Singing, Rightly Understood

I have often heard people "quote" St. Augusting as saying "he who sings prays twice". I found out recently that this phrase does not show up anywhere in any known writing of St. Augustine. The Latin citation that people give for this actually should be translated "he who sings well prays twice", but even that cannot be found in St. Augustine's writings.

Some have noted that Augustine did say "singing belongs to the one who loves" which sort of has the same idea, but is definitely not the exact same thing. Sadly, most of the time when people "quote" Augustine here, they use it as a justification that "singing is always better than not singing". Well, that is not exactly true, so to accuse Augustine of saying it is not a good idea. I wish I knew who the first person was that made the claim Augustine said this (and, no, the Catechism citation is not very helpful, as it is unclear).

So, is singing always better than not singing? No, not exactly. If we can sing, and sing well, then yes there is a value to singing. When we consider it fully, though, it would be better if a pagan were not to sing praise to his sin (as most secular music does) and instead just confess it. What Catholic really would want to join in a song that praises immorality? If, however, it is in praise of God, we still do not have a clear endorsement for singing over non-singing. Who would like to listen to a priest sing his homily for fifteen minutes?

Let us be thoroughly cautious in our understanding of singing. Is it wonderful to sing praise to God? Yes, as long as it is music that is reverent and not trite or disrespectful. Should we seek to glorify God with music? Yes, of course we should; He commanded us to do so! Should we, however, be careful about endorsing and encouraging any and every kind of music because we presume that singing is always better than not singing? No, never.