The Recovering Choir Director

Supposing that this posting is sincere and intended to be complete:

Religion does not come from the heart. It is learned; it is a tradition made up of many traditions. Now a religious attitude is to be most earnestly desired and pleaded for from God. However, unless one locates the will in the heart, it seems that the writer is referring to emotions; a single emotion? shared through grace? by all co-religionists? Emotions themselves are no basis for “worship;” Scriptures and any saint will tell us that emotions, just one small part of what we are and offer to the Father, can drag us away from Christ just as much (if not more, depending upon the optimism of one’s anthropology) as towards Him.

Then there is that rather odious remark about language. It could not possibly have been premeditated. I think that we all know that other languages besides English exist and that they are not all inherently inferior. Even the Mass in Latin without vernacular readings — or homily! — has two languages by dint of a couple of Greek elements.

I think that the real issue here, though, is a complete lack of understanding of what ritual is. Ritual is the same every time, or it is not ritual and it does not have common understanding. In this case, we are talking about a Ritual that is in its essentials two thousand years old, unless Mr. thought is some kind of sedevacantist or unbeliever who believes that the 1962 and the 1970 Missals (”forty years” falls in between the two, but I think I know which one is the evilly oppressive one!) cannot have both been valid.

It’s a Ritual! Look it up!

Well it is people like this who are the largest threat to liturgy today. Like it or not, they’re slowly filling our pews and seminaries, Catholic and otherwise. I think the best way to respond to such criticism is that liturgy is about worshipping as a community. People criticize Vatican 2 and the “novus ordo religion” for its actions to promote community, but this emphasizes that there can be no Mass or worship without the 2 or 3 gathered in Christ’s Name. All we’re seeking to do is to do a good job with Liturgy, do it correctly, and do it beautifully.
Perhaps this person and people like them would be well advised to take the 22 - 23 hours when they’re not in church and use THAT for their spontaneous worship. That’s what I like most about now being at a Presbyterian church is the missing Catholic mentality of “Ok I gave God that 40 minutes of my time, now get me out of here”. I think so long as people want to only give God their hour a week, they will try to make worship on their terms and not the community’s. And ultimately I believe that’s where the problem with these people comes up. Agree? Disagree?

Whoah, I never thought I’d see the day when two Gavins post on the same webforum… anyway, I highly doubt that “thought” is in any way remotely connected to the Catholic Church (save for perhaps his baptism, if it be vaild). This sounds like the usual Pentecostal/Modalist banter that I put up with on a regular basis (but that’s another thread on my own blog. LOL) . Ditching the prescribed rubrics is in no way going to make liturgical planning easier. If anything, we need to focus on adhering to the rubrics already set down…

MCW and its successor document, Liturgical Music Today, are harder to find online than they used to be. The USCCB vigorously polices the unauthorized electronic publication of its copyrighted documents. Even the EWTN library got scoured clean of them.

Phonecall returned, so reporting back: there are many higher priorities than getting this online, mine was the first phonecall they have ever received on the question (and if a blizzard of calls comes in, they know who started it), they don’t want it online from other sources because they would have to use all their resources policing the accuracy (because, of course, so many webmasters would surely want to introduce inaccuracies), they have copyrights to protect, and the booklet is available from many sources. The internet, we are reminded, is not the only source of information. Finally, my offer to scan it really quickly was declined.

“Please buy our dead-tree media.”

Everytime our bishop or his minions–, I mean, associates, send out another stack of memos/directives/pastoral letters/ guidelines, our pastor mutters about the trees that gave their lives because he can’t edit himself.

My goodness, what a mix of stuff. One specific question, however: what is the current thinking on the claim that “one should not hesitate to add tropes to the litany [Lamb of God] so that the prayerfulness of the rite may be enriched.” The GIRM seems to envsion no such thing. Reply please, public or private.

Gavin writes: “That’s what I like most about now being at a Presbyterian church is the missing Catholic mentality of “Ok I gave God that 40 minutes of my time, now get me out of here”. I think so long as people want to only give God their hour a week, they will try to make worship on their terms and not the community’s. And ultimately I believe that’s where the problem with these people comes up.”

Does the difference lie in those attending the liturgy (Presby vs, Catholic) or is it in the liturgists (Presby vs. Catholic)? I would think that there will be those who watch the clock and can’t wait for the liurgy to be over in both groups, but if you feel that this mentality exists less in the Presbyterian experience, how much, if any of it, can/should be attributed to those who actually do the liturgy? Every mass on Easter Sunday is packed at my Catholic church. Every year, we remark to one another “what’s wrong with these people who only show up once or twice a year?” I think the better question may be ” what’s wrong with US that these people only WANT to come once a year”?

So… is it “the problem with these people” or is part of the problem the liturgy and those who create it? Do the Presbyterians do a “better job”?

Any opinions… comments…?