On Mediocre Liturgy

[Michie]

Some time ago, a friend of mine

introduced me to a wonderful bit of parody that begins:

Awake from your slumber!
Arise from your sleep!
The homily's over!
It wasn't too deep!

It brings to mind the old joke that the difference between a liturgist and a terrorist is that you can reason with a terrorist. Jokes are one of the last refuges of a people who have little power over The System. The Soviet Union was a wellspring of this sort of humor, as were, of course, the Jews of the Borscht Belt era. People who can't do a lot about the Powers That Be can still laugh at them.

So I thought it was a healthy sign when the mysterious domination of our hymnals by third-rate drivel was lampooned by the late, lamented Society for a Moratorium on the Music of Marty Haugen and David Haas. I neither know nor care who decides what twaddle we have to murmur through Mass, but I did appreciate the bleat of satire while it lasted.

There are a few things I find vile, loathsome, and dreadful in contemporary liturgy. I think much of the Glory and Praise drivel is essentially ordered toward encouraging what Amy Welborn calls the "Church of Aren't We Fabulous" to worship itself.

Continued- http://insidecatholic.com/Joomla/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4230&Itemid=48