Canadash,

The problem is a faulty ecclesiology and a defective understanding of Leitourgos.

Mass doesn't exist to entertain us, and neither is it our work, individually speaking.

If they don't feel invited to sing, that's because no one has used words to invite them. Since microphone amplified words encourage, cajole, everything else they do at Mass, it is assumed that this should be true for singing.

At our church on Sunday we normally have a hymn during the entrance, and at the offertory. When the organ starts to play it is as if people think 'O the organ is playing, is there a hymn? where is a hymn book? what is the number on the hymn board? where is that in the book?'. Consequently there is a slow build up of volume through the first two verses. Occasionally we don't start with the first verse. I have been called on to announce this and found that if I said 'Our opening hymn is number one four three starting at the third verse, that's hymn one hundred and forty three from verse three' we started with about twice the volume with which we normally finish. (Background: 1 Sunday Mass, congregation just over 100 average, crush capacity 200, organ and cantor, no choir, 2 hymn boards). Very rarely we sing a recessional, normally sung with gusto, most people have open books, and nobody leaves till we finish. I think this is all weird, but it has been like this for at least 15 years.

Wow. I travel a lot. I go to a lot of parishes with great musicians, less than stellar musicians, more than stellar musicians, awesome music that obviously took hours and hours of practice, music where it is obvious the practice took place 30 minutes before Mass, and often no music at all. But for Christians to act like that to you guys? It's unconscionable.

Look, no-one is going to like everything. There is a parish I attend on occasion with very modernized music - and I'm not fond of it - during Mass. But it is one of those parishes I say has great musicians that obviously spent hours and hours of practice.
So if I don't like it, it doesn't matter. It is the miracle of the Eucharist I come for.

So, I don't know and I don't care if I'd like any of your music. No offense.

If you focus on Christ and his Passion through your music and you get comments like this you could, (if you were not a Christan focusing on Christ and his Passion,) give a rude gesture to such parishioners.

But here's the rub... examine the criticism and even if the parishioner is an [REDACTED... FOUL LANGUAGE] see if there is improvement to be made. All of us can improve. This is knowing you can't please everyone.

The Diocese of Erie (I'm in Pittsburgh but I often have to attend their parishes) is doing a thing on the Litany of Humility, and I found I can't genuinely pray it at this time, and it's something I should strive for.

So if I don't like it, it doesn't matter. It is the miracle of the Eucharist I come for. So, I don't know and I don't care if I'd like any of your music. No offense.

Friend SeasonPsalt, your admonition is difficult to parce and understand. But your words quoted above provide an insight into where you depart from tolerating the discussion. If I may, "the miracle of the Eucharist" is the ends for which we all help the means to achieve, tho' nothing we can do could alter it, only adorn it. So, I believe you'd have to allow as how the discussions here focus upon the means, not that end. The end is a given, I can't recall a single soul over a decade or so that would deny that here. Likewise, there is a divergence of opinion among many here over many years (or centuries, if you extrapolate opinions about past practices) concerning the criteria by which we assess what repertoire and performance ability best adorns "the miracle." That is the raison d'etre for this and other similar forums. Taste, or de gustibus, will never not be a factor in such discussions. If human beings, aware of their Creator and that we and our music are both creations in debt to our omnibenevolent Lord, do not address how best to use the gifts of sacred art to evangelize, then we have but achieved stasis, or status quo. That's called "lukewarm." Yes, all of us can improve. That's what we're trying to elicit here. The perceived intolerance you may have surmised isn't actually how most folks here actually conduct business in their pastoral duties. But to know that, you have to dwell with us and know if we're real Christians. Perhaps then you will better appreciate the possibility of (y)our music. Pax tecum.

Well today it was "I loved the choir. It was just like being in the Vatican!"

Whose Vatican musicians?

OK, so today it was a random lash-out at Fr. Faber's "Faith of Our Fathers" at a high-school mass, which was deemed offensive to teenage faith. It was "grandmother's music," the fact that we used a 16th-Century hymntune and 10th-Century chants at the same Mass notwithstanding.

Bizarrely, this hymn receives, in my experience, bar-none, the most flak of any piece of church music ever written. Anyone agree? Care to venture a guess as to why?

Because it continues the oppression of women by the patriarchy by claiming that the faith only belongs to fathers.

Indeed. Add to that fact that the exhortations in the hymn are quite challenging and humbling, and you have a recipe for pharisaical disapprobation.

Revised Heritage Gloria stinks. JMO.

On Sundays, days of precept, and other important days, there ought to be a worship aid with the hymns, reading locations (e.g. the Epistle is Romans 8:21-32, or whatever), the location of the Ordinary in the hymnal or pew materials, and the translation of anything Latin (the propers or motets).

That takes care of the hymn board problem.

4" numbers [...] took care of

It was the six inch backing being green and different denominations.

PURPLE_BOLD=OFF

I would love to have a worship aid, but my pastor is not so keen and I understand his point. With 500+ parishioners at five masses per weekend this is a lot of paper and a lot of garbage in the pew to manage after each mass. We do it at the Triduum and it takes a crew to clean it all up. Adding it to the bulletin maybe a thought but would require a bit of coordination and then you have people rifling through the bulletin during mass...

Perhaps you can make a worship aid and have the pastor tell everyone to take them and dispose of them at home, or have a big paper recycling bin somewhere to drop them in?

That one might incur a random, nasty comment from me.

Not exactly a 'random, nasty comment' but recently a parishioner approached me and said 'why don't you let some of us choose the music sometimes? We're not all idiots, you know....'

Send that person to the NPM jobs website. Plenty of opportunities for someone with their level of expertise.

Given all the officially-approved options and
the not-officially-approved-experimentations
that are regularly reported in these Forum Discussions,
I seriously doubt that anyone can come up with a list
complete enough to avert disasters.

... Well, they would never choose xxx ... Oh, really? you just thought of it! ...

There is a reason why the Church gave us
the Graduale Romanum and the Graduale Simplex.

But then again, we ignore those, too.

That's awful. Even if I have no intention of ever looking at them, I would never have a request basket. It's church, not a piano bar.

Now, if someone approached and had a serious suggestion, I'd consider it. For example, I already planned this weekend before someone asked me about For All the Saints. GASP I did not include that. It was too late to change (worship aids already sent to print) but I will probably do it next year.

My entire adult life is fueled by the goal of not being an idiot. It keeps me busy.

I love it when people underestimate me. Then when I pounce, I can do them much more damage since they didn't see it coming.