The music is, naturally, simply horrible. Last week we had "We Shall Overcome" for the entrance hymn.
The head man took the cake today, though, for some reason he decided to preach today's Gospel about the Pharisees in reference to illegal immigration. Said that everybody was 'frantic' about it, and that Catholics shouldn't leave illegal immigrants 'to the mercy of the U.S. Congress', and since we (all eight of us) were coming to daily Mass, we had "upped the ante" and we had to be careful not to just pick and choose what we wanted out of Catholic teaching.
I swear I didn't snort, or mutter, or throw tomatoes, or anything . . . I did smile and tilt my head thoughtfully to one side . . . and he stammered and lost his train of thought. Don't know if my smile had any effect, like that of a basilisk, or if he just suddenly realized the implications of what he was saying.
I could have said, "Now WHO is it that runs the gay-friendly, rainbow parish here? And WHO is it that ignores the rubrics? And WHO is it that ignores the implications of giving communion to raving pro-aborts and canonizing Ted Kennedy?" But I didn't even say what I usually say when a preacher gets political - "C.S. Lewis was right - all a political homily ever tells you is which newspapers are taken at the rectory."
I couldn't say any of those things, because he legged it for the sacristy as soon as he had said, "The Mass is ended, go in peace." And he usually comes down and mingles.
Yeah, we’ve got some crazy Franciscans in downtown Boston as well, although they do have convenient confession hours during the day. We also have some Oblates that have reintroduced Perpetual Adoration and even have put up advertisements in the subway and on highway hoardings about it, so things are not all bad.
Give it ‘em back, AnAmerican Mother! Lord love you!