May 11, 2008

Question

To all the St. Blogs "parishoners" out there:

Do any of you know a charismatic Mass where the music is predominantly Gregorian chant? If so, name the time and place.

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May 4, 2008

Kook watch: I'm sure our Lady appreciates the Jacuzzi

The followers of phony mystic Christina Gallagher occasionally drop by to post comments denying all charges of wrongdoing against her. This is helpful to me, 'cause I don't follow the case very often, and it serves as a reminder to check out the Irish papers for the latest flap involving Mrs. Gallagher and her international House of Prayer franchise, which is disapproved by the authorities of the Church and the Inland Revenue.

Here are some recent bits of news about the case:

January 2008: The Sunday World tabloid posted splashy photos (pdf) of Gallagher's posh lifestyle: residing in a mansion (not in her name, of course), tooling around in a BMW, etc., and reported on the fundraising campaign (pdf) that appears to have paid for the house.

RTE radio's Liveline show spent a couple of segments talking with callers and with Mrs. Gallagher's laughably evasive spokesman Fr. Gerard McGinnity about Gallagher's lifestyle: an mp3 podcast is online. When asked about the house's wide-screen TV and a Jacuzzi bath for paying guests, the priest explained that Mrs. Gallagher wanted the place to be made as nice as possible for our Lady.

(In a second segment (mp3), a director of the House of Prayer doesn't seem to know much about the HOP's finances.)

February 2008: Abp. Michael Neary (Tuam) issued a letter to all parishes reiterating no Church approval for Gallagher's activities.

March 2008: Irish primate Cardinal Brady was holding "ongoing discussions" with Fr. McGinnity.

For background, here's a 2006 post on the subject.

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April 30, 2008

Live from Lublin!

In Poland, "fashion show" of religious habits promotes vowed life

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April 22, 2008

Great Photos from the Papal Visit

This past weekend my brother, Steve, who be will ordained a deacon on June 7 for the Diocese of Arlington, traveled to New York for the papal at St. Joseph Seminary on Saturday and Yankee Stadium on Sunday. He's posted some photos from the Youth Rally on Saturday and promises to post some from the Mass in Yankee Stadium soon.

The photo is a link to the set on his flickr.com account.

UPDATE: Steve just told me that EWTN decided to use the photo for one of their websites.

They did a great job of editing it!

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April 20, 2008

This sounds like an inspiring movie

I'm going to be out of town when this arrives in Boston, but some of you will have a chance to see The Singing Revolution earlier. It sounds like an inspiring movie about the role of song in Estonia's deliverance from Communism.

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April 18, 2008

The Pope's Mass in Washington

When the Pope started the Mass at Nationals Park, he began it with the words: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

This must have surprised many people who are used to hearing other greetings such as "Good morning, everyone," before or after the Trinitarian invocation. But the faithful attending did respond with, "And also with you," instead of "Good morning, father" or whatever. So it's good to know that we Catholics are at least a little teachable.

OK, now to liveblog, if not to say nitpick, the music of the Mass:

Kyrie eleison: the invocations were set to some black-gospel-inspired music, and came across as rather self-indulgent: they drew attention to the deacon's virtuosity. However, the "Kyrie eleison" responses were quite nice.

Gloria in excelsis Deo: The Gloria was accompanied by some handbells that didn't seem quite in harmony with each other. The text was chopped up artificially to give it a responsorial form. Here a pattern started to appear: apparently any old music was thought to be just fine, provided one slapped a few words of Latin on it. If the modern liturgists in charge of this production think they've solved the problems facing the contemporary music establishment with this tactic, they've got another think coming.

1st Reading: Acts, in Spanish. Is it really normative that a lay person not invested in the ministry of lector (lay women are not eligible for it) present the Scripture reading?

Responsorial Psalm: The music was a Broadway-style number, with weird dissonances in the setting of the verses and the refrain. It started out as laughable and ended as horrifying. Too bad that no-one was capable of singing the proper from the Roman Gradual, as the GIRM prefers.

2nd Reading: Romans 8: Another lay woman reading the Scripture, and reading it well enough. But what about diversity: is there some problem with lay men? Are they unacceptable?

Alleluia: a modern composition built on the refrain from O filii et filiae. This illustrates that even some antique hymns written in chant notation are not suitable for this sort of liturgical use. O filii et filiae is the Renaissance's equivalent of the Celtic Drinking Song Alleluia: a "rousing" number in triple meter. Let's all lock arms and sway, right? Um, let's not. It's not an ideal preparation for listening to the Holy Gospel.

The Homily was a wonderful word of encouragement to the faithful to be a faithful leaven in society. The Pope is not unaware that the Church here needs to accept the practice of penance and follow the way of holiness. We need to engage in sound catechesis, and Catholics need to "cultivate an intellectual culture that is truly Catholic", ringing the insight of Christian thought and judgment to society, lest we be merely conformed to the every vagary of the latter.

The General Intercessions were, as Fr. Neuhaus pointed out, a display of multiculturalism. Whom are we trying to impress in the General Intercessions?

The offertory music was a bit of Latino dance music performed with bongos and, I think, an ocarina or maybe a Peruvian flute. At the "breakdown" of the song, there was clapping. I don't think the Offertory proper was sung.

It was good to see the altar adorned with a crucifix and six candles in the arrangement that has come to be described as "Benedictine".

And then the most amazing thing happened. As Jeffrey Tucker has already commented on the NLM blog, Marty Haugen's setting, his Mass of Creation became a surprising moment of relative musical dignity.

There seemed to be no bells at the consecration, which is odd since there was plenty of handbell ringing during the Gloria.

The memorial acclamation was introduced by a fanfare of car horns, I believe, and they were used again for the Amen.

Now, at this point of the Mass, I stepped into my kitchen for a few minutes, so I missed the Our Father. Was it sung? I didn't notice it.

The Agnus Dei was another multi-culti display. Apparently singing the little litany in Latin plus several obscure languages to some strange music is better than singing it in Latin. The result was a piece that no one could reasonably use in any parish whatsoever.

The Communion selections included everything but the kitchen sink, except for the proper. One of them was a merengue number. One was the Cesar Franck Panis Angelicus, sung by Placido Domingo: the only piece of music in the entire Mass that visibly pleased the Holy Father.

So thanks be to God, the successor of Peter has come to strengthen us, to exhort us, and -- now that he has experienced the genius that is American-style liturgy at its ultimate -- he has come to suffer with us.

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April 6, 2008

Signs of having too much money

This may turn into an ongoing series of posts, come to think of it.

Sign #1: if you're willing to rent the companionship of a dog for four days a month at a rate of $280/month, you may have too much money for your own good.

Well, maybe if it's a five-diamond dog....

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March 27, 2008

The preacher feature

It took me a while to figure out why the fracas about minister Jeremiah Wright undermines Mr. Obama so thoroughly. It cuts to the most fundamental claims about the senator's character. Obama presents himself as a candidate who invites us to bridge ethnic, economic, and partisan divisions, and a man of great integrity who insists that his fellow campaigners adhere to high standards of conduct and demeanor.

However, he was willing to spend twenty years under the spiritual tutelage of a racist who espouses insane theories, in a congregation that made ethnocentrism and opposition to "middleclassness" its principles. He stayed in that congregation and subjected his children to the man's bizarre teaching, which he insists he doesn't believe, out of opportunism, in order to secure his status in Chicago black-community politics.

Six weeks ago, the Senator was entrancing crowds, and they were ready to make him emperor, but now the emperor has no clothes.

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March 23, 2008

Easter

Rise heart; thy Lord is risen. Sing his praise
Without delays,
Who takes thee by the hand, that thou likewise
With him may'st rise;
That, as his death calcined thee to dust,
His life may make thee gold, and much more, Just.

Awake, my lute, and struggle for thy part
With all thy art.
The cross taught all wood to resound his name
Who bore the same.
His stretched sinews taught all strings, what key
Is best to celebrate this most high day.

Consort both heart and lute, and twist a song
Pleasant and long:
Or since all music is but three parts vied,
And multiplied;
O let thy blessed Spirit bear a part,
And make up our defects with his sweet art.

- George Herbert

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March 22, 2008

Holy Saturday

O Lord and God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, grant spiritual and physical light to our minds and hearts that had been blinded with worldly errors; enlighten us as You enlightened the holy Marys and the holy women who came to your tomb with spices, so they could sprinkle your holy body, the source of life. Fill our hearts with your joy; fill our souls with your tranquillity, with your peace, with the happiness that comes from You. Since you have raised us up and delivered us from the stain of our sins and the darkness of our transgressions, make us worthy in your loving kindness to kindle our lamps with today's light, the symbol of your radiant and glorious resurrection.

--from the Byzantine liturgy for Holy Saturday

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