Cantor: stage right (when? Always.)
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    Just remembering something weird I saw while traveling. Cantor stood (or sat) in the sanctuary for the entire Mass. Never sang from the ambo, but from his own podium on the other side.

    Sanctuary. The whole time. Hymns, ordinary, psalm, schmaltz hymns. The whole Mass.

    Is this a thing?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,216
    It's not unusual that a cantor stays in the sanctuary the whole time, but if he didn't cross over to use the ambo for the psalm, that does sound like a mistake.
    Thanked by 1PaxMelodious
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    In slacks and button-up? Would be far more appropriate to don proper liturgical wear if you're gonna be chilling in the sanctuary all morning.

    As it was, the experience was not that of the cantor proclaiming the word, leading us in prayers, but as a soloist performing for an audience. (of course, the repertoire influenced this as well)
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    On the ALTAR? Or do you mean in the sanctuary (on the predella)?
    Thanked by 4BruceL eft94530 JL Gavin
  • MichaelDickson
    Posts: 419
    I don't know whether it is a 'thing', but I've seen it a few times, including the slacks and button-up and the "look at me, I'm singing solo".
  • doneill
    Posts: 207
    Sing to the Lord gives permission to sing the responsorial psalm from some other location than the ambo when necessary, but in my experience, that is only necessary when the psalmist/organist are the same person.
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    A thing may be common and still be evil.

    A thing may be legal and still a really bad idea.

    "stage right"?

    Every time I hear one of these horror stories, I am grateful that I don't have to endure them.

    Maybe I'll start a new discussion: blessed reverent things that happened at Mass.
    Thanked by 2ClergetKubisz HeitorCaballero
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    I'll help you out: our children's schola sang the Propers for the Votive Mass of the Sacred Heart this morning (as it's first Friday and Fr. said a Votive Mass for the Sacred Heart).
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    That's somewhat common around here. Bizarre.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    On the ALTAR? Or do you mean in the sanctuary (on the predella)?


    Sanctuary.
    My subconscious defaults to misnomers from childhood when I post after midnight.
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,799
    Last night I watched a DVD of The Iceman Cometh that some wag had engineered with menu buttons labeled "stage right" and "stage left" with the remote control keys reversed. Can we please go back to Cantoris and Decani?
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • CCoozeCCooze
    Posts: 1,259
    I've only seen this exact thing once before - in VA at (I think?) St. Francis of Assisi..
    It was very odd. Especially since they had an entire choir "off-stage," and yet the woman sang everything up there at her little podium through her little microphone. I didn't understand the point.
    Singing the psalm and gospel acclamation from the ambo always looks like a soloist event, anyway, though. I didn't understand the point of that change, when we had heard and sung the response just fine when the cantor had sung from the choir loft, mic-free in the past.

    Now, of course, sometimes pastors like to have/require a mic on for literally everything, which can be frustrating. The main mic in our choir loft is pretty much always on and sometimes it does seem pointless for anyone else to be singing when the chant or melody is being sung through a microphone on top of them, as it often just sounds like a lot of voices backing up one main voice, and sometimes separate parts can't even be distinguished. I suppose it's almost the same thing as the aforementioned situation, but without the obvious "look at me" that goes with it.
    I'm not really a fan of microphones - at least not in churches.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Ah, you youngin's don't know being upbraided from an iced latte.
    One day in church I was talking with a former pastor who a month prior wanted a second pulpit (of much lesser stature) simply because new bishop said so. So we're yakking and I said (can't remember context) "Do you mean the ambo or the epistle side lecturn?" He got all up in my grill about "We don't use those terms anymore!" Same guy that told me "Lux aeterna" is not appropriate for a celebrant's walk from the sacristy to the narthex, as it's no long part of the rite. Uh huh.
  • ghmus7
    Posts: 1,483
    Yes, gospel and epistle sides. Still referred to as such in the EF.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    It seems to me, Charles, that your appropriate response might have been -
    'you mean YOU don't use those terms any more', and 'YOU say that Lux aeterna is not appropriate....'. And, you might have added: 'Um, just where can I find this information in the Vatican II council documents?' Or, 'there you go, making stuff up again... there's no authority for that'.
  • Felipe Gasper
    Posts: 804
    Hmm .. Lux would be for communion, not for the priest processing .. ?
    Thanked by 1melofluent
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    MJO, it would be great if we had the authority to say such things, but those types of statements tend to get us into VERY big trouble. Although, you are correct in your statements, reminding that it is very often only the view of one person or a few people that is represented in most US parishes.

    We often hear about how some have an angry, visceral reaction to the use of Latin in the Mass, and I would posit that those who protest in this manner are imposing their bad experiences on the rest of us; because THEY had a bad experience, it makes the whole thing bad for everyone.

    Fr. Smith's recent article does a great job of addressing this when he states:

    The injection of the subjective as the principal criterion by which many have come to evaluate their appreciation of the liturgy has led precisely to the idea that, because I like it, it must be right.


    The converse is also true: "If I don't like it, it must be wrong."
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Felipe, I meant "Requiem...." Thanks.
    MJO, my response at the time was appropriate to the manner and demeanor of my boss at the time. You don't need to die defending every little hill on the liturgical mountain.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,509
    I remember being in the sanctuary as a cantor for the whole Mass in one particular church. It was a gothic church. In a way, the more old-fashioned the church, i.e., the more defined the break between sanctuary and nave, the more this makes a kind of sense. It would be weird for an altar server to break the pane. Lectors might sit up in the sanctuary too. I've done this as a lector in two basilicas, that also weren't built for traipsing across the threshold.
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    ...that also weren't built for traipsing across the threshold.


    Yes, it bugs me when Fr. exits the sanctuary to give the homily. Thankfully, he stands at the step when distributing communion.
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,414
    Charles -
    I wasn't faulting you for not having said something akin to my suggested responses. Only sharing what might have been going on in my mind whilst it remained un-uttered. It would take a sort of genuine, and rare, relationship to make such a retort and live to tell about it. When one is dealing with men who consider your very existence to be lese majeste, circumspection is a virtue to be cultivated.
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