The wages o f change
Carberry, Mary Margaret
THE LAST WORD THE WAGES OF CHANGE Mary Margaret Carberry W ith as wicked a grin as such a kindly person could produce, a choir-member friend told me: "Just wait, Mary Margaret, until...
...We seem to be forgetting that the term catholic means universal, all-encompassing...
...Did they find a more warm and welcoming home in the church as it was than in their former affiliations...
...She didn't believe so...
...God forbid that we should unwittingly ever be led to that...
...Does anyone ever stop to think that people may well be attracted to the church because of what it already is, and what its centuries-old culture is...
...Well, will you have tom-toms...
...So there's the rub...
...Or is satisfaction with our own Catholic culture becoming some sort of prideful new sin...
...So perhaps these days we need to be a little more pro "Catholic culture" and less enthusiastically change-for-change'ssake-oriented...
...He had come to the conclusion, he said, that the changes growing out of Vatican II were for the most part good and beneficial...
...That, at least, ought to be mentioned, recognized, and respected in the sometimes confusing, high-speed cultural sweeps of the nineties...
...In his retirement sermon, my former pastor made what I thought was a wonderfully wise observation...
...This was not just a pain of older Catholics either, as some too readily suggest...
...Back in those shifting sixties, there was nothing my little boy wanted more than to have a missal like mine with the Latin and English side by side...
...I gave him one for his First Communion, and he was proud and happy to have it to bring to church with him...
...Mary Margaret Carberry is a free-lance essayist from the Chicago area who publishes light verse as Mary Margaret Milbrath...
...THE LAST WORD THE WAGES OF CHANGE Mary Margaret Carberry W ith as wicked a grin as such a kindly person could produce, a choir-member friend told me: "Just wait, Mary Margaret, until you hear the Indian war chant we are going to begin using for the Alleluia before the Gospel...
...Within a couple of years, however, Latin was out...
...We are the Christ-inspired "Catholic culture" ourselves, aren't we...
...And when I heard it, the chant indeed seemed fairly ordinary musically and quite acceptable religiously, although it did run on about three alleluias too long...
...Sometimes it is very difficult, very hard on the heart, to be openly critical of things so well meant but nonetheless so sorethumbish in the eyes of many prayerful beholders...
...Out and gone...
...Were they drawn by the respectful quiet of a low Mass without music, or the splendid beauty of a Solemn High Mass...
...She was giving me the warning because I do not always leap with enthusiasm over the liturgical innovations that continue to be thrust upon us just when we hope that things have settled down...
...So much for that dollop of multiculturalism...
...The best way to maintain the family home with its happy, comforting ambiance of love, memory, and dreams still to fulfill is not usually to throw out all the furnishings, tear it down, and begin building all over...
...Did they want to be part of the deeply felt personal embrace of the church's prayerful practices, from the rosary to the stations to benediction...
...Or, more seriously, "Do you suppose this new idea that seems so Protestant actually came from one of the recent converts on the Liturgy Committee...
...But at the same time, we are—as faith and the Spirit have made us—both a simple and complex centuries-old blend of belief and tradition...
...But there was a downside, he added...
...We could use more of the warm radiance of benediction, not the inharmonious, sharp slap sound of high-fives being offered by a mod-minded celebrant as signs of peace...
...So I think there is another really basic question here: Should the church now keep changing for the converts, or should the converts change for the church...
...Gradual change, a more lovingly-guided evolution, would have been better for him and, I believe, for all of us...
...The problem is, though, that I often wonder if we are not overdoing the culture-assimilating, ceremony-changing bit, and not only in music...
...Possibly, of course, the quirky new ceremonial addition really came from a "cradle Catholic" who is just thrilled to have an opportunity to be creative on the newly enlarged and open stage of the altar...
...I always thought that the church—with Christ's arms opened to embrace everyone, with its mission to "teach all nations"—had the lock on universality, on multiculturism if you want to see it that way...
...Commonweal 31 July 16,1999...
...He was hurt by it...
...Once in a while we need to remind ourselves that what we are at this moment is pretty fine...
...For the faith...
...The thrusters don't seem to recognize the inspiration and comfort many of us still derive from the long-loved traditional elements of our Catholic ceremonial heritage...
...I responded with a nonchalant jocularity, refusing to be baited into more of a reaction than a simple raised eyebrow...
...If not, why were they changing...
...Frequently I hear long-time Catholics comment, "I certainly wish that on Sundays we would sing more of the hymns we grew up with...
...Too many things were changed too quickly, bringing distress and confusion to people who were afraid the comfort and stability of longstanding traditions were being stolen from them...
...Did converts originally, perhaps, feel the pull of the church's mystique as exemplified in the tone of its sacred music and the dignity of its symbolism...
Vol. 126 • July 1999 • No. 13
