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Spiller
Guest
I must be a liturgist in that case!! Only a few short minutes ago I thought I was only a “volunteer!”
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benedictgal
Guest
My work is volunteer. It’s funny. They’ll pay the cantor, the organist and the wedding coordinator, but, they won’t pay the person who actually has to execute things. But, even though the money certainly would help, I can only speak for myself when I say that I don’t need a check to validate what I do.
A lot of us (Spiller and others, I suppose) do these things on a volunteer basis. Now, after quite some time, our diocese finally has a priest who is in charge of the diocesan office of Divine Worship who’s got a pretty good grip on things. It’s a little easier now, although, some strange things have happened. The weirdest one was having a candle-lighting ceremony inserted in the middle of the First Holy Communion Mass for one of the diocesan schools (including the singing of This Little Light of Mine
). 
Occasionally, the superintendent still asks me to send her documents on the liturgy. We managed to finally knock out liturgical dance for the Catholic Schools Week Mass after a severn-year struggle. But, there are still some other hurdles to overcome.
The previous diocesan director of divine worship (another priest with a PhD in liturgy) started off okay. We worked in tandem with each other; however, he started to delegate most, and then, 99.9% of the work to me (this wasn’t the first rector of the Catherdal, by the way; he was very supportive and was willing to roll up his sleeves). I remember being called late at night to do a last-minute order of worship for the LOTH for the priests’ retreat and then have to take it all the way to the monastery because the priest never got a round to preparing anything.
Since then, I’ve had to step back because it got to be very exhausting, not to mention that I also hold a full-time job at a federally-funded program. I still plan liturgies once in a while, but, it’s not as stressful. The most fulfilling was planning Holy Week for one of the detention centers. Because of security reasons, I couldn’t attend, but, the priest was happy as were the inmates.
Stepping back for a spell has really helped me a lot. When I’m ready, I’ll go back full-throttle. In the meantime, with migraines and other things, it’s best to rest up a bit. That doesn’t mean, though, that I don’t care about how the liturgy is being conducted. As I noted earlier, I’ll still help out when called.
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Phemie
Guest
When I did some courses in Pastoral Liturgy a few years ago there were priests & seminarians taking the same courses I was. They were the first to tell us that they get very little of this subject in the seminary.Very true. There are some gifted liturgists (such as benedictgal)
But I think the real problem is that we need to make sure that our beloved priests are keeping up with their education regarding the Mass and the Faith.
I think that leaving it to the lay people takes some weight off the shoulders of the priests and the education of the Faith is falling to the lay people rather than to the priests. As you pointed out, the liturgist will have more knowledge than the priest. I don’t think that this is beneficial to the priest, at all.
I hope that this all makes sense.
It seems to be a North American thing. I remember the young Polish deacon who was in our parish. He trained back home and was appalled to learn that the two deacons who had trained in Canada & the US and were going to be ordained to the priesthood with him had no idea what it meant to be deacon – at least what it meant in practical terms. They were ordained deacons and then sent back to school, not to a parish, so when it came to liturgy they didn’t have a clue what they were supposed to do.
We have a pastor who refuses to read documents and is less than happy that several of us have actually done courses in liturgy. The former pastor was thrilled to have people who knew what they were talking about and wanted to follow the rules; the present one gives many homilies about the Pharisees & rules.
He gave a homily one day where he talked about a young couple who had come to him to prepare their wedding. They were living together and he was quite ok with it because they had started living together because they were students and it was cheaper. He pooh-poohed the idea of asking them to live apart until the wedding and brought up the Pharisees again.
So yes, in my parish a lay liturgist would be a blessing.
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Spiller
Guest
I don’t know…
A couple of courses and some reading doesn’t seem to be a liturgist to me. Depending on the person, it could be the beginning of a fairly big problem – as in a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.
I really don’t think the great majority of priests are ignorant of the rubrics of the Mass. I think a great many more simply don’t want to make the effort to reform things…
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Phemie
Guest
I certainly don’t have a degree in theology, but the courses I took led to a certificate in pastoral liturgy from St. Paul University School of Theology.
It was a hands-on program designed to train people to go back to their parishes and work in liturgy. The courses ran for 2 weeks each of 3 summers (125 hours). After the first year we were to implement something in our parishes. I opted to implement the Liturgy of the Hours which I had experienced twice a day during those first 2 weeks.
The practical parts of the course prepared us to lead liturgies if we ever had to, taught us how to choose music for various liturgies. They also taught us to go to the documents if we had any questions on how things should be done. They emphasized the parts of the CSL that called for Latin, Gregorian chant & organ and wondered why these things were being ignored.
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Spiller
Guest
OKWe have coordinators at my parish who completed correspondence degrees from LIMEX some years ago and now claim to have “masters in parish studies”
Sadly I am being serious…
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Phemie
Guest
There were students doing the same courses we did who were working on their BA. However, to have our courses count as credits towards their degree they had much more complex assignments based on what we had learned in class.
We have coordinators at my parish who completed correspondence degrees from LIMEX some years ago and now claim to have “masters in parish studies”
Sadly I am being serious…
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kbarr82
Guest
Usually water down the liturgy, strip it of any mystical or transcendent quality, and generally mess things up. A liturgist who respected the transcendence and beauty of traditional liturgical forms would be a breath of fresh air indeed. Poor quality of liturgical experiences is making me hesitate to remain in communion with the Catholic Church and enter the Orthodox Church. This is sad because in addition to not only the Tridentine Rite, the Catholic Church possesses many beautiful and timeless forms of liturgy that are simply ignored in contemporary American Catholicism. The liturgists would rather have pianos, guitars, and banal platitudes than provide a genuine, authentic, spiritual experience that worship is supposed to provide. Even with the changes coming to the Mass, I don’t see the situation getting any better. The Paul VI Mass is not heretical or invalid as groups like the SSPX claim. I have seen Novus Ordo masses that are barely distinguishable from the extraordinary form, with chanting, incense, etc. The old guard liturgists need to GO and turn their duties over to people who actually care about giving worthy worship to our God and feeding people’s souls and forming saints through the liturgy. Save the Liturgy, Save the world!
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roadsend
Guest
When I was growing up in the '40s and '50s, we had Masses free from liturgical abuse, excellent choirs singing authentically Catholic music in full churches, well planned out special events such as Holy Week, Confirmations, weddings and funerals. I never heard of a “lay liturgist” until the '70s or '80s.
How did we ever survive back then without lay liturgists?
How did we ever survive back then without lay liturgists?
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