I hope everybody involved in liturgy will do a little soul-searching

[goout]

Of course you don’t have to pay people to have a reverent liturgy, or even have any sung Mass parts at all. But the question is about “parish liturgical life”, “beautiful and worthy”.

so, if we are not trying to change the subject, the issue calls for the answer of competence. And competence deserves compensation.

 

[snarflemike]

I’m not sure how what the “people in the pews” are doing has to do with how the liturgy is celebrated.

I edited my comment to make the meaning more clear.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

But do those involved in the liturgy give their best to the people in the pews (and to God)?

OK, let’s comment on your edited post then.

I really haven’t seen anyone involved in the liturgy doing a sloppy or irreverent job.

Sometimes, whatever they do doesn’t make me happy. Some of the college kids who do music ministry at the local Newman Center don’t play or sing very well. Some priests and deacons don’t give very good homilies, or they speak in a monotone, or the sound amplification in the church is messed up so I can’t hear them, or they seem to be rushing some of the prayers. And there is one lector who is penance for me to listen to because their delivery is so slow and they do not lead the responses very well for the Responsorial Psalm.

I don’t think any of these people set out to do a bad job though. I think they’re doing what they can with what they’re given. I think the Lord appreciates their efforts, even though it’s not to the level of Easter Vigil at the downtown Cathedral when the bishop has the best people handling everything.

 

[NevermoreLenore]

One of the most beautiful mass experiences I’ve experienced was the parish in Kona, Hawaii, and it was casual. Flowered shirts, shorts, and sandals, oh my! Bright, open, airy, allowing the beautiful breeze off the ocean blow through. A drum set guitars and sandals It was beautiful because we went in and took in what was offered, which was filled with reverence and fun/joy–those things are not mutually exclusive. We were taught some of the sung liturgy in Hawaiian, on which we improved upon over our attendance there the two weeks of our stay. Many CAFers would’ve been mortified (did you get that people wore sandals?! With toes displayed ). For me, my heart is filled to bursting just remembering the experience.

 

[Irishmom2]

But do those involved in the liturgy give their best to the people in the pews (and to God)?

Maybe you should be more specific about what you view as giving or not giving their best, because right now, your comments are so generalized that it makes me wonder what the point of this thread is.

 

[snarflemike]

I really haven’t seen anyone involved in the liturgy doing a sloppy or irreverent job.

In a great many cases it is more that they are on auto-pilot. They go through the motions exactly like they’ve done for years, cranking out the liturgical version of a McDonalds regular cheeseburger over and over.

 

[NevermoreLenore]

In a great many cases it is more that they are on auto-pilot. They go through the motions exactly like they’ve done for years,

But they are THERE. Presumably, if others want to participate to improve it, they could and should absolutely do that. I am in awe at the same faces I’ve seen, year after year, serving God and us. Autopilot or not, and we don’t know what may be going on in their lives or what a sacrifice serving might be for them, they are THERE and WORKING. God bless them.

 

[Irishmom2]

There is nothing wrong with that. It’s not really supposed to change to keep you interested. No one wants to find something different at McDonalds. They want what they came for. They came for cheeseburgers, not Chinese food or smoothies.

 

[snarflemike]

I’ll put it a slightly different way. I’m hoping that everybody involved in liturgy will do what might be thought of as a Liturgical Examination of Conscience. I can’t imagine why that would be a controversial idea.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you yourself aren’t involved in liturgy, then it’s kind of like you’re telling the people who bother to make it happen for you how to do their job.

I’m not really looking to have the equivalent of the Pope’s Easter Mass at the Vatican every time I go to church. I want a serviceable Mass that will send me on my way in a reasonable time with the armor of God I need to get through the day.

I’m a little baffled by people, especially converts, who seem to be coming to the Catholic Church because they want some big dramatic religious experience every time they attend Mass. It’s like someone who gets married and expects every day of the marriage to be a beautiful scene from a romance novel. Sometimes it will be that, other times it will be grumpy spouse/ screaming kids/ laundry piles/ eating leftovers, and a whole lot of the time it will be just mundane but with the comfort of being together. That’s how Mass is.

 

[edward_george1]

In a great many cases it is more that they are on auto-pilot. They go through the motions exactly like they’ve done for years, cranking out the liturgical version of a McDonalds regular cheeseburger over and over.

Sometimes autopilot is the best I can do. You come try to run two rather active parish communities with a Mass schedule roughly equivalent to a large city parish, but with a tenth of the people and a tenth of the budget, and a quarter of the staff. In the next four days, I will offer Mass 12 times to accomodate the needs of my Anglo and Hispanic communities and to adjust for weather. I’m not complaining, not trying to be a martyr, but why don’t you walk a mile in my shoes before you criticize.

Yet another reason why it’s good that CAF is closing. The liturgy wars.

-Fr ACEGC

 

[MrsAngelala]

That depends. It can take a lot less money to be reverent and beautiful, if you look at it from the perspective that the church’s oldest and most beautiful music is copyright-free and freely available online. On the other hand, you’re unlikely to find someone who can teach or learn that music nowadays without a lot of education; in many cases that person will need to be compensated because they invested money in their education and it’s how they make their living. There are exceptions. I can handle chant because I had years of music education when I was younger, then a year of apprenticeship in older liturgical music under the choirmaster at Magdalen College; and I don’t need to be paid because my household runs off my husband’s income. But that’s unusual. And then there’s convincing the congregation that it wants beauty instead of flash, which is often a real battle. Liturgical music is really quite a complicated equation.

 

[edward_george1]

The weird irony of the Catholic Answers Forum is that the most crap I ever caught over how to do my job was from Catholics on a Catholic internet forum. It’s one thing if it’s your parishioners who see you on a weekly basis. It’s another thing if it’s strangers from a few time zones away opining about “how it ought to be.”

I get it, I used to be like that. When I was about 19, the age at which you knew everything, I had a pretty clear vision of what it was going to look like when I got to the priesthood, how I would do everything, how I would say Mass and administer the sacraments. When I actually got there and got some “combat experience” so to speak, I figured out that I was right about 20% of what I had projected was “how to be a priest,” 20% had to be modified extensively (people fail to realize how flexible the Church has always allowed the clergy to be when it comes to certain liturgical and canonical realities; the principle of charity seems not to ever find a hearing on internet forums), and the other 60% of what I projected was just completely wrong.

I should add, I’m what you might consider more “conservative” when it comes to liturgical preferences and how I govern my parish. I’m certainly theologically “conservative.” I hate using those political designations, but that’s what connects these days, unfortunately. I’m not one who’s opposed to rules and law and whatnot, I think they’re necessary, and not even all that difficult to follow most of the time, much as people will throw a tantrum about having to have godparents who actually practice the faith and other such things. But I also recognize that rigidity does not equal piety, and rigorism does not equal holiness.

 

[goout]

When I go to mass I want to participate in more than “serviceable” and “in a reasonable time”.
I want something wholly dedicated to God that I can participate in.

As we always said in the Army, “We train to standard, not to time”

The Mass should be the most beautiful thing in the week, or we should at least try to make it so. It is the highest form of prayer as the sacrifice. So I want to pray to standard, not to time. And praying to standard means beautiful liturgy, not “acceptable” liturgy.
[/quote]

What this is called is:
“An Offer to Volunteer in Parish Ministry”
Thank you for offering to serve and make your parish it’s best version.

 

[goout]

Thank you for the many smiles. I need smiles. I hope that is your vocation in life to make others smile. Reminds me that God is gentle and kind and long-suffering.

 

[snarflemike]

I was always taught that it is critical to the life and mission of the Church that she undergo continuous renewal.

 

[snarflemike]

Likewise, for those who say, first walk a mile in my shoes, I would suggest that they in turn might walk a mile in the shoes of their parishioners. It should work both ways, shouldn’t it?

 

[PracticallyCatholic]

Are your friends aware they may attend mass in many different Catholic settings of their choosing? They are not confined to a particular parish or even to a parish at all. They may also attend host of other churches depending on their particular circumstances at any given time. Perhaps they could find something to suit their particular tastes.

 

[MrsAngelala]

the most reverent and beautiful liturgies I’ve been to did not have some well paid professional but instead had someone who knew what they were doing doing it for free for the glory of God.

I have to say, I strongly object to this statement. I am a professional. And I do this for the glory of God, even though I do get paid a very little bit (I take home less than $200/month, and oh boy have I caught flak for even that much). If I were to be offered a salary, absolutely I would accept it. And I’d still be doing it for the glory of God.

In my part of the world, the perspective you voiced above is a huge, huge reason that the music in our churches is so bad. Equating free work with God’s glory is not just dangerous, but as we’ve seen it play out here, it is actually damaging - and unscriptural, c.f. 1Tim5:18.

Perhaps some research or first-hand experience is in order, because your comments show you do not have any idea how much knowledge is necessary to competently perform a leadership role in this ministry. To espouse the “ideal” that knowledge so expensive (dollar-wise) and costly (time- and relationship-wise) is somehow more pure or valuable to God or the Church when it is given away for free is irresponsible.

 

[Gorgias]

Agree, if the liturgy is truly where heaven and earth come together, we should make sacrifices to make that reality more palpable to the people in the pews.

So… why is your commentary, then, directed at the folks who put on liturgies, and not toward the folks who financially support them?

In the next four days, I will offer Mass 12 times to accomodate the needs of my Anglo and Hispanic communities and to adjust for weather.

Just three Masses a day? What in the world are you doing with the rest of your time??? What a slacker…

(Just kidding. But, to be honest, it’s a complaint heard at every parish: each priest is supposed to be working 24/7/365, and if he’s not celebrating Mass or “on duty” when someone comes looking for him, the response is usually “but… why not? what’s he doing?”)

Likewise, for those who say, first walk a mile in my shoes, I would suggest that they in turn might walk a mile in the shoes of their parishioners. It should work both ways, shouldn’t it?

You realize that they did, for the first twenty or thirty years of their lives, prior to their ordination… right?