Putting Catholic Men on Ritalin
SIT DOWN & SHUT UP
The lady cantor, in her polite intercom voice, intoned the dread phrase as she announced the final “song” of the Mass: “Please turn to song number 117 in your Breaking Bread hymnal. We will be using the alternate lyrics.”
Ah, yes: “Joy to the World.” Instead of “Let men their songs employ,” we have “Let us our songs employ.” The cantor had done the same with “Let There Be Peace on Earth”: from “Brothers all are we” to “We are a family.” I had to keep from laughing out loud as the voice of Barney singing those alternate lyrics resonated in my head.
This episode, and it was hardly the first, got me thinking: What exactly does the American Catholic mindset offer to its laymen?
To be blunt, it offers this: the opportunity to sit down and shut up.
Think about it. Unless your parish is unusual, the ratio skews female on Sundays and other holy days of obligation. Why is that?
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To all the people not theologically schooled, a definite message has been communicated about the meaning (or lack thereof) of the Eucharist.
Kneeling had always meant self-abnegation. To kneel in church was to blend in utterly, to be one more duck in a pond of ducks. Now I felt as if I were showing off.
In Church law, the communicant has the right to receive on the tongue or in the hand, and the further right to receive standing or kneeling.