At my Dad’s parish, the entrance hymn was O Come, O Come Emmanuel (instrumental, but, not knowing that, I belted out and the rest of the faithful joined me). Then, the pastor read the Proclamation of the Birth of Christ after he laid the Christ Child in the manger. This was already a bad sign of things to come, since, after the Proclamation, the Gloria is to be sung and then the opening prayer (that’s how they did it at the Vatican:thumbsup: ). Then, it went all downhill.
After the proclamation, the cantor (awful voice and flutist rather annoying–she played too high and none of us could sing the pitch) led us in singing O Come, All Ye Faithful. Then, horror of horrors, when it came time for the Gloria, the pastor substituted the Gloria for Hark the Herald Angels Sing (while he was reciting the Gloria). I declined sining and, instead, recited the Gloria, in Latin, to myself.
Then, the responsorial psalm was horrid. The cantor tried to make the psalm fit “Go Tell it on the Mountain”, right down to the roller coaster vocals. When he did the Celtic Alleluia, he did the wrong verse.
The only interesting point came during the preparation when the cantor invited his daughter (who was serving Mass) to sing Away in a Manger. She is about eight years old and sounded a lot better than her father. I think she probably could have served as cantor.
After Communion, the flutist went crazy and totally forgot that we needed to have a period of sacred silence. The ;pastor went on and on with announcements and thanking people. By the time we got to Joy to the World, I was joyful that it was over. My dad, who was serving as EHMC is fixing to quit over the lack of liturgical stewardship on the part of the pastor. He already has his letter typed and ready to give to the priest. Included in this letter are some comments (along with the appropriate citations) regarding the violations that the pastor has committed with respect to the GIRM and RS. Japhy, if you’re reading this, we took your letter as a cue.
At my parish, it was a totally 180-degree experience. It was a bilingual Mass. Some of the sung parts were in English, others in Spanish. The only caveat was Child of the Poor. I do not like that hymn and worse, the people don’t know it and were caught off guard when, all of a sudden, What Child is This (this is supposed to be used for Epiphany) popped up. Other than that error (folks opted, instead, to just sing What Child), the Mass was wonderful.
The best part of all was that my PV decided to pray Eucharistic Prayer I in LATIN in its entirety. After all, Pope Benedict wrote that in bilingual Masses, the Canon should be prayed in Latin. It was incredible. I think the choir got thrown off when my friend chanted “Mysterium Fidei”, but, when he looked at them, they got the picture.
I also loved the Midnight Mass from the Vatican. I must admit that I am gleefully enamored with Pope Benedict XVI
and relished every moment of that Mass. You can really tell that the Benedictine era is in full swing because the music, the homily, the prayers and the ambience was just this side of heaven. It’s what the Mass should be.
