Don’t give me my baby boomer father’s Mass. Please!
That’s the plea of one University of Notre Dame student, who recently suffered through a “progressive” Mass that featured several stale Sixties-era pop anthems as “liturgical music.”
Here is the student’s account of attending the Mass, as posted on Ignatius Insight’s Scoop blog:
“Two Sundays ago we had guest musicians for Mass from Holy Cross College: a roughly fifty year old piano and electric (!) guitar man with a roughly 20 year old percussionist/crappy singer. At first I figured they would do praise and worship songs; not great but whatever. Oh no, I could not have been more wrong. I am not making the following up:
Entrance: Jesus is Just Alright with Me (Doobie Brothers)
Offertory: Morning Has Broken (Cat Stevens)
Communion: People Get Ready (Rod Stewart)
Recessional: Spirit in the Sky (One Hit Wonder)
“Truly bizarre. Of course it was completely offensive, non-liturgical, etc. But what was (to me) fascinating is the 50 year old lead man: he actually believes he is making the faith relevant by using such music. Can you imagine being a college student, attending Mass at Holy Cross, and hearing your baby boomer parent’s type of music being played at Mass? Run for the hills.
“When we got home I immediately put on some renaissance polyphonic chant on the principle that when someone has been force feeding you stale Budweiser the best cure is a fine wine.”
In order to help Daily Blog readers sample the flavor of the 50-year-old’s musical Mass selections, we’ve posted a vintage “Spirit in Sky” video below. We’ll let you make your own judgments about the tune’s suitability as liturgical music.
— Tom McFeely