Friday, January 01, 2010

Another Musical Rant

Otherwise known as, "if I got to pick, things would be different."

Wishful thinking.

Today is the Solemnity of the Blessed Mother, a feast of Mary in the Christmas season. You'd think we'd have sung a carol or two at Mass.

Anything would have been better than "Sing a New Song," which is no longer a new song and which has just had a lyric change. We're not allowed to say "Yahweh" anymore. And they further "improved" on it by clumsily replacing a male pronoun used for God.

I will give props to the choice of "Ave Maria" at Offertory, though it still toasts my marshmallows that the Offertory song (oops, sorry, Preparation of the Gifts) is apparently not meant for congregational participation. It's the one time that people are sitting in the pew, not busy!

"Prayer of Saint Francis" is not a long enough Communion song when you have a full church. And believe me, I was thrilled to see the full church. Maybe next year Father will add an extra Mass on this feast! It was standing-room-only.

And the version of the Magnificat to close out the Mass was a nice choice on a Marian feast--but the cantor obviously didn't know it. No one in the congregation did either. I think "Joy to the World" would have gone much better.

Deacon J gave a very nice homily on how Mary "pondered these things in her heart" while the shepherds and wise men fell away, lured by other cares and concerns. He challenged us not to forget about Jesus once the manger scenes and Christmas trees are packed away. And he used an interesting term to describe Mary: "the perfect disciple." I never thought about it that way!

4 comments:

Brother Charles said...

Ha! Mass started the same way for us, and I thought, "What's with this?" as I took the holy water and processed up the aisle. We had "Let all Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" for Communion, which seemed weird at first, but then started to make a lot of sense to me.

Pax et bonum for MMX!

Ellen said...

We only sang Christmas songs, nothing specifically for the Blessed Mother. I guess the "music director" is too busy planning her wedding to give any thought to the selection of songs for the Holy day.

Jennifer said...

I wish our parish had more mass times on Jan 1. They only had one mass time and I had to work. :(

Michelle said...

We had a 15 minute Marian hymn sing before the Mass on Jan 1 -- and a mix of carols and Marian hymns for Mass. Alas, I have no voice still, so listened.

I'm with you, though, I would not have wanted to hear "Sing a New Song" yesterday (or tomorrow!)

Happy New Year!!