Teresa and I made a Marriage Encounter this weekend. It was absolutely wonderful - probably the best thing we've done together since we got married. May 28 is our seven year anniversary.
If you're married, or a priest and haven't gone on an encounter weekend, I highly recommend it.
The art historian Bruce Boucher has suggested that the book be turned into an opera instead of a movie, because “If something is too stupid to say, you can always sing it.”
If they did turn it into an opera, it would probably rival Wagner's Ring Cycle in length. Unless they sing fast!
...about storms and tsunamis along the US coasts this year. Thanks, Pat Robertson!
What's the easiest way to get no one to sing?
Play a hymn too slowly.
Our organist for the wedding told me it's a widespread problem here in RI.
Aside from taking away the charm and life from some great hymn tunes, it forces the congregation to do something they aren't used to: hold their breath for a long time while they sing. The slower the tempo, the longer the phrases. Even folks with no vocal training know that they have to hold their breath with singing and only get to breathe between phrases. You can cheat if you breath half-way through a phrase, but then you just feel like you can't sing. If you go ahead and sing the long phrase, you might feel some discomfort in your torso. That's your abdominal muscles working to hold your breath. And that just gets more and more uncomfortable for people who aren't used to long phrases.
So - push your tempos! You'll know when you're playing something too fast, it won't feel right. Faster, without comprimising the musicality of the hymn tune makes everyone feel better about singing.
If I'm traveling, I should do what RC does and get the 411 on local parishes. Holy Ghost on Federal Hill in RI was beautiful inside, but it turned out they were having first communions. No problem with that by itself, except like I mentioned before even my parish has trouble with first communinions. Apparently, DRE's everywhere think first communion Sundays are times to:
1. Have the first communicants do the readings and general intercessions.
2. Have them sing special songs.
3. Have them bring flowers to their families during offertory.
4. Do some wacky procession or dressing of the altar.
5. Emphasize first communion being a friendly meal.
6. If in May, bring flowers to the Virgin Mary, then sing a Hymn to the Virgin Mary.
The other challenge of first communion Sundays are the families. I saw people come in to church with Dunkin Donuts coffee cups. Flash photography, video cameras, and cell phones were everywhere. A fella behind took a phone call 3 minutes before Mass. I finally couldn't take it anymore when we stood for the Eucharist Prayer and he sang the first few words of the National Anthem. I turned around and asked him to show some respect.
So what are the practical things we can do?
First communicants need to be focused on receiving Christ in the Eucharist. Everything else is just cuteness, or devotions that don't necessarily support the sacrament. One of the things on the list above may be appropriate, but to turn the Sunday liturgy on its head because of first communions strikes me as a misguided effort at participation that detracts from the real reason the kids are there: to receive Jesus in the Eucharist for the very first time.
What to do about parents and families? Do they need lecturing at their own kids first communion classes? Do they need a list of norms and guidelines? Should we, like some parishes I know, refuse the sacraments to people who don't attend Mass weekly for a good reason?
The parents seem like a harder nut to crack. The folks who don't attend Mass on Sunday are the ones who want the Church to be there for Christmas, Easter, funerals, weddings, and first communions. How do you make their own kids first communion a moment for them to reflect on how little they may value and understand the Eucharist?
I'm up near RC's neck of the woods for the weekend. My cousin is getting married and Teresa and I will be singing at the wedding.
We ate lunch up at Federal Hill across the street from a big brick Catholic parish. The name is chiseled on marble over the entrance:
HOLY GHOST CHVRCH
That's right: a V instead of a U.
There's no school like old school. I'll let you know what the morning Mass is like.
Is Islam a religion of peace? Nope. Just ask Cardinal Pells of Australia. And the Koran.
"In my own reading of the Koran, I began to note down invocations to violence," he said. "There are so many of them, however, that I abandoned this exercise after 50 or 60 or 70 pages."He discussed the perceived differences between parts of the Koran written during Mohammed's years in Mecca - when his position was weak and he was still hoping to win converts, including Christians and Jews - and those written during his subsequent years in Medina, when "the spread of Islam through conquest and coercion began."
[The differences in the text from those two periods hold apparent contradictions between, for example, the concept of "jihad," meaning striving or waging war. Some verses counsel a patient response to mockery from unbelievers; others incite warfare against them. The question of whether the Medina chapters (suras) replaced and revoked the Mecca ones have long exercised scholars.]
"The predominant grammatical form in which jihad is used in the Koran carries the sense of fighting or waging war," Pell said.
It was legitimate to ask "our Islamic partners in dialogue" for their views on these matters.
"Do they believe that the peaceful suras of the Koran are abrogated by the verses of the sword?" he asked. ...more.
A very valuable question to ask.
He did make some comments about environmentalism that probably needed more explanation. Think about this coming from the USCCB - would that make you laugh, or cry?
In a section of the speech dealing with what he called the "emptiness" of secularism, he said "some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature."
The Wall Street Journal has an article about the roadkill of the information superhighway: the worst businesses launched on the internet.
And they did stink. The iLoo. Flooz. CueCat. You can read all about how moronic they were from conception thru to losing millions.
But it looks like some people never learn. See bold below:
"I would have wanted a different outcome," said Mr. Levitan [formerly of Flooz], who has since moved on to start-up Pando Networks Inc., which aims to simplify the sending of email attachments.
Click paper clip icon. Browse for files. Hit "attach." Send.
How do you simplify that?
And someone has already given them $4M. Suckers!
As an Easter gift, my wife bought Fr. Cantalamessa's "Come, Creator Spirit" for me.
It's the mother lode of meditations on Veni Creator Spiritus
Here's a tidbit from page 2:
"... the Veni Creator has enjoyed extraordinary success even out Church circles. Goethe produced a splendid German translation of it, as did the poets and mystics Tersteegen and Angelus Silesius. Composers showed their interest in it. Bach set Luther's translation to music; Gustav Mahler chose the hymn as libretto for his choral work Symphony of a Thousand, to say nothing of the many other authors of lesser note. Yet none of them so far has managed to equal the simple fascination of the Gregorian melody that seems to have come to birth in the same creative act as produced the words. To listen to this melody at the beginning of a retreat or at a priestly ordination is, as it were, to enter without further ado into an atmosphere charged with mystery and with the presence of the Spirit.
Thanks to all who posted on the text read during the dressing of the altar. The consensus is it stinks. It's just not worthy of the Mass, isn't allowed for to begin with, and makes no mention of what the Mass and the Eucharist really are.
The actual execution of it on Sunday was worse than I imagined. The renegade DRE (originally responsible for this being done) gathered up all the kids during the Creed and ushered them into the back to prepare for her production. Right in the middle of the creed, on a Sunday where it's particularly important to affirm what the Church teaches and believes.
I haven't had contact with the DRE - it turns out she's less than a year from retirement and has a sour disposition. So - our liturgy director gives her a wide berth. Nice: no one wants to engage the DRE because she's so defensive about what she does.
I'm sure options will be kicked around for next year that don't include this. Hopefully the kids and their parents can focus on the sacrament instead of being involved in a big, meaningles production that detracts from the sacrament.
