You thought it was bad when overweight, middle-aged nuns in leotards gyrated through the church doing liturgical dance. But are you ready for the celebrant doing his imitation of the whirling Dervishes carrying the Book of the Gospels to the ambo? Someone put some lead weights in Father’s shoes.
This was part of a church architecture firm’s paean to all that is new and modern. Read the language in the description of the “wreck-ovation”: The original design’s focus “was on the the Tabernacle and the holy places were protected from the people by the Communion railing.” It makes it sound like the focus being on the tabernacle is bad thing. (“Of course it was. The focus should be on the celebrant instead!”) It also makes the people sound like a ravening mob ready to tear the holy places apart, or at least the facetious tone makes it sound like that was the Church’s thinking in the “old” designs.
Poor St. Nicholas Church, stripped of its former glory and turned into a modernist playground. Remind me never to hire Church Building Architects, Inc. for any project I’m involved with.
check out St. Mary’s http://www.churchbuilding.com/interactive/swf/html/st_marys.html
I have to admit that I laughed out loud upon seeing the priest twirling and dipping… until I realized that this is a Mass as normally understood by Catholics until about the 1970s. I did notice that they use incense… haven’t seen that around these parts in a long, long time. Saw a girl dying laughing in the background behind the priest. I think the baby boomers are the ones that push this stuff but the young kids will probably eschew it as soon as possible.
The second link to St. Mary’s…. is it a fish?
Anyhow, I am consoled by the fact that sooner or later, novelty wears off.
doing his imitation of the whirling Dervishes carrying the Book of the Gospels
Gosh it’s like they’re worshiping the book! And the kid gyrating with the processional candle (near the end of the clip)—that was the icing on the cake!
You have to watch the baptism video also! After the poor young man is baptized, the music they play sounds like something out of the Wizard of Oz. Ding dong, the witch is dead….
wow – that last video with the baby – wonder if Father got “baptized” if you know what I mean – babies being babies and all…..
This procession was well rehearsed; each member knew how to move and where to stand. All was synchronized to the music. It was not thrown together at the last minute but followed a pattern. Where does one go to learn liturgical dance, which, BTW, was and still is banned by the USCCB. The Bishops have expressly prohibited any and all forms of dancing in the Liturgy, yet remain silent as it spreads like a cancer throughout the church.
Seems to me this priest enjoyed being the center of attention – got lots of applause, too! Being center stage IS, of course, the issue here. The focus is shifted away from Christ and onto the “performance”. This ‘novelty’ is nothing more than an act of defiance. If Father “Light Step” can pack them in for this sham liturgy, he can call them to the confessional as well. In fact, Father should lead that procession as well.
The Gothic Door looked all right.
The rest looked like a Richard Vosko nightmare come to life.
The horror. The horror.
I would love to see the numbers on changes in their parish membership and vocations five years from now.
NATIONAL CONFERENCE OF CATHOLIC BISHOPS
(BISHOPS’ COMMITTEE on the LITURGY) NEWSLETTER.
APRIL/MAY 1982.
FROM THESE DIRECTIVES, from the NATIONAL CONFERENCE of CATHOLIC BISHOPS, all dancing, (ballet, children’s gesture as dancing, the clown liturgy) are not permitted to be “introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever.”
CONGREGATION FOR THE SACRAMENTS AND DIVINE WORSHIP IN 1975:
Dancing may be appropriate in Africa BUT: the same criterion and judgment cannot be applied in the western culture.
Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses: such dancing, in general, is not pure.
For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: that would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements; and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations.
Holy Cross in Worcester is undaunted, though. Not only do they have female lay minsters giving the homilies but they feature liturgical dance weekly.
http://holycross.blogs.com/first_year_diary/2004/09/13_september_20.html
The student’s diary reveals reason # 9,743,463 why not to send your Catholic child to any Jesuit instituion.
I have a hard enough time WALKING down the aisle with the Book in front of my face and my feet getting tangled in my alb. If I look like I’m dancing, it’s because I’m trying to catch my balance.