The Recovering Choir Director

…here’s a nice laugh courtesy of the Schultz brothers.

To those who may want to know…Last year at our campus ministry (my first full year as director), our Mass settings were as follows:

• Ordinary Time—CTK: Heritage Mass, Owen Alstott (OCP)
• Advent: ICEL sacramentary chant, ed. Robert Batastini (GIA)
• Christmas: Mass of Creation, Marty Haugen (GIA)
• Ordinary Time—Ash Wednesday: Land of Rest Acclamations, Richard Proulx (GIA)
• Lent—Laetare Sunday: ICEL sacramentary chant, ed. Robert Batastini (GIA)
• Laetare Sunday—Maundy Thursday: Land of Rest Acclamations, Richard Proulx (GIA)
• Eastertide: St. Louis Jesuits Mass (New Dawn/OCP) with Heritage Mass Glory to God and Lamb of God, Owen Alstott (OCP)
• Ordinary Time—present: Land of Rest Acclamations, Richard Proulx (GIA)

Not every setting is a favorite of mine. I’m not partial to Haugen, nor do I have high regard for the St. Louis Five, in spite of (or maybe because of) my Jesuit education. Pastoral sensitivity was a reason for retaining those two settings. Hopefully, though, we can wean the congregation off the junk food and onto something a bit more musically meaty. Many colleagues still use MoC, so I would just as soon introduce new and old settings. After all, if student parishioners miss MoC, they have one more thing to look forward to when they go home. And besides, if the Ivy League curriculum is supposed to challenge, why shouldn’t music for Ivy League Catholic worship do the same? I believe that challenge is in its own way pastorally sensitive as well.