When Hymns fall apart

Although I've been a choir member for many years I've only been a cantor for two--and I still hate it. Well, "hate" isn't really what I mean. What I mean is that it still causes me extreme stress. It's kind of like stage freight but not really. Even after a good performance, I am happy it is over until the next time. But, when I have a particularly bad performance, like last Sunday, I wonder why I put myself through this torture.

Actually, I thought I was prepared for the mass on Sunday. I knew the psalm and the gospel acclamation; the hymns were familiar and, although the mass parts were different this week, they weren't new, I'd sung them all before. The opening hymn went fine. The Kyrie was spoken and I started out singing the "Gloria" by John Bell quite normally. However, something went wrong mid-song and I found myself singing a different pitch than the organ was playing. A note about this Gloria: I learned it singing the tenor part which is not the melody line. So while singing it as a cantor, there a couple of places I have to watch out for where I tend to slip into the tenor part without knowing it. This didn't happen but it was in one of those spots that the song went to hell. It's pretty embarrassing knowing you're singing off pitch but not finding your way back to pitch. Finally I had a full measure rest where I could grab onto the pitch the organ was playing and finished the Gloria pretty much OK.

But it threw me.

I was confident on the psalm and sang it OK EXCEPT, I got ahead of the organ and had to wait for it to finish a passage before I could continue; annoying the congregation. I don't remember much of the Gospel acclamation but think it went all right. During the Gospel and the Homily, the two readers on the altar with me studiously avoided looking at me drenched, as I was, in failure.

The offertory hymn and the two communion hymns were unremarkable but not disasters and I thought I was going to at least go out with a winner with the recessional psalm but somehow, on the second to last line, my eyes skipped to the last line and well, it took me almost the whole line to recover.

After the mass I beat a hasty retreat but not hasty enough to avoid one of my non-choir friends and two fellow choir members who happily acknowledged my goofs. One of the choir members is also a cantor and she seemed to enjoy my failure just a little bit.

OK, so I have another chance to redeem myself in September so I'd better start practicing and burning that Gloria into my head. OR I could quit this mess (but that would be real failure.)

Chain letter Catholics

There are people who have a very fundamental--almost childlike--relationship with their religion. Many of them choose to express this relationship with bumper stickers. One of my all-time favorites is: "In the event of the Rapture, this car will be unmanned" which I presume means that the vehicle will have its testicles removed but I may be missing the point. Another group of impaired believers sends you chain email messages. Most of these messages involve some miraculous...something that you're supposed to send along to ten friends. When you do within some specified amount of time you get something really great in return.

If you are Catholic you know one of these people. Rather than hurt their feelings (they're generally nice well-meaning people with the intellectual capacity of a 4th grader) you just delete their emails and say nothing. These same people might also forward you things about illegal aliens, President Obama's alien love child and other things they've learned about on Fox News which you may discourage them from sending in the future but the religious crap...er stuff you just let slide.

Today, the woman who sends me...er, stuff sent me this picture.

See if you can find Jesus in this picture. (If you can't, you're going straight to Hell.) Find him? Great! Who else do you see in this picture? I also see Darth Vader and a pussycat and possibly Henri Rousseau's "Sleeping Gypsy". I don't know if seeing other things gets you any holy bonus points but since the email didn't tell me not to look for other things I'm betting yes. You may see other things too, but if you see Jesus, you're golden.

OK, you caught me cheating. If you're reading this and finding Jesus, I have performed the required task of the email (in spirit, if not to the letter). Since this was not my intention when I started writing, I'm presuming that God, Almighty, Himself, inspired this. Good, because I have many spiritual needs which should be obvious to anyone reading this blog. I just hope there is no Rapture bumper sticker on my car when I get ready to go home because frankly, I don't think GEICO covers me for that.

Also, I don't think that's a strictly Catholic teaching. I'll have to remember to ask the monsignor. He'll know. Word!

Hi HO Silver, Away

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear"

Every time the monsignor steps up to the ambo, this phrase goes through my head. Actually I think he intended to talk about the current controversy surrounding what Pope Benedict knew or didn't know about the pedophile priests but somehow got distracted from this topic (or thought better of it) and launched into his ongoing lesson, The History of the Catholic Church in North Carolina, instead.

I suppose when you've been a priest for 50 years you don't sweat your homily; figuring that you'll think of something when the moment arrives. Occasionally, Monsignor will bring something with him that he wants to refer to but usually, he can do 15 minutes or longer without notes. He will begin a homily with a topic sentence and usually manages to wrap up by referring to that topic even if nothing in the middle went with it at all.

This past Sunday what his homily ended up being about was how to properly take communion and how the process evolved from the good old days--which he didn't remember quite as fondly as he usually does--to where we are now and how it is JUST AS REVERENT to received in the hand as on the tongue, provided you do it right. And for God's sake, don't mumble Amen!

There was a short digression about how the bishops can trace their power back to St. Peter which happily he truncated and only went back as far as Bishop Begley, first bishop of the Diocese of Charlotte. Monsignor was involved in the creation of the Charlotte Diocese of which he likes to remind us. I *think* this was somehow connected to his abandoned defense of the Pope but to be honest, my mind wandered.

I like to rib the monsignor but I can't really tell if he has a sense of humor (about himself) at all. Even though his views on Catholicism are deeply rooted in the past he has a very clear and fairly detailed memory. If anyone plans to write a dissertation on the history of the Catholic Church in North Carolina, they would be wise to get the monsignor on tape as soon as possible. In the meantime, catch him most Sundays, 10AM mass, at OLG.

Holy Week Woes

As the Church enters the most important week of the liturgical year it is beset, yet again, with charges of sexual abuse and this time, it looks like Pope Benedict had knowledge of it and chose to either do nothing about it or keep it under wraps. At the moment the Church is fighting back against the allegations made by the New York Times

As a cradle Catholic, frequently asked by non-Catholic friends to explain what the heck is going on, here's the way I look at it. In any hierarchical organization, people in power are going to abuse that power and when that happens, people above them are going to try to keep it quiet. When that fails, as it always ultimately does, a shit storm results. However, the difference between, oh say, Richard Nixon's failings and those charged against Pope Benedict is that there is no way for Benedict to quietly retire back to Munich and get the Church's equivalent of Jerry Ford to take over.

As we've seen in the squabble over health care in the U. S., the majority of U.S. Catholic Bishops have sold their souls to the Republican Party so I wouldn't be the least surprised if Bishops and Archbishops world wide weren't just as reactionary. This, just as much as the good he did is also part of John Paul II's legacy.

So what do we do about it? Leave the Church? Not likely, too much time and effort invested in this organization. Complain loudly? Uh, always have, always will. Become like the majority of Catholics and just quietly fade away? Somebody has to stand up to the idiots, both lay and ordained who think they know the will of God when plainly, they don't.

And while we're on the subject, you might re-consider that whole chastity condition and let normal people with normal sexual desires into the club. Then maybe the Church wouldn't be any worse than Congress.


I do like the nickname Pope Benedict acquired as a Cardinal: "Rottweiler Ratzinger".

Let him without sin edit the first line

Last Sunday we had the classic "woman caught in adultery" gospel. Everybody knows this story so we all know the lines and can recite them along with the priest. But the lines aren't the lines anymore because somebody (and you know who you are even if we don't) CHANGED THEM, and not for the better. For example:

“Let the one among you who is without sin
be the first to throw a stone at her.”

How does that compare with the classic: "Let him without sin cast the first stone"? OK, it's more grammatically correct but it sure lacks punch. Later in the gospel, Jesus says:

"Go, and from now on do not sin any more"

WHAT? How is that better than "Go and sin no more"? It isn't. And for us old timers it's like changing a classic speech from a Shakespeare play: "I see some soft light coming from a window which I presume belongs to Juliet who is a very pretty girl." or a classic movie: "do you think that today might be your lucky day, do you think so, young man?" see, you probably didn't even recognize that classic Dirty Harry speech.

Last year I was stunned when they changed Jesus' line "Render unto Caesar.." with something totally forgettable (see I already forgot it). What if Obi Wan Kenobi suddenly started saying: "Luke, employ the mysterious power that binds all things together commonly referred to as 'the force' "

If you want to do something to clean up the Bible, please, SOMEBODY go through Paul's letters and rework those long run-on sentences he's so fond of. If anyone is up to the challenge, can we replace those incomprehensible pastoral analogies with something more meaningful to modern audiences? Frankly, most of us don't even know the difference between sheep and goats so it's unlikely we'd be able to shepherd them properly, or at all.

Out of the (Freakin') Blue

You've all read about them. People who die in what seems like the most random and utterly unexpected ways that makes you question whether these deaths were really random at all. Take the latest example.

Poor 38-year-old Robert Gary Jones of Woodstock, Ga was jogging on the beach at Hilton Head, probably enjoying the sea air as it filled his lungs with salty goodness; listening to tunes on his iPod. I'm going to guess that he was probably digging some classic rock, maybe AC/DC cranked up nice and loud. Maybe he was singing along:
"She was a fast machine. She kept her motor clean. She was the best damned woman..."

All of a sudden there is this huge shadow obliterating his shadow but before he can turn to look, BAM, he is crushed by a plane making an emergency landing. I'm also guessing that it was over pretty quick.

So, I imagine a conversation between the Almighty and some underling, let's say St. Peter:

God: Yo, Shorty (somebody told me Peter was Aramaic for Shorty. ed) this woman has been bugging me for some help with a rather embarrassing personal problem and well...you know.

Peter: Yeah, I know you hate to use miracles when other solutions are available.

God: I'm sure it's something that could be cured with a pill or an herb. What are the Graedons up to right now?

Peter: Uh, let's see. I believe they're taping a show.

God: Hmm, no sense in bothering them. What else we got?

Peter: Give me a second. We've got a doctor in Boise, a research chemist in Smolensk, a retired pharmacist in Buenos Aires, a pharmaceutical salesman in Hilton Head, an herbalist in Wuhan a...

God: Wait...the pharma guy

Peter: You mean the pharmacist?

God: No, he's too old, the other guy, the salesman in Hawaii.

Peter: He's in Hilton Head, not Hawaii

God: Whatever. Get him.

Peter: He's only 38, has a family, young daughter. You sure you want him?

God: Yeah. Look, I'll make it up to him--family too.

Peter: OK, you're the boss. How you want to do it?

God: Quick...and painless if you can do it but mostly quick.

Peter (Making last minute adjustments). Right-o, he'll be in here in two shakes.

God: Thanks. Oh, what was his name again?

Peter: Robert, likes to be called Bobby. Here he is.

Old Testament confusion

Sometimes I envy the congregation as their minds go either off or elsewhere when we lay readers step to the ambo to read our assigned reading. Who can blame them?

Take, for example, this Sunday's reading from Genesis. I wasn't scheduled to read this Sunday but my fellow-reader, Mark L. conned me into switching with him. So, it'll be up to me to figure out just what the heck is going on in the first reading from Genesis.

God tells Abram (he's not Abraham yet, that comes later) that He is giving the land of the Canaanites to Abram and all his descendants (more numerous than the stars in the skies etc.) forever. I'm guessing it's the land of the Canaanites since they are the ones who frequently get dumped on in the bible. Abram, obviously a skeptic; not willing to take God's word for it (?!) wants to know how he will know it is his. This is where the story goes off the track for modern people (and those of us who have to read it to them). It involves slicing open a variety of animals (but not the birds for some reason) and then something happens with lamps or something. After all this, Abram is convinced. The word of the Lord.

Chances are that none of the priests will mess with this story since they have the Gospel reading of the Transfiguration to talk about. The Transfiguration is pretty cool and not just because the apostles sound like they've been smoking something that makes them see long dead prophets who aren't really there. There is a really great mosaic of the Transfiguration in St. Peter's in Rome based on a painting by Raphael who, as we are led to believe, also enjoyed a variety of mind-altering substances.

Anyway, my point is that a lot of the Old Testament is completely baffling to modern audiences, obsessed as it is with sacrificing a barnyard of critters; splashing their blood over altars and burning them to cinders. Presumably, God enjoyed this immensely before walking a mile in our sandals in the person of Jesus. For Christians the Old Testament is one long preface to the coming of Jesus but for the Jews, this is all they have. I hope they make more sense out of it.

Fish on Fridays

A few moments ago I finished a very lovely tuna sandwich. I prepared the tuna this morning in the usual way (chunk light tuna, mayo, Wickles relish, sliced Spanish olives and a tiny touch of dry French Onion soup mix) and when lunchtime rolled around I assembled my sandwich at work. This evening will be frozen premium Tilapia fish fillets (buy-one-get-one at HT) either baked or fried and whatever else suits my fancy. Fish on Friday is a year-around thing at our house, not just during Lent.


And speaking of fish on Friday, if you've never read one of Mark Kurlansky's fascinating books there are two I heartily recommend: Salt and Cod. Mark's books tell about how simple things like salt and cod made a huge impact on the lives of regular people.

Back in the middle ages when the Church told people they should abstain from eating meat on Fridays (not just during Lent) people abstained. This created a big demand for fish but, back then, if you didn't live near the sea, the fish that you got was something less than fresh. The enterprising Basques came up with a solution--two solutions actually.

First, as sailors with little fear of venturing far from land ended up off the Grand Banks where cod practically jumped into their boats. This mild tasting white fish was highly prized but while catching it was easy, bringing it fresh to market was a different story. This is where salt came in. Salting cod kept it edible for long periods of time allowing the Basques to sell their catches in the ports of Europe. It was cheap so peasants could afford it and salt cod became part of national cuisines. The Italians, French, Spanish and many others still use salt cod in their recipes even though fresh cod is available thanks to refrigeration.

If you're interested in trying salt cod some Friday, there are dozens of recipes on line. Here is a link to one http://is.gd/9ghEm

Don't Let the Title Fool You

I've always wanted a stage from which I could promote my heretical views, belittle clergy and question the meaning of existence and thought this would be it, but alas, too many years of Catholic guilt-loading for that to happen.

So what will appear here is a lot of drivel and very little having to do with theology or Communism; although, the early church had quite a lot in common with Communism. Of course, they were expecting Jesus to come back any minute and when He didn't, the novelty of sharing and sharing alike wore off pretty quickly and by then, all of Judea was in revolt and it wouldn't be long before the emperor, Vespasian, would fulfill Christ's prophecy by destroying the Temple in Jerusalem and just for the heck of it, besieging Masada--but that is another story and one that belongs to the Jews, not us.



I was thinking about this past Sunday's Gospel reading, "the Temptations of Christ". Monsignor tried to answer the obvious question (the one nobody but me was asking): if Christ was alone in the wilderness who would know about the temptations? Monsignor suggested that Jesus probably told the apostles one drunken evening when Thomas was telling one of his long boring stories about his wife's terrible cooking. "If you think that's bad, listen to this." Jesus, probably began. OK, Monsignor said nothing of the kind but that's how I imagined it. It reminded me of the time I tried to read Jim Crace's book "Quarantine" which was another imagining of the Temptations.

I heard about this book on NPR. Commentator, Bret Anthony Johnston, really, really liked this book. He said he read it every year and how the language was eloquent etc. I wrote down the title in my pda and looked for it; finding it eventually in the UNCG library. Maybe I was prepared for something far different (maybe too much build-up) but I barely got through half of it before I had to put it down. And here's the kicker, I don't remember why I found it so unreadable, but I did.

Maybe you should read it and tell me what I missed.