Liturgy Team Gather (us in, ing area, hymnal) We (are a pilgrim people, are the church of God, are called, walk by faith, remember, have been told, are many parts, are the light of the world) Ministry Minister Please Rise (stand up) Please (period) Bilingual
Spiritual Center Liturgical DANCE (causes me to gag every time) "Active" Participation
(because we all just love having conversations with someone who constantly talks AT us, or is clapping their hands in our face. without taking a moment to LISTEN. Yes people, liturgy is a dialogue - and active participation CAN be achieved by listening...sigh)
I agree. Faith Community has to go. What's wrong with the word "parish"? "Sending forth" is another phrase that needs to be "sent forth." "MInistry of the Assembly" is another one that needs to go.
"Vibrant" is another word that should also go, as well as the phrase "multi-cultural liturgies" and any other buzzword in the OCP arsenal.
Francis, I think it has something to do with all of us having received "The Great Commission" and being "sealed in the spirit" and "blown by the wind."
Remember that 'colorful era in American Catholicism?' All snarkiness aside, this popular discussion started by Ben Yanke has given me a ping in the heart. The past 40+ years was some bad psychadelic trip. I remember vividly the bewilderment I felt as a child, when the "New Springtime" swept through my own parish. Some of us schoolchildren were paraded up in the Sanctuary (the beautiful murals I used to stare at were now painted over with boomerang thing-a-ma'-jiggies) with our guitars, where we led the congregation in songs with lyrics which perplexed me. We were "trending" though. I can now safely say, all personal bias aside, that our music stunk up the place. Can someone, please, provide me with closure, all these years later, and tell me the name of that song I led back then, which had as its lyrics, "....a few spoons of beans for the day.....rats crawl from holes in the walls..."? Another troubling song for me was, "But Then Comes the Morning" (lyrics follow). I felt stupid because I couldn't understand what the significance of the robots was.
Look at him stripped on the hill running the streets poorly clad robots have taken his job his hands are outstretched for the nails (refrain)
refrain: Forgive Lord, forgive. It was night when we did what we did.... But then comes the morning yesterdays sorrows behind wake it's the day of your longing. life returns, mercy comes, it's morning.
Look at him nailed to the cross. Nailed by our lack of concern Locked and forgotten in jail Confined to a home for the aged. (refrain)
Look at him die on the cross witness man's cruelty to man cut down like weeds in our wars stabbed on the streets where we live. (refrain)
I am reminded of the following Position Statement:
On behalf of the Society for Ethnomusicology the SEM Board of Directors approves the Position Statement against the Use of Music as Torture, which originated in the SEM Ethics Committee and has the unanimous support of the Board of Directors.
The Society for Ethnomusicology condemns the use of torture in any form. An international scholarly society founded in 1955, the Society for Ethnomusicology (SEM) and its members are devoted to the research, study, and performance of music in all historical periods and cultural contexts. The SEM is committed to the ethical uses of music to further human understanding and to uphold the highest standards of human rights. The Society is equally committed to drawing critical attention to the abuse of such standards through the unethical uses of music to harm individuals and the societies in which they live.
The Society for Ethnomusicology
* calls for full disclosure of programs that design the means of delivering music as torture; * condemns the use of music as an instrument of torture; and * demands that agencies cease using music as an instrument of physical and psychological torture.
Suggested link
For further information on the American history and praxis of using music as an instrument of torture, the Society for Ethnomusicology recommends the following article:
Suzanne Cusick, "Music as Torture, Music as Weapon," Revista Transcultural de Música/Transcultural Music Review 10 (2006).
Oh, goodness, chonak! That was a nostalgic walk down the Hall of Shame. I feel like I need absolution from my display of poor guitar-fretting skills while in the Sanctuary. I should, also, probably confess that some of those hanging banners made out of felt, stencils, glitter, sequins, yarn, string, buttons, and glue were crafted by us schoolchildren, as assigned by "higher-ups."
expedius, I need to have my own demons exorcized. We had to strum along on our guitars when I was in Catholic school. Yesterday, the "folk" choir sang "For Your are My God" as the entrance song. It was traumatizing.
Kind of otherworldly isn't it, benedictgal, to have been a "player" in the two turnarounds - the near demise of sacred music back then, and the restoration movement, now. Heave in the harness!
Ok, I just listened to this song. I don't know what I expected. It is unspeakably bad. What a time. It is just so embarrassing. Nothing around today sinks to this level. As shocking as it may sound, we might have been on an upward path since 1967 or so.
JMO: on February 5 referred to WLP as labelling the Missal's antiphons as "songs." Back th ithe 1980's WLP pointed these texts to be sung to a few monastic tones. Other texts were pointed too: all of the ordinaries and the psalms, alleluia, and all the propers. The time is right for OCP or WLP to retrun to this practice. But only with monasitc, Chabanal or Mienrad tones!
Ralph, I assume you are referring to the song, "All I Ask of You," written by Gregory Norbert, O.S.B. (Weston Priory). I saw a YouTube video of it, and understand Randolph's reefer reference. The lyrics below expound so brilliantly, the key tenets of our Faith:
Deep the joy of being together in one heart and for me that’s just where it is.
All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you. All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.
As we make our way through all the joys and pain, can we sense our younger, truer selves?
Someone will be calling you to be there for a while. Can you hear the cry from deep within?
Laughter, joy and presence: the only gifts you are. Have you time? I’d like to be with you.
Persons come into the fiber of our lives, and then their shadow fades and disappears.
All I ask of you is forever to remember me as loving you.
I was wondering if there were a plagiarism issue with the song "Remember Your Love" by Darryl Ducote/Gary Daigle. (It's in the OCP Today's Missal Music Issue.) We've been singing that at my church every Lent, and I don't think something that sounds like "Pure Imagination" from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" is a good Lenten song. I couldn't find anything about this online...does anyone here know?
Oh my, expeditus, a sacred song without any religion in it whatsoever. Better we should sing "We all come from the Goddess..."; at least there's a deity there.
Jeffrey, after reading chonak's post above, and listening to those folk Mass podcasts, I couldn't resist my impulse to find out what the career trajectory had been for these influencers of that era, who had graced the Church with their musical tours de force . Had these folks continued to expand their sphere of influence? Uhh....yup....some of them as professors of liturgy, worship, feminist women's studies, and quantum spirituality. A look at some of their upcoming speaking engagements indicates that they are still amongst us, even as featured speakers at Catholic events involving music and liturgy, both in this country and abroad. Two upcoming talks which caught my eye were: "Discerning the Spirit in a Quantum Universe," and "eucharist with a small e."
(during Mass): bingo, parish festival, pierogis, corned beef and cabbage, bake sale, raffle, ... -CHGiffen
"Pierogis" should be banned outside of Mass, too. "Pierog" is singular and "pierogi" is already plural. If no one ever orders a plate of spaghettis or raviolis, why can't Polish get the same respect?
To participate in the discussions on Catholic church music, sign in or register as a forum member, The forum is a project of the Church Music Association of America.