Author: John Schultz

Yesterday’s Gospel reading for Mass
If you found it a bit confusing, then Padre Tucker can help.

Cool Catholic Trivia
This is in the “who knew?” category:
JOHN PAUL II BLESSES BABY LAMBS ON FEAST OF ST. AGNES
VATICAN CITY, JAN 21, 2003 (VIS) – This morning in the Apostolic Palace,
following a centuries-old tradition, Pope John Paul blessed several lambs
whose wool will be used to make the palliums bestowed on new metropolitan
archbishops on the June 29 feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, Apostles.
In a 1978 document, “Inter Eximina Episcopalis,” Pope Paul VI restricted
use of the pallium to the Pope and to metropolitan archbishops. In 1984
John Paul II decreed that the pallium would be conferred on the
metropolitans on the June 29th solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul.
The custom of blessing the lambs takes place every year on the January 21
liturgical memory of St. Agnes, a virgin who suffered martyrdom about 305
A.D. and whose symbol is a lamb. She is buried in the basilica named for
her in Rome on the Via Nomentana and after the papal blessing the lambs are
brought to this basilica.
The lambs are raised by the Trappist Fathers of the Abbey of the Three
Fountains and the palliums are made by the Sisters of St. Cecelia from the
newly-shorn wool.

RC in DC
I met Richard Chonak in the flesh today! He came and sang with my choir. One of the ladies said “I hope he’s staying around – he has a great voice!” Too bad he’ll return to the snowy northeast later this week.
For you chant buffs out there – he said that my interpretation of the plainchant Gloria was downright spritely compared with my comments of late…

Deliver us, Lord, from all cheddar
Cantors – sometimes they take away more than the give. They key thing for a cantor to understand is that it’s not about them or how they feel the music. They need to communicate words and invite the congregation to join in where appropriate. Extra movement, like the body sway just before you come in, just distracts people. The grandiose opening of the hand as a prepartory motion is just theatrical. I know a cantor that does a little bounce in her knees when people are supposed to come in. Again, it’s just distracting and unnecessary.
The key mistake cantors make is thinking they have to “animate” the congregation. When the attitude is that you need to warm up the crowd rather than lead prayer, you’ll always do things that take away from the prayer. Cantors are not the opening act for the priest.

Make a Joyful Chant Unto the Lord
Good comments below in the post about chant. I agree there are some chants that are exuberant. Lots are more subtle expressions of the sacred. And nearly all are much more subtle than whole chunks of music in today’s repertiore: from the contemporary back to many english anthems written in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and even back to Beethoven and Bach.
It’s the quietness of chant that many people have a problem with. Liturgists that measure participation in decibels are never happy with chant. People in the congregation, who by no fault of their own are totally ignorant of chant and have never sung it are often taken aback by it. It takes time to get used to simple melodies that are so different from the rest of the music sung in our parishes today. And still you’ll have the “On Eagle’s Wings” lovers say chant is boring.
Chant is quite liberating – it carries none of the cultural baggage that is part of today’s repertiore. Little by little we do more chant at our parish, and people are getting more comfortable with it.