Excruciating.
Rating Midnight Mass at the Vatican.
Evidently it didn't meet with approval by some Catholics - the music was off.*
I turned on the Mass from St. Peter’s Basilica for a little bit. It was an object lesson in how not to sing Gregorian chant. Excruciating. The pace of this would put a funeral face one just about anyone. It’s great that they have some Gregorian chant, it being the sacred music that Second Vatican Council elevated above all others, but… at least sing it right. How hard is this?The complaint used to be there was no chant used, or the choir was notoriously poor - even when the acceptable popes were celebrating Mass at Christmas. This Christmas chant was used, but it wasn't right - it missed. People stopped their ears, turned the tv channel, while a near riot was caused in the basilica, people shouting for it to stop.
Do people just go to Mass to hear it read properly, to be entertained by delightful music and elaborate vestments and elegant decor ... while every little detail must be slavishly accurate for them to be properly edified? Perhaps that is what brings in the donations?
*I don't have cable and to my knowledge the Mass wasn't broadcast on local channels. I went to a very early Christmas Mass on Christmas Day - gloriously ordinary.
Corked you say? I'll ask people to send
you more Christmas cards then, if that will make you happy.
Merry Christmas!
The terrorism of gossip?
ReplyDeleteStop it already!
DeleteIf gossip is like terrorism then I'm sure victim's of terrorism would nod in approval when you asked, "What was it like to be in the World Trade Center on 9/11? Was it like suffering gossip?" Or, "When ISIS sacked your village and tried to kidnap your family for rape and slavery, was it like real nasty workplace gossip?"
Sorry, as a retired philosopher I absolutely abhor stupid equivalences or associations like: "Logging is rape", or "the slavery of the low-wage jobs" or "that airplane flight felt like prison, or the "terrorism of gossip". Nowadays, many people in the West can't think and don't know what real suffering is like. That's why the faith now is a watery porridge.
Scott, see here: http://abbey-roads.blogspot.com/2014/12/viva-il-papa-holy-father-speaks-frankly.html
DeleteI'm condemned by my own words. I hate it when that happens.
DeleteAnd I'm condemned by quoting Pope Francis! A Catholic can't win in this papacy!
DeleteI'm sort of kidding. It's a temptation to fixate on the pope as I have. I'm sorry.
DeleteBTW - I owe you an apology too. I'm sorry I've lost patience and said unkind things to you. God bless you.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteWhy do you do that to me?
DeleteI'm sorry. It's this ridiculous scrupulousness that likes to pretend its my conscience. All I really wanted to say was Merry Christmas and Happy St. Stephen's Day and out spills a diatribe against you-know-what and you-know-who. LOL.
DeleteLOL! Thanks - merry Christmas to you too. I love hearing from you. God bless!
DeleteScott Woltze +1.
ReplyDeleteBTW Terry, the papal Mass would have been broadcast on Channel 11 following the 10pm local news. NBC has broadcast the Midnight Mass since 1975, I believe. (Prior to that, NBC often televised the Midnight Mass from St. Patrick's in NYC.) Watching those Masses every year played a big part in my eventual conversion.
To be honest I never watched the entire Mass - way too long for me - I'd flip back and forth. LOL! I'm so devout.
DeleteMerry Christmas Mitchell!