”
What does this crest indicate for this apostolate?
The red background recalls the blood of the Lamb, spilt upon the cross, an outpouring of Grace from Christ Himself to His beloved. It also recalls and pays homage to His most Sacred Heart, open to us at all times.
The Greek Cross represents not just the cross upon which Christ gave Himself, but Holy Mother Church as she reaches out to the ends of the earth in all directions with the message of the Gospel. Sacred Music, as well as the apostolate of this website, serves the same end, just in the context of the Most Sacred and Divine Liturgy.
Anima Vocis: These words find their true home and purpose when in the four quadrants, embraced by the arms of the cross. While accent may be the soul of a language, it is the Cross and Christ where the souls of our voices find their rest and the praise of the Godhead wherein we find our end.