Posted on 09/23/2004 5:56:29 PM PDT by AskStPhilomena
I certainly hope they are!
I was just being a wiseacre (and I am a practicing Catholic, born and raised!)
Boy! Is that ever the truth! We just recently got a new music director (she and her family have been members of our parish for many years) and, since she took over, we almost exclusively sing the "new" songs. I hate it. At least the old music director included old standards - including Latin sung during communion and sometimes other parts of the massas well. I notice many folks, like my husband and I, don't sing the new songs. I even went to the earliest Sunday Mass hoping for no music at all. But, even then, with a different organist, we had the new stuff.
It is all a symptom of far our church has fallen.
We have the lovely "raising arms to Heaven" drama to cue the parishoners to sing. The responses are constantly changing so the group is always flat. It is horrid.
My hopes for an epiphany in this parish were dashed when I attended my first Education committee meeting (thanks everyone for your help), and was told that our new pastor had a series of small stokes just before coming to us. His short term memory is lacking.
Translation, the old pastor let the women of the parish be all touchie feelie and this will continue.
The head of the commitee stated that those who were raised when Vatican II was implimented have no knowledge of what so ever of true Catholic teachings. That made me pause. I have to find a way to tell her that one of her best friends who taught my daughter's 1st grade class, told a child that the wine was not "really" Christ's blood. Help me.
Dan Schutte? Never heard of him. I never heard "Here I am Lord" either. Did he write, "On this day, oh beautiful Mother"? I really love that one.
I know. I cry during mass. It breaks my heart to see the lack of respect for Jesus in the Tabernacle. The loud talking in the 'narthex' before mass; the talking in the pews. Mom's bringing cute little books for their children to read during the Mass and the cheerios for them to munch on. My mom would have NEVER done that. NO mom would have allowed that!
I don't remember being this sickened and dismayed by these things in the past. Was I so blind to what we have lost? I don't know what woke me up, but it is hard for me to attend mass anymore and feel as if it was meaningful. And since when did Catholic Churches start to feel different from one another? At one time, you could go to any Catholic Church anywhere and you were in familiar surroundings immediately. Now, one Catholic church is different from another.
Dropping the Latin was probably the first and biggest mistake. It was the commonality of language that tied us together all over the world. Now, even that has been lost.
I feel betrayed.
We are a divided church in more ways than one.
Good point. It can certainly become a source of confusion.
The heirarchy---up to and including our ailing pope---are responsible.
Pope John Paul will owe God an explanation that will, of course, not wash. His predecessors, Like John Paul, squandered a golden opportunity to please our Maker but originated, perpetuated and allowed the evil to seep in and contaminate what our Savior left behind to comfort and guide us until the Second Coming.
The USSR helped us out by sending communist priests into seminaries begining in 1950. Then after they were firmly entrenched to do satan's work, our bishops knowingly permitted homosexuals to enter our seminaries to sinfully receive holy orders and then march off to get their hands on our children.
Many of us cry at mass, but many enjoy the social hour without a thought as to what is happening before their eyes.
I knew the VAT I church as well, and frankly there was not a lot of singing going on at my Parish, I don't know about other places. Most people don't know the difference between good music and tripe, but if they are singing in Praise to God, it doesn't really matter to them.
I've attended Latin Mass as an adult, and it doesn't hold that much fascination for me. I do like the old Latin hyms, but wouldn't want a steady diet of them. A lot of the modern music is silly to me, but others like it, and it enhances their worship of God. Isn't that what music is supposed to do? They aren't looking for hidden meanings in the words; they just sing and while doing so 'pray twice'!
Gone but not forgotten! Well done, Brian/Proud2BRC/Polycarp!
Most people don't know the difference between good music and tripe
Dont they? You have a pretty low opinion of most people, dont you?
but if they are singing in Praise to God, it doesn't really matter to them.
Its irrelevant whether it matters to them or not. What is central is whether it matters objectively, as a question of Truth.
It does.
A lot of the modern music is silly to me, but others like it, and it enhances their worship of God. Isn't that what music is supposed to do?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, a thousand times no, that is NOT what music is supposed to do.
Music is supposed to EXALT us in a way that only great art can do.
They aren't looking for hidden meanings in the words; they just sing
I cant get over how you seem to think of most people as ignorant and mindless.
They offer the Tridentine Rite as well as Polish and Spanish masses. The homilies are always full of bold, unashamed orthodoxy.
I can't believe anyone wants to buy his music. It is unconscionable to even name his songs in public. "Here I Am, Lord," has started droning through my head just from reading this article. nooooo.
I think that Schutte wrote the best of the mmodern music, but I am sick of the same selections week after week. I wish that music directors would make a practice of mixing old hymns with new so that we have a variety of tempo, rhythm, and range.
As to Dan Schutte, I have often wondered where he is. I have asked around Milwaukee churches and no one seemed to know.
Thanks for the ping.
I belonged to a choir and never thought that the songs we sang would be from some aberrant person.
Very Sad.
The original altarpiece, built over a 12-year period from 1477 to 1489 by the master carver of Nuremberg, Wit Stwosz, features a five-part polychromed and gilded limewood sculpture depicting the life of the Virgin Mary.
Veit Stoss. His name was Veit Stoss. Not Wit Stwosz.
http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/s/stoss/
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14310a.htm
Damn, the article can't even get a simple detail like his name correct. Its like calling our President, Georg Busch. Its hard to trust anything else said after that sort of error.
"Yes, much of it is pedestrian, but at least it gets people used to singing, and they can be convinced to sing other BETTER music later on."
I sing only Catholic music in church. If it has an OCP copyright, I don't trust it.
It is now "later on" and I am convinced.
"It almost makes you want to burn the missalettes!"
What do you mean "almost"!
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