C
Cat
Guest
I agree with you that a song is not a logical reason to decide against Catholicism.
But we’re not talking logic here. We’re talking about a wounded man (we were kicked out of our Protestant church) going to a church without his even-more wounded wife (me, who couldn’t bring myself to go to ANY church for a year after we were kicked out because I was afraid of more hurtful mistreatment). We’re talking about this wounded man seeking solace in a place that all his life he had been taught is NOT a Church of Christ. And we’re talking about this wounded man who, at that point, wasn’t studying Catholicism or knew anything about Catholicism other than what he had gleaned from Jack T. Chick tracts.
A piece of music will often appeal not to the mind, but to the heart. That’s why so many people on CAF love Gregorian chant in Latin, and polyphonic pieces in Latin. Most of them don’t know Latin and wouldn’t understand what is being sung unless they have a translation (or learned a translation when they were growing up). This traditional-style music appeals to their very heart and emotions, and recalls precious memories of a wonderful growing-up in a Church where everything was in order, mysterious, reverent, beautiful, and orthodox, and where all the music was in Latin and done by a well-trained choir and organist.
I can understand that. Can you not understand why an evangelical Protestant, who grew up in a friendly, loving, and godly church that routinely made use of pianos, guitars, and drums, would find this same kind of music stirring and welcoming in a Catholic Church?
Once my husband decided that this was the true Church, he and eventually I studied for two years, and read all kinds of books, ancient and contemporary, and talked to hundreds of people, and spent a lot of time reading threads on CAF, and attended as many Catholic conferences as we could drive to, before we made the huge decision to convert from evangelical Protestantism to Catholism.
Music was never really a consideration. We knew that in becoming Catholic, we were giving up a rich heritage of beautiful gospel songs and contemporary Christian music, as well as the large variety of styles that are used without criticism in Protestant worship services. We knew we would miss it, and that we would probably continue listening to this kind of music on our own time, since we wouldn’t hear it in Masses. We knew that neither of us cared for chant of any kind (and 8 years later, we still don’t care for it).
But we would never give up Jesus and/or His True Church for the sake of music. And we will obey whatever our Church tells us to do in regards to music in the Mass.
So much of our Easter vigil was beautiful, but not that moment.