Whilst the TV religion was going on, I was at an undisclosed location attending Midnight Mass. I am, fortunately, on good terms with many of those who lead worship at that place, and have had this conversation with them, so I don't want anyone to think that I am moaning (or miowing) behind people's backs, because I'm not.
What really gets my claws up about Christmas, and the Midnight Mass is this seemingly worrying proposition that it has to be accompanied by a setting of Haydn or Mozart. I'm not against this at masses, don't get me wrong, but why on Christmas Eve.
I'll illustrate the point.
For some reason, it was decided that there would be a full penitential rite - so the choir would sing the Kyrie. As soon as the president had given absolution, we were stood up for the Gloria - all five minutes of it.
By the time we got to 'Laudamus Te', most of the congregation couldn't work out what was going on.
The readings passed, the sermon (all seven minutes) was very good. Lots of smoke at the offertory, and then on to the Sanctus....and Benedictus. I looked around at my fellow congregants. They looked bemused, half bored and half confused, a few more than half cut. They've come to sing O Come, all ye faithful, Silent Night, Away in a manger et al, and to hear that God love them, and to hear the choir sing some festive treats. After the ten minutes of Sanctus and Benedictus, we kneel for the rest, getting up at the communion. Except nothing happens whilst the choir sing Agnus Dei - that goes on for six minutes. Once we get told to go up for communion, the choir disappear to the outer wilderness to sing Britten's Hymn to the Virgin and another carol that was so depressing, I asked Mrs Cat whether we should go off and join the Romans - they know how to do a good Mass.
Now, I'm not saying we should devalue the sacrifice of the Mass, or butcher the beauty of holiness by culling great masterworks from the repertory, but we do need to contextualise liturgy and the music offered in it. We want to hear a choir sing joyously of the birth of Christ, whilst not leaving a congregation of half-soaked (and mostly) once-a-year-ers feeling left out, out of their depth, asking themselves why they bothered to come. I'm not a popularist, and I don't like pandering - but I do think that a trick was missed at this service: in presenting a liturgy that was bloated like a poor christmas pudding, rather than something that contained a few novelties, a cracker, and indeed a good one-liner, people were less inclined to want to come. I'd be interested to get some feedback as to what you all think - I'm not saying that I'm right; it maybe that certain places can pull this stuff off better, or that we need to gain a better understanding of contextualising music and liturgy. Anyways, I'd appreciate rational (and polite) comments on this.
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