The Recovering Choir Director

John B. wants to how I can tolerate music such as what I experienced last Sunday, given everything I’ve written on this site. There are many factors involved, I think, that either highlight my hard-earned long-suffering or indict me for being lukewarm.

When I visit my girlfriend on selected weekends, I spend an average of twelve hours in my car going to and fro. Granted, an hour’s drive away there is an indult High Mass in Rochester which Jeanetta attends. So I make the excuse that I don’t want to tack on another two hours to my in-car weekend. In other words, I’m either tired or lazy. Or both. You decide.

At this particular church there are architectural details that transcend the banality of the service—carefully wrought stained glass windows and ironwork, brick arches that soar towards the heavens, a high-mounted crucifix demarcating the sanctuary from the nave, the wooden reredos framing statues of saints whose gaze once focused on the centrally-located Tabernacle (It’s shuffled to a side chapel now), etc. I find myself able to meditate on these things that elevate the soul past the cacophony.

I look at the state of my life and compare it to the church’s revised interior, and find it disturbingly similar in many ways. Just as my sins crucified Christ, they deform His Church. This is a useful meditation and examination when I find myself in a church configured like this one and/or witnessing liturgical abuses.

When it comes to the music, I’m in the nave at these Masses as a member of the congregation, not the loft (or in this case, the sanctuary) as a member of the choir. As such, I become a “cafeteria Catholic” and sing selectively. Regarding the hymns, I didn’t sing any of them (not even Jesu), though my not singing doesn’t prevent my meditating on their various aspects. I did sing the baritone harmony to the Eucharistic acclamations of the SLJ Mass, because I knew them.

Someone who has a better sense of humor about these things—in this case, Melissa—helps a lot as well. While she understands where I’m coming from, this doesn’t stop her from ribbing me occasionally.

And finally, if the purpose of the Mass is the Eucharist and not the music, it’s useful to focus on the Eucharist, even if the accoutrements unwittingly serve to distract attention away from the Eucharist.

Of course, all this is made easier because I’m not involved in church music ministry.