Sed contra: "The Church now has the most highly educated laity ever."

Why is it that the laity are always invoked as a reason for poor taste, bad liturgy, and, in general, a sort of instiutionalised ingnorance? Aren't most of us on this forum, and quite a large number of others laity? As always, the decision of whom to consider when making 'pastoral decisions' is consistently, consciously, and deliberately a selective one.

There is, we should firmly maintain, nothing elitist about chant, polyphony, Bach, or any part of our cultural heritage. Elitism is not the point of it, and the injection of that word into the debate is always by those who, as Gavin says, seem to consider ignorance a badge of honour. Never, ever act as though the charge of elitism is anything other than from outer space, weird and silly.

Whenever I am accused of being elitist, I know that I am doing something right (and that I'm NOT elitist - whatever that means).

Sometimes it comes in an alternate form:

"Well, I mean, I like chant, too. It's great. But I don't think you're thinking of the laity ..."

Just want to take a second to second MJO's most recent post.
I wish sacred music naysayers would stop denying the bulk of the laity their rites. :) Raise the bar and the people will follow. Believe in your singers and congregations, and give them the means to accomplish their respective parts in the sacred liturgy. They can do it, and beautifully. I've seen it work too many times to think it's impossible.

The irony here is that every time I've encountered someone who was sniffing toward the fact that I (or my ilk) was guilty of the horrible sin of elitism, they were ignoring the fact that we had humbly taken great pains to provide the congregation with every scrap of information they needed to fully participate in any way they desired or were inspired to - as thinking, prayerful respected individuals who were capable of understanding and responding to great beauty. Either something beautifully simple (chant) or gloriously complex (polyphony, etc.). No one needs a "minder" (love that, Jackson) to feel the effects of the beauty of a perfect rose deep in the soul.

I, too, have mercifully seen this work over and over and over.....

When offering a bride and groom polyphony for their wedding, or a bereaved family the powerful Marier setting of "Saints of God" to bury their father - the reaction is always the same - deep gratitude from the faithful who embrace this beauty so tenderly and without regard to agendas, that it is completely and overwhelmingly humbling for the musicians. And we in turn, are grateful.

Perhaps one might point out that Christ was the ultimate elitist. Surely he was thinking of the laity when he offered we poor beggars the chance to dwell with Him in eternity.

Who is the true elitist?

Great point, EAF. This is a big deal for me - conforming to the rhythms of the liturgical year and it happened rather quickly with my first choir. Well, relatively speaking. It took going through an entire liturgical year. The second year, I started getting cards from my choir members, in the mail, telling me how much more their spiritual lives were enriched by the rhythms of the liturgical year. One woman, whose husband and two daughters gradually became choir members, wrote an extremely detailed paragraph on how each facet of organizing their lives had been transformed by the fact that the whole family was now observing the liturgical year through the texts and chants proper to the seasons. At the time I was also teaching music in a Catholic grade school and part of my curriculum was to teach the seasons of the liturgical year to my students. Gary Penkala, of CanticaNova has a very eloquent paragraph in his chant collections that are proper to each season -- about how we've lost the sensual responses to the liturgical year because the traditional chants were no longer part of Catholic "vocabulary" - hence one of the most powerful sensual signals that created a subconscious sense of familiarity and identity has now been lost (for most Catholics.)

If you are familiar with the Catholic Homeschooling Movement - families associated with it are doing quite a lot to pass authentic Catholic culture down to their children.

I'd have to think about your second point concerning ad orientem worship. Just having a parish that would do this is an incredible boon in and of itself. Are you a cleric?

I second the comments on the homeschooling movement.

Here in my area, there's many homeschoolers, and in the group my family is associated with, probably about about 1/5 (maybe a tad less) of the families attend the EF, and our First Friday Masses would satisfy even the most ardent traddie OF hater.

I'm the MC in the sanctuary keeping things smokey, Aristotle Esguerra in the loft directing the schola made up of 3rd-12th graders, with a blank check for the liturgical music. Everything's ad orientem and chanted, with a fair amount of latin as well. Most receive kneeling, many veil themselves as well. Maniples and birettas abound. All in all, it's reform of the reform at it's best. Theologically, liturgically, musically, it's the best in the area.

I'll get off my soap box now and leave you with this glimpse of heaven. :)

smiling at EA...I have to explain - I thought maybe you were part of the ordained among us because there seemed to be some mist of power coming from your comments that suggested to me that you had the authority to beckon ad orientem worship at will - literally out of the ethers of the novus ordo. One can only exude such power behind a collar of white.....perhaps my extrapolation needs a bit of containment?

So be it. I am well rebuked! (I love saying that and I don't know why....)

But, I digress. Sadly, I have only experienced the liturgy said in this most excellent posture when friends, who are of a priestly persuasion, have come to stay at our house. (AND...I might add, on one memorable New Years Eve at the turn of the last century - 1999 - at a midnight mass in the historic church where I was the choir director and was able to use my influence...and keys...to get into the church where one of my priest/friends said mass for us ad orientem at the stroke of midnight. I chanted the ordinary, etc. from the pews - in a little congregation made up of my husband, children and a few solitary dear friends who preferred the little church to the streets of DC where the new century was welcomed with drinks a plenty. (We joined in later....but soon got sleepy...)

But, yes, dear EA! Three cheers for your estimable Dominican friend, who is precisely correct in his analysis. During the Midnight mass to which I refer above, I was struck by how profound this seemingly simple change of orientation affected my entire sense of the liturgy. I've had my share of moving moments during the holy sacrifice of the mass, but when my friend, Fr. Clemens, turned from us to direct his attention, prayers and ritual action toward the high altar, it seemed to me that the little slice of the universe that we were occupying somehow came into complete harmony with a spiritual dimension that was outside of time. I know, I sound like I've had one too many acid trips....but never mind that ! I'm convinced that ad orientem worship has some kind of effect on the space/time continuum that could be described by quantum physics, if I only understood it.

It was like we were drawn into a spiritual, I don't know....a vortex maybe? I just got a strong sense that we were following the priest into another realm. More than just looking beyond him to God. We were drawn up into something......and I can't describe it, but it was real. I long for that experience every Sunday.