{"id":635,"date":"2008-05-18T23:59:56","date_gmt":"2008-05-18T23:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-bit-o-heresy.html"},"modified":"2008-05-18T23:59:56","modified_gmt":"2008-05-18T23:59:56","slug":"a-bit-o-heresy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-bit-o-heresy.html","title":{"rendered":"A bit ‘o heresy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was thinking this at Mass on Saturday evening.
\nI was thinking about how the celebrant\u00a0at Mass, after he starts a prayer off – say the Credo <\/em>or the Lord’s Prayer – shuts off his microphone, oh so subtley, so that he doesn’t overwhelm. He got us going – job done. Let’s pray together.
\nThen I was thinking about cantors.
\nBut then I couldn’t think. Because I COULDN’T HEAR MYSELF. OR ANYONE ELSE.
\n(And yeah, I should have been praying. But there was this guy. And he was so…loud. His loudness didn’t focus me. It sort of entered my head and made whatever was in there explode and scatter all over the place.)
\nGod bless them. Really. Because God bless anyone who gives of their precious time to serve God through ministry at the liturgy. I’m not kidding. <\/em>
\nBut honestly. I’ve never understood how cantors in Catholic churches help the cause of We Are The People\u00a0 Actively Participating. On paper, perhaps. But in reality, I’m not so sure.
\n(And I know there was a really good article about this in Sacred Music<\/a> a while back, but I can’t locate it. If you can, please point it out to me, and I’ll link. Update: <\/span>Thanks to a commentor – here it is.<\/a> )
\nOh, did you think that was the heresy?
\nWell, it’s not.
\nThe heresy is…
\n(ducks)
\nI am starting to think the same thing about organs<\/em>
\n(ducks even lower)
\nThe reason: I can pinpoint the moment. It was Holy Thursday two years ago. Some of you might know that after the Gloria <\/em>on Holy Thursday, there is not supposed to be any more musical accompaniment in Mass until Easter Vigil. A Capella <\/em>is the word.
\nIn our parish we have a gorgeous organ and an extremely talented organist. Perfection. But that evening, after the Gloria – I believe it happened during the Responsorial Psalm – when the church filled with…just the voices of the people present, something I had never heard in that building before except as just the slightest, scattered points of sound underneath the organ – I was deeply moved in a way that I had never been before.
\nI say that with hasty and sincere appreciation for all accompanists out there (appropriate following a post on piano recitals) – but I do wonder…in terms of worship and sacred music..what is the proper balance?
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was thinking this at Mass on Saturday evening. I was thinking about how the celebrant\u00a0at Mass, after he starts a prayer off – say the Credo or the Lord’s Prayer – shuts off his microphone, oh so subtley, so that he doesn’t overwhelm. He got us going – job done. Let’s pray together. Then…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nA bit 'o heresy - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/05\/a-bit-o-heresy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A bit 'o heresy - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was thinking this at Mass on Saturday evening. I was thinking about how the celebrant\u00a0at Mass, after he starts a prayer off – say the Credo or the Lord’s Prayer – shuts off his microphone, oh so subtley, so that he doesn’t overwhelm. He got us going – job done. Let’s pray together. 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I was thinking about how the celebrant\u00a0at Mass, after he starts a prayer off – say the Credo or the Lord’s Prayer – shuts off his microphone, oh so subtley, so that he doesn’t overwhelm. He got us going – job done. Let’s pray together. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}