Reform of the reform can’t come soon enough for me. I’ve been going to my territorial parish all summer (during the school year I sing in the choir at another parish that has a decent and fairly traditional music program). The microphone is turned up full blast, and even though I sit in the last pew, I just cannot stand to have the cantor belt out his/her treacly modern songs on a thunderous scale or to have the readings proclaimed such that they can be heard two or three blocks away. The mike could be turned down 50% and everyone in the church would still hear just fine. It is not required for full and active participation in the mass that everybody’s eardrums get broken. I can only think what a horrible impression would be given to any inquirer coming to see what a Catholic mass was like. And Vatican II says Gregorian chant should have pride of place — when has my parish last had that, 40 years ago? Can’t we have even a little of Church’s liturgical artistic and musical patrimony, even if we still have to suffer through one or two modern ditties as well?
The music is, naturally, simply horrible. Last week we had "We Shall Overcome" for the entrance hymn.
The head man took the cake today, though, for some reason he decided to preach today's Gospel about the Pharisees in reference to illegal immigration. Said that everybody was 'frantic' about it, and that Catholics shouldn't leave illegal immigrants 'to the mercy of the U.S. Congress', and since we (all eight of us) were coming to daily Mass, we had "upped the ante" and we had to be careful not to just pick and choose what we wanted out of Catholic teaching.
I swear I didn't snort, or mutter, or throw tomatoes, or anything . . . I did smile and tilt my head thoughtfully to one side . . . and he stammered and lost his train of thought. Don't know if my smile had any effect, like that of a basilisk, or if he just suddenly realized the implications of what he was saying.
I could have said, "Now WHO is it that runs the gay-friendly, rainbow parish here? And WHO is it that ignores the rubrics? And WHO is it that ignores the implications of giving communion to raving pro-aborts and canonizing Ted Kennedy?" But I didn't even say what I usually say when a preacher gets political - "C.S. Lewis was right - all a political homily ever tells you is which newspapers are taken at the rectory."
I couldn't say any of those things, because he legged it for the sacristy as soon as he had said, "The Mass is ended, go in peace." And he usually comes down and mingles.