Busman's Holiday
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    On All Saints' Day we didn't have a High Mass, and schduling prevented my family from attending the Low Mass at our chapel. So we went to the parish where I used to direct the choir until the politics and shenanigans got to be too much for me (plus we had a been developing a schola to sing weekly for the EF).

    I had hoped that there had been some progress in five years. Well.....

    http://youtu.be/4emT9mMx3kU

    After the Communion Hymn ("Holy Darkness"), the cantor sang Lloyd-Webber's "Pie Jesu".
  • irishtenoririshtenor
    Posts: 1,296
    Ack! Why, oh why, is that happening?!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Aren't you glad you got out of there? The sad thing is, that until our people wise up enough to beat it to the exits when this crappy music starts, things won't get better. When the wallets walk out, the pastor will notice.
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    Whoa. Looks like most wallets have left.
    Bizaro architecture, too.

    An honest prayer:
    Please, God, let no one who heard our schola sing the Sequence today post it to YouTube.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    MaryAnn, hahaha.

    Gregp, you're kidding, right? This is the worst thing I've actually ever heard of.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    (Well at least it's apparently part of the homily, instead of a putative 4th option.)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    I hope she charged extra for that.
    Thanked by 1ghmus7
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    That would have been putative, yes Kathy!
    If I was so inclined to push the liturgical envelope with a Pie Jesu, I go the full Monty Python habits and all, head bang after each "requiem." Now that's Catholic.
  • PaixGioiaAmorPaixGioiaAmor
    Posts: 1,473
    Wait, what, exactly is so bad about Lloyd-Webber or his Pie Jesu?
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    I heard he's a Mason.

    Just kidding.
    Thanked by 1Ruth Lapeyre
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Please, God, let no one who heard our schola sing the Sequence today post it to YouTube


    ROFL. I had one of those moments last week with the choir, and the soprano who wandered into notes never on the page. They are singing the same piece again this week, and will continue to do so unless they get it right this time.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,499
    My brother's parish is just like this one. When my nephew and godson was baptized, the lector prayed to the saints. Good right? Except that they prayed to the names the parents had chosen: "Saint" River, "Saint" Tyler, "Saint" Cassidy, "Saint" Kennedy... and on it went. Thank goodness my godson is Dominik. My brother is receiving such poor catechesis.

    I don't understand what these poor priests are trying to accomplish? It is so disheartening.
    Thanked by 1Jeffrey Quick
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    Unfortunately, the wallets won't walk out: this is the largest parish in the Diocese, and the people who attend it think that's the right way to do things. Why shouldn't they? Their priests tells them so. What is really sad about this parish is that it has not had a vocation since it was established 50 years ago.

    Our EF community is 5 years old and has one confirmed vocation and several others in the wings.
  • canadashcanadash
    Posts: 1,499
    What is really sad about this parish is that it has not had a vocation since it was established 50 years ago.


    The EF communities are amazing in this way. Ours is OF with an excellent priest and the boys respond to him. There is no silliness. Silliness does not encourage the youth to come to Mass or persue a vocation. I can see a number of vocations in our parish in the next few years.
  • jpal
    Posts: 365
    I still prefer this to "Awesome God."
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,217
    Was at my 'home' parish on All Saints', too. It was awful. Organist must have had a hot date b/c no one could sing the music at the tempo he used; a choir member decided to jump in and make up his own descant, syncopated and out of tune. Then the pastor told homey stories about the local Bishop--before the Our Father.

    The saddest part: a young couple, after the story-time interruption, just walked out of the church. Can't say I blame them, but it's not a good thing.
  • PaixGioiaAmorPaixGioiaAmor
    Posts: 1,473
    God, I just watched the video. Wow. Just wow.

    I STILL don't have a huge problem with the Lloyd-Webber Pie Jesu ... but THAT ... WOW.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Favorite Things? You've got to be !@#$%^ me. I can only think this is one of the Paulists that used to be in Knoxville. "Whose got a BIRTHDAY TODAY? Let's all sing..."
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    "Widows and virgins; Franciscan martyrs,
    Doctors and abbots- and that's just for starters!
    They swirl all around us, without sin and taints,
    Come join in praising our Lord in His saints!"
    Thanked by 9chonak CHGiffen Liam Kathy canadash melofluent gregp Andrew Motyka ZacPB189
  • Liam
    Posts: 4,945
    The Litany of Rodgers & Hammerstein. It burns.
    Thanked by 5Kathy melofluent CHGiffen gregp ZacPB189
  • gregpgregp
    Posts: 632
    The saddest part: a young couple, after the story-time interruption, just walked out of the church. Can't say I blame them, but it's not a good thing.


    I know this is nothing more than anecdata, but all the 'regular' parishes I visit are the same: no young people unless they are there with their parents, no men between the ages of 15 and 55, and no singing except by the cantor, amplified out of all reason.

    Our EF community has more young men (between the ages 10 and 30) than can serve every week, so they rotate; about half of our congregation is under the age of 30, and the congregation, without any accompaniment has learned Masses IV, VIII, XV, Credo I, III, and IV. They also sing the "Asperges", the Dialogues, and the seasonal Marian antiphon, all by heart.

    Of course those are generalizations and simplifications, but when you get down to the nitty-gritty, most parents I know are frantic to teach their children something other than what they learn from the culture, and most young people want to see themselves as servants of something greater than themselves. You don't get that at most parishes - the sermon which the above priest gave after "My Favorite Things" was "My Favorite Saints", and the message was basically "now that Francis is showing us how we should behave toward one another, we can be the Church of 'nice' as we're supposed to be." The sermon we had the next day, at our All Souls' Missa Cantata, was "Our departed are suffering and are in desperate need of our prayers - don't fail them!"

    I think it boils down to: which version of the Faith would you die for? - having that attitude, to me, is the most effective means of transmitting that Faith to succeeding generations. End of rant.
    Thanked by 3melofluent irishtenor canadash
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