Tuesday, October 28, 2003
Heather: The word of the day is "sensuous." As in, "since you was up..."
My dad was something of an old-school Catholic. While I don't remember ever going to Mass for a holy day of obligation, we rarely missed a Sunday. My parents didn't seem to care much for the Saturday evening mass, what with breaking from a lazy Saturday, wearing jeans, and the guitar music. I remember most often going to the most traditional mass at our parish, the one frequently with the organ and choir.
Dad was an usher, we kids were altar servers. He was the one who would take the week's collection and put it in the safe or the hole hidden in the wall, whatever, so it was in the sacristy until it could be counted. He always genuflected when accepting the basket. None of them do that now, and I miss it.
He was pretty much a "pray, pay, and obey" kind of guy. When the mass was interrupted by the local eccentric in my college town one Sunday morning, the top of his head about came off in shock. Just as Father was returning his seat after his homily, Afghan Rose (as she was affectionately called) stood up and called, "Father! I have a question." It was something about the nature of evil and how God would let it happen. When Dad realized that the woman was a little short in the reality department, he was more sympathetic than angry. He never forgot that, though.
All this as a background for my post. We got our first dose of Liturgical Movement earlier this month. I admit my curiosity about it, but was left quite unimpressed. It seemed at best irrelevant and at worst distracting. It wasn't "iron grey haired nuns in sensible shoes galumphing up the aisle," but it sure wasn't Swan Lake either. A nun and another woman, wearing Renaissance garb, were up doing tai-chi during the responsorial psalm. Eh.
I think I might have figured out a point of it, though. It seemed like a Mickey Mouse kind of thing, a way to let the busybodies have something to do performancewise during the mass without letting them actually preach.
"Well, Sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley, you can't give the homily because you're not ordained, but you can be in charge of Liturgical Movement. How is that?"
It seems condescending, that attitude, but that's what I thought. The priest knows that this person probably isn't going to assemble a Rockettes-style kick line, and he can go about his business.
I wonder what Dad would have thought.
My dad was something of an old-school Catholic. While I don't remember ever going to Mass for a holy day of obligation, we rarely missed a Sunday. My parents didn't seem to care much for the Saturday evening mass, what with breaking from a lazy Saturday, wearing jeans, and the guitar music. I remember most often going to the most traditional mass at our parish, the one frequently with the organ and choir.
Dad was an usher, we kids were altar servers. He was the one who would take the week's collection and put it in the safe or the hole hidden in the wall, whatever, so it was in the sacristy until it could be counted. He always genuflected when accepting the basket. None of them do that now, and I miss it.
He was pretty much a "pray, pay, and obey" kind of guy. When the mass was interrupted by the local eccentric in my college town one Sunday morning, the top of his head about came off in shock. Just as Father was returning his seat after his homily, Afghan Rose (as she was affectionately called) stood up and called, "Father! I have a question." It was something about the nature of evil and how God would let it happen. When Dad realized that the woman was a little short in the reality department, he was more sympathetic than angry. He never forgot that, though.
All this as a background for my post. We got our first dose of Liturgical Movement earlier this month. I admit my curiosity about it, but was left quite unimpressed. It seemed at best irrelevant and at worst distracting. It wasn't "iron grey haired nuns in sensible shoes galumphing up the aisle," but it sure wasn't Swan Lake either. A nun and another woman, wearing Renaissance garb, were up doing tai-chi during the responsorial psalm. Eh.
I think I might have figured out a point of it, though. It seemed like a Mickey Mouse kind of thing, a way to let the busybodies have something to do performancewise during the mass without letting them actually preach.
"Well, Sisters Mary-Kate and Ashley, you can't give the homily because you're not ordained, but you can be in charge of Liturgical Movement. How is that?"
It seems condescending, that attitude, but that's what I thought. The priest knows that this person probably isn't going to assemble a Rockettes-style kick line, and he can go about his business.
I wonder what Dad would have thought.
