Mass Review #4

Last weekend we decided to travel north and visit a little country church that we'd passed many times, but hadn't realized that it was Catholic.  It looks rather Methodist to me, at least from the outside.  Although the church doesn't have a "real" website, they do have a page that describes their music director as "Director of Sacred Music" so of course I got my hopes up.

Although we could see the church from the highway, there was a curious circuitous (say that fast three times) route to the building.  The church was even smaller than it appeared from the highway.  As we made our way to the pew, I noticed that this place was obviously painted by the same company that painted my "former" parish interior.  The interior always bothered me, because the selection of colors seemed random, the designs were random, and the quality of the job appeared inferior. Note to all people hoping to get into the church decorating business: every part of a church should have a theological meaning.  Churches are not decorated to "look pretty." Those ivy designs that you stenciled on the walls? Meaningless. 

This paint scheme should look terribly familiar to some local folks. 

Not shown: the yellow and "liturgical blue" stripes.

There was a hymn board so naturally I looked up each number to see what we'd be subjected to: 1st hymn: standard Easter hymn.  Check. Preparation: crap. Communion: crap. Recessional: crap. Well, one out of four ain't bad.....except that the Gather hymnal had changed the words to the standard Easter hymn.  Crap.

Next came the Gloria.  Whaaat?  Syncopated chromatic garbage.  Who sings this stuff anyway? Not the congregation.  (Nota bene: syncopated chromatic pieces are just fine outside of Mass.)

Fast forward to the homily.  The celebrant was the full-time vocations director of the diocese.  I had a feeling it would be good, so I started recording; we were not disappointed.  The homily was quite excellent and inspiring, and I hope to transcribe it someday soon.

As far as church interiors go, I've already discussed the paint.  The Stations and statues were quite small, but nice.  The tabernacle was in the center as they all should normally be, but the entire thing was veiled.  I'd like to see at least a little bit of gold, you know, just to make sure that the box isn't made of cardboard or graham crackers or something (no offense intended to Our Lord, but these days, one can take nothing for granted.)

The church gets an A+ for having a Vatican City flag.  I think all Catholic churches should be required to have one.  For some folks, this might be the equivalent of having hot coffee thrown in one's face, but Mary is not sympathetic.

No offense to these dear people, but I'm scratching this one off the list.  If we travel just a few more minutes north, we can enjoy a liturgically excellent church with mostly good music and an excellent organist.