Okay, so one of the Diocesan councils is planning a special Mass with our Bishop, and they do this every year. The person in charge calls me with the list of (songs) to be used for this Mass. You can all just imagine what 70's/80's hits have been selected. Well, turns out they selected two particular songs which are not in our Worship IV hymnal. I advised this elderly lady (in her 80's) that at our parish (she does not attend our parish as it is a Diocesan wide event) that at our parish we employ more traditional oriented hymns and propers including gregorian chant, and that two of these songs will not be available as they are not in the hymnal. She says, ohhh I like gregorian chant, but I believe we need to live in the era and time that we are in. I nearly chocked out a laugh as this 80 yr old is instructing me as though gregorian chant is some ancient thing of generations before her time. ahhh...... got to love it
At least I avoided last years catastrophy of a closing tune Canticle of the Sun.
The irony in all of this is, at last nights Spanish children's rehearsal as well as Spanish adult's, I asked them if they would like to learn gregorian chant, as we were practicing the Salve Regina, and they were all enthusiastically asking for more. Go figure lol.....
Diocesan things are always interesting. I volunteered to sing for the ordinations this year, but when I saw the list of what was being sung, I criticized the mass setting as very sub-par. As a result I have been "banned" from singing at diocesan functions and was taken off the mailing list. C'est la vie....
Overall, our diocesan Masses are pretty good, though it could be better. Mostly traditional hymns, guimont psalms or similar, and some of the better metrical ordinaries (Mass for the City, Mass of the Resurrection, German Mass, etc...). The introit is often sung during the procession as well, and the dialogs, preface and gospel are often sung as well. Certainly can't complain.
Oh, I totally agree to RUN and QUICKLY from anything Diocesan. Recently I was asked to play for a Diocesan event, but was not given the music until the night before. Had I gotten it earlier, I would have declined the music was so awful. And, yes, "Canticle of the Sun" was on it....."the heavens are telling the glor........ry of Gawd".........
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