Posted on 12/29/2005 8:58:30 AM PST by NYer
A great opportunity to post the highlights (or lowlights, if applicable) from the Mass you attended.
I recorded midnight mass from St Patricks Cathedral and also thought the music was great. It was even better at the 10:30 pm mass from the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in DC, which was carried by EWTN. Unfortunately the cable company here splits a channel between EWTN and Hallmark so at midnight the mass was cut off! I was so disappointed. I wanted to hear what that magnificent choir and orchestra sang for a recessional hymn.
I attended a Midnight Mass in the Tridentine Rite. It was lovely!
Your post makes me realize how lucky we are in my parish - St. Mary of the Mills in Laurel, MD. Well trained lectors, a forty-member choir and brass ensemble at Midnight Mass before a packed house. It all went off without a hitch thanks to our compentent Director of Liturgy.
The African Priest, who was kind enough to cover our 6:30 mass for our exausted Pastor, gave us the most surprising part of Christmas.
He stated that he had been on every continent in the world. He had seen it all.
"America is at war and most of you don't even realize it."
he said in a voice that rocked the Angels.
"You are being told not to say Merry Christmas. You are being told to keep Christ out of your workplace or you will lose your jobs, like the people at Home Depot. They were actually told that if you say Merry Christmas, you will be fired. Well, get fired! We need to say Merry Christmas! We need to get Christ back into our lives."
"And mark my words! I swear to you that if we don't start saying Merry Christmas, if we don't start bring Christ back where He should be, by next year you may well be saying 'Allah Akbar'!"
I nearly fell out of the pew! God Bless him!
Love those brass ensembles! They seem so appropriate to the birth of our Savior.
Is that anything like "a full church" ?
That was my parish, many long years ago ... I'm glad to know that they're still up to standards.
Africa --like Ireland of old--is sending missionaries to formerly Christian lands.
We celebrated the 7:00 Vigil Mass at our local parish. Unfortunately our parish holds hands during the Our Father (ugh) but otherwise it was beautiful and reverent.
One funny thing happened, though. The fairly new altar boy holding the thurible during the Gospel swung it rather wildly all through the reading, resulting in a huge cloud of smoke just behind the deacon. You could see Father Pat getting rather agitated, and the poor parishioners seated nearby were engulfed!
Our little Byzantine outreach parish celebrated Christmas Eve with the full Divine Liturgy, chanted in its entirety, all seats filled, and Father dressed in his finery: Goldcloth vestments and his miter, which is shaped like a crown. We don't have any snow (Alaska? On Christmas??) but the Christmas spirit is alive and well in our little church.
Went to the 7:30 Vigil Mass.
In years past there has been a much greater attendance. (Our uber-orthodox priest was reassigned) There are more people on Sunday at 11:30AM than there were on Christmas Eve. There was NO incense at any of the Masses this year. Grrrrrrr. The Homily was kind of bland. Something about an e-mail the priest got about Christmas being Jesus' Birthday Party and Jesus not being invited.
I miss Fr. Barker terribly.
Powerful homily! And, he's absolutely right. Thanks for sharing that.
God Bless that priest! And if Africa is to give us the new wave of world-wide missionaries, so be it. I look forward to seeing them take the Word back to where it used to be held in esteem and veneration.
Lol! Incense is good for them ... it may well purify their soiled souls ;-)
SRO!
Sounds absolutely beautiful!
Just like White Christmas at the Wang Center!
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