Posted on 08/18/2009 3:44:35 PM PDT by NYer
I think that Charismatic Catholics deserve their own rite.
My DH is an Usher and therefore an EMHC. I think in some parishes, the blue haired nuns would be my LAST choice for EMHCs!
Extraordinary Ministers of the Eucharist should be used in extraordinary circumstances. Not every Mass every Sunday. How about waiting to "receive" Holy Communion rather than running up to "take" Holy Communion. This is creating the appearance of a privileged class of the laity.
Our sign of peace is pretty tame. When we camp, OY! I’ve been to some parishes where that’s longer than communion!
I agree. Also please avoid letting somone with a HEAVY accent to do the announcement, even tho it seems to be the PC thing to do these days.
In my parish, ushers and Ministers of Communion are different people, but neither of our nuns (nice ladies!) is physically up to either job. I like to get together with them just to chat, though. The one with Alzheimer’s was in the Coast Guard during World War II!
I’ve been to “Charismatic Masses” in which prayer or singing in tongues is a part, and I think that’s fine as long as it’s clearly stated upfront that this is what will go on. On other occasions, I’ve been to “regular” Masses with charismatic prayer, for healing, offered afterward. “Pentecostal,” whether Catholic or Protestant, is an experience that shouldn’t be just dropped on the unaware!
The Spanish congregation can go overboard, and our previous pastor, now retired, was very social. We’d do five verses and a guitar-and-viola interlude! Our new pastor isn’t quite as free-and-easy, but he’s loosened up since coming to the parish.
As I said above, I’m of two minds. Although I have personal preferences about liturgy, I’m so happy to be at Mass - and especially to see our growing Spanish congregation - that details don’t really matter to me. Mass in Vietnamese with gongs? Just fine!
My prediction is that, if the liturgy were to be restored to its pre-Vatican II form, Mass attendance would increase exponentially.
My comment had to do more with her style, i.e. “I’m such a talented singer/musician I can’t believe I’m stuck with you hicks.”
My comment had to do more with her style, i.e. “I’m such a talented singer/musician I can’t believe I’m stuck with you hicks.”
What a great article. I agree with all her suggestions!
Many pastors (as ours does) have to pick their battles. Our pastor is improving our Mass each year since he came five years ago. I believe we will now see some leaps with the New Liturgy!
BTW, sending this to my priest. Thanks for the post.
I did a market study for my parish in the mid 1960s and only 25% of those receiving the bulletin ever read them.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind Spanish with guitars or Vietnamese with gongs, but when all the music at an English mass sounds like a game show, I have a problem.
This is how it was a couple weeks ago in Mid-MI
(cue jazzy music)
Lamb of God (da dum dum dum) You who takes away our sins (da da da da) forgive uuuussssss (ding) (repeat 3X)
Seriously. They don’t even try to use the GIRM.
And I said to a Protestant friend we were camping with, I love Praise music. That is when I can sing along. When you have one guy in the front having his own solo and he “feels it”, I’m shaking my head.
I agree. Our perspective is always, "What will work for the congregation?" That means, among other things, not expecting them to sing Gregorian chant, but we can still work it in if we're creative. We also do English or Latin pieces sometimes, as choir or solo numbers.
That’s the ticket!
I really want to do the responses. I don’t need the “Church Idol” in the front doing them for me.
I’m just chiming in, but why not try the Missal of 1962? We have been attending a tridentine liturgy weekly for three years now, and we love it. We have Chant, we have polyphony, we have solos now and then, and we have a very peaceful beautiful liturgy. Why reinvent the wheel? Oh, and we have coffee and donuts twice a month!
Not bragging, but explaining: I used to be an Episcopalian, and they may be heretics, but their music is second to none. I started singing with the Cathedral children's choir at age 6 and never stopped. Our last Piskie parish choir toured, made commercial recordings, sang at Spoleto, on the Protestant Hour on public radio, etc. So I've seen an awful lot of musicians, including plenty of professionals, over the years.
My experience is that the better the musician, the less of that "I'm such a talented musician" nonsense you get. Our current music director is the best man I've ever worked for, bar none. He has a doctorate in organ performance from Juilliard and a double masters in organ and composition from U.O. in Eugene (which is Early Music Central), as well as doing a Fulbright in France at the Lyon Conservatory. He has forgotten more about music theory than I will ever know. He plays the organ like an angel, can sight read anything, and sings beautifully. And if you listen up, he will impart knowledge worth gold any time he opens his mouth.
But he is the kindest, nicest, most humble man you could ever meet. There are lots of amateurs in our choir, some of whom don't really work as hard as they should to get things right, and he is very, very patient with them, doesn't even roll his eyes. I guess if you're really that good, you aren't a bit insecure and you don't have a thing to prove to anybody.
The percentage probably hasn’t gotten any better now, but reading major sections of the bulletin is a waste of time.
I’m not sure how announcing that the All-U-Can-Eat Spaghetti Dinner hosted by the Knights of Columbus is coming up on Friday...5 bucks apiece and no more than 20 bucks per family...contributes to the liturgy.
OTOH, I could just zone out for a couple of minutes and read the bulletin on the way.
We have too many hymns that have a "show tune" feel, and although the words may be reverent, the melody and the rhythm are not reverent.
We have an associate priest who tells way too many jokes, and inserts jovial comments in parts of the mass which to me seem inappropriate. (Let's not even go to his joke about the Resurrection, which was totally inappropriate.)
Too many of our parish view the Sign of Piece as a time for glad-handing and chat, which detracts from the solemnity of the mass.
When Monsigneur is the celebrant, we have a more solemn mass with explanations of the readings and occasional explanations of something in the mass, all of which are done in a dignified manner. Unfortunately, he can't be at every mass.
And I wish someone would tell the eucharistic ministers that they shouldn't wear pedal pushers, shorts, too-tight tops, and sandals.
LOL! We don’t have to worry about this in the Byzantine Rite. We stand for the entire service (except during the Epistle), the whole congregation chants in response to Father’s acclamations, back and forth,in the Divine Liturgy composed by St. John Chrysostom himself. There is no instrumentation, no handshaking, and all communicants receive on the tongue in both species, from a golden spoon. What’s to improve??
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