Putting Catholic Men on Ritalin
SIT DOWN & SHUT UP
The lady cantor, in her polite intercom voice, intoned the dread phrase as she an-nounced 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?
You May Also Enjoy
The charismatic quest for paranormal experiences of God is also a contrived pseudo-communion of ecstatic emotional dissolution.
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.
There is a group in the Church that has noticed your smooth transition to the new missal — and is still peeved about the whole thing.