When you talk to Catholics about the problem with mass, they really say the same thing all the time: the sermons and the music are terrible. The sermon is the main problem, and is often offensively dumb and bigoted, and the music is just bad. I had a brilliant idea: since everyone agrees about this – and I think that’s true, because literally I hear this comment on the order of fifty times a year, and I don’t even talk about this topic often – I figured, “let me start a campaign to tell this to the Archdiocese. Who knows, maybe something will happen! Maybe the clergy really don’t know what to do and would welcome an idea. And I bet I can get thousands, thousands of people to send emails! Maybe it’ll go viral!” It would be very easy to implement: all sermons have to be less than two minutes long (maybe three). This is an easily measured rubric, and to be honest no one ever remembers more than three minutes of any sermon ever anyway, so it really would be an improvement.
So I went to the homepage of the Archdiocese to find their “contact us” info – I figured I’d post it on Facebook – and of course, they have nothing of the sort. Their contact page is for journalists or people looking for records. It’s quite clear that they don’t care what we think. How atrocious. I mean, for Christ’s sake, even Halliburton has a decent and personable contact page. Literally.
“You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
9 Comments
In addition to the sermon, I’d like to add the Prayers of the Faithful. I find this often to be an awkward blend of genuine (i.e. remembrance of the recently deceased.) and disingenuous, often euphemistic, sentiment (i.e. coded reference to abortion, heterosexual marriage, capital punishment, etc.) At least the sermon comes from an identifiable representative of the church establishment and authority figure, whereas the intercessions seem handed off to an anyman from the congregation (who just happens to parrot the official Church teaching on controversial positions.)
You confuse this with a democracy. There is no constituency, just a flock. The shepherd does not poll his sheep…that being said, what happens when the flock stop heeding the shepherd’s call?
PB, I’m no fan of the Prayers of the Faithful myself – especially since Jesus specifically opposed that type of prayer – but I rarely hear others complain too much about it. I want to focus on one improvement – the sermon. And M.S., yes, it’s no democracy, but neither is Halliburton. Can’t they do at least as good a job – at least for p.r. reasons – interacting with people as Halliburton? (This is skipping the fact that the Greek word for “church,” ecclesia, is, in fact, the word for a democratic assembly, but again, let’s focus on one thing at a time.)
The length idea strikes me as producing slightly less annoying sermons. You’re not gonna win over the masses (ha!) with the same shit, but less of it. Also, I don’t think people mind a really good 4 minute homily.
I get that it’s measurable, etc., but the real problems are systemic and deep and basically insoluble ever.
As churches are funded by donations for a performance, the “sheperd-flock” relationship ought to be viewed as what it is: entertainer-audience. The church no longer have the authority to burn people at the stake; they need to put on a better show.
Matt, I agree the problems are systemic – in fact, it’s precisely the system which is the problem – but I think it’s indisputable that it’s precisely the system – namely, the priests – which are most in danger. Once change starts, it is likely to happen quickly – once the dam is broken, the lake empties pretty quickly. And the “entertainer-audience” model does depend on the existence of a priesthood.
As for questions of whether this will work – “this is just the same, only less of it” – I have in mind a parish in New Orleans with a giant building which was empty for its Sunday morning masses and packed for the 5 p.m. because there was no music at all, an incisive “this priest actually gets Christianity” two minute sermon, and everyone was out by 5:28.
About Bach in Leipzig: “The Sunday services began at 7a.m, with a motet, hymns, and an organ voluntary. The cantata, usually lasting about 20 minutes, preceded the hour-long sermon, or if the cantata was in two parts, it came before and after the sermon. The main service finished at about mid-day, after which there followed a communion service. ”
If we try to make liturgy as short as possible, we are implicitly expressing that we think the liturgy is bullshit and should be cropped as much as possible. That is, of course, true. But it shouldn’t be true.
I also find it odd that you seem to approach politics ideologically and liturgy pragmatically. That’s almost definitonally wrong, sin’t it?
May as well:
“Next to the word of God,” wrote Luther, “only music deserves being extolled as the mistress and governess of Human feelings. And when music is sharpened and polished by art, then one begins to see with amazement the great and perfect Wisdom of God in his wonderful work of harmony.”
Approaching liturgy pragmatically does not strike me as a problem. It has no purpose if it does not work for human beings. “The service was made for man, not man for the service.” As for politics, I’m pragmatic there too, but with one caveat: there the goal of justice for all sometimes conflicts with the career of the decision-maker. I don’t believe that the decision-maker’s career is the proper measure of political pragmatism.
And as for Mr. Luther, what is the role of music in church when it is NOT “sharpened and polished by art”? The number of times that I go to church and “see with amazement the great and perfect Wisdom of God in his wonderful work of harmony” is so low that I’m not sure it even gets a column in the calculations.
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