The perils of vacationing....
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    A friend on vacation writes that they are looking for a church to attend tomorrow. This is the closest one.

    We are proud that a significant number of liturgical music selections which are sung among Catholics throughout the world were first heard here at St ________. In 1974 Marty Haugen moved into that position and stayed for nine years. It was during that period that Marty wrote a large number of original compositions for the parish which he later had published. The music continues today under the direction of ____________. Under _______ leadership, we have added the band _______ to our roster of worship emsembles. In 2006, we began to do musical theatre productions starting with _______ and ________. A few years ago, we teamed with ____________ of _________ to move to the next production level with shows such as Godspell, Nunsense and Nunsense II: The Second Coming.

    If you love to sing or play an instrument, following are opportunities to share your talent.
    _________ (Audition required, age 13+): We are starting a new band of voices and instruments to provide musical leadership for some 4:30pm and 10am Masses. We already have singers, piano, guitar, drums, and synthesizer. We are greatly in need of a bass guitar player. _______________ is helping to introduce more up-tempo, contemporary music to the parish. Other instruments such as saxophone, flute, guitar and percussion (to name a few) are welcomed; you should have intermediate to advanced skills, be able to sight-read, and be able to attend rehearsals - improvisation is a plus.
  • E_A_FulhorstE_A_Fulhorst
    Posts: 381
    Ancient Chinese Secret: Go to the 7 a.m. Mass, before the musicians are awake.
    Thanked by 6Ben CHGiffen ryand Ruth Lapeyre Andrew Motyka donr
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    My hairs were curling when I read "1974 Marty Haugen". It only got worse from there.

    If I walk into a church and see a drum kit, I go home to my organ.
  • Aaron
    Posts: 110
    Last night while on vacation went to Mass in a small rural Catholic church in east central Indiana. Entrance- Peace is Flowing like a River, Offertory- We are the light of the world, Communion- instrumental on Song of the Body of Christ, and closing- Lord of the Dance. Music played half the speed as normal. All the Ordinary was spoken as was the psalm and gospel acclamation. The organist tried his best at playing the small Zimmer pipe organ which I was happy to hear. The parish still had its originally purchased new Worship II in the pews but didn't use it. A version of the Schubert German Mass was pasted into the covers of this hymnal. This parish must have had a decent music program 30 years ago. Sad to see it slip like this.
  • ryandryand
    Posts: 1,640
    hartleymartin,

    http://soyoureachurchmusician.tumblr.com/post/24940775017/walking-in-to-a-church-and-seeing-a-drumset
    Thanked by 3E_A_Fulhorst ScottKChicago Gavin
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Well! If you are vacationing within a hundred miles of Houston, there's
    Our Lady of Walsingham, which is well worth the drive. We have a solemn high
    mass every Sunday at 10.30. Yes, EVERY SUNDAY... we don't practice the specious doctrine of 'progressive solemnity'.... we just have solemn conventual mass every Sunday, Solemnity, and holy day. Excellent choir and music, priest who sings expertly, rite I, and people who respond as though they were GLAD to be there (and they are!),,, all are welcome.
    Thanked by 1benedictgal
  • Daniel Bennett PageDaniel Bennett Page
    Posts: 833
    While vacationing a few years ago, I had recourse to Holy Mass in a small-town church overflowing with summer visitors--a very good thing. The Mass in the Ordinary Form was unexceptional. I receive Our Lord's Body as I usually do, on the tongue. For this grave infraction of the celebrant's norms, the assembled faithful were treated to a lengthy harangue about the multitude of pernicious evils encapsulated in said practice. Lesson: it's worth driving an hour or so to the nearest Latin Mass.
    Thanked by 2E_A_Fulhorst TCJ
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Oh Daniel how sad. When did he make an example of you, some sort of closing remarks?
  • JennyJenny
    Posts: 147
    On vacation at the beach this year, we attended the same parish as we have many times. My expectations are always low and usually I can ignore the silliness (and the people in bathing suits). This year, we went to the early Mass hoping, mostly, to get a seat. For our trouble we got to listen to an elderly visiting priest decry the fact that, on the 50th anniversary of Vat2, the glories that the council brought were in danger of being 'rolled back by bishops out of touch with people's needs'. I didn't know until that day that Vat2 forbade Latin in the Mass, prevented mumbling priests from turning their backs on the faithful, and gave Catholics permission to read the Bible. Yes, the priest actually said all of those things out loud. And the mostly elderly congregation laughed and nodded. He then proceeded to equate the Bishop's treatment of the dissident congregations of American nuns with the molestation of boys by homosexual priests.

    He concluded by exhorting the congregation to attend a conference on the Anniversary of the council at Georgetown. Lord help us all! He also used a translation of the Mass that I had never heard.

    I usually kneel for communion and, weak as I am, debated whether I should do so that day. Luckily, the Lord strengthened my spine and bent my knees. Of course, the priest refused me. Even after I stood up, he made me wait a good while before he decided to offer me the Body of Our Lord. I had heard other people tell stories like this but never thought I would meet it in my own experience.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I try not to make waves when I visit elsewhere. If the music is notoriously bad, my middle-school students all know about my flesh-colored earplugs that I wear for anything I don't want to hear.

    I hate that these flakes you mention are people near my age. Surely, the world would be better off without some like this nutty priest. At least, those ugly old nuns are in no danger of ever being molested by anyone.
    Thanked by 1Gavin
  • hartleymartin
    Posts: 1,447
    You don't have to recieve communion to fulfill your sunday obligation.

    Sometimes I go to this sort of mass as a form of physical mortification.
    Thanked by 1ryand
  • Ruth Lapeyre
    Posts: 341
    Wow I have never heard of someone going to a Mass like this for physical mortification, but whatever works. I go sometimes to remind myself of why I drive 30 minutes to get to my current parish.
  • E_A_FulhorstE_A_Fulhorst
    Posts: 381
    From one of Tolkien's personal letters to his son:

    The only cure for sagging or fainting faith is Communion. Though always Itself, perfect and complete and inviolate, the Blessed Sacrament does not operate completely and once for all in any of us. Like the act of Faith it must be continuous and grow by exercise. Frequency is of the highest effect. Seven times a week is more nourishing than seven times at intervals.

    Also I can recommend this as an exercise (alas! only too easy to find opportunity for): make your communion in circumstances that affront your taste. Choose a snuffling or gabbling priest or a proud and vulgar friar; and a church full of the usual bourgeois crowd, ill-behaved children – from those who yell to those products of Catholic schools who the moment the tabernacle is opened sit back and yawn – open necked and dirty youths, women in trousers and often with hair both unkempt and uncovered. Go to communion with them (and pray for them). It will be just the same (or better than that) as a mass said beautifully by a visibly holy man, and shared by a few devout and decorous people. It could not be worse than the mess of the feeding of the Five Thousand – after which our Lord propounded the feeding that was to come.


    When was this written? Considering his date of death, more likely before the reforms than after them.
    Thanked by 2Jenny CHGiffen
  • marajoymarajoy
    Posts: 781
    oh, wow, Tolkien... not much changes...
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