137/365 Learning via Repitition

We’ve talked about this at a number of meetings and gotten input from everyone.

As I mentioned before, let’s plan on not singing the Alleluia after the Gospel once Ordinary Time begins, but saving it for the more festive seasons of the year.
--Fr. Miguel

I wrote him back, just him, not to Lynn, and thanked him for bringing it to a close. He said he was restating what he'd already said, so that maybe she'd eventually see this was the way it was going to be. But he never said "because I'm the pastor and I make the call."

It reminded me of being an RA in college and busting a party on any given weekend night (or in the case of Spanish exchange students, any given weekend or weekday, night or day). And they'd try to get me off topic: "But Jason last weekend had a suitcase full of beer!" I'd keep them on task and repeat, "It doesn't matter what Jason did. You have alcohol in your room, right now."

It doesn't matter that Lynn wants to revisit this topic and argue about it in person again. We're done for now.

It makes me think, though, about her last email, the one where she wrote that we were a singing community (she said "signing" but I think she meant singing) and we should sing. She thought it would be difficult to reclaim for Easter if we didn't do it all the time. She thought the congregation liked to sing it and so we should. Or else she'd be sad.

I wonder if she ever asked anyone in the congregation. If she really took the time to ask, say, my neighbor Marla and her husband what they thought about it. Not the sorts who would be on worship commission (although they help with the barbecue). The liturgical common man. I think she might find that they either don't care, or get irritated because it's different than what they are used to before joining our parish, or it takes too long. So often in the rarefied air of theology school, just like a laboratory or a model classroom, it is forgotten that things happen in the real world.

And it's a good cautionary tale. Perhaps a teachable moment for me. Just because I like this or that thing that happens at mass doesn't mean my mother does. Or Fiona. Or Fiona's parents. Or Marla and her husband. People come to our parish for many different reasons--they grew up here, or they like the preaching, or it's in their neighborhood, or they're friends with Colleen O'Toole (hell, that's what kept me at our parish for several years). Liturgy isn't always the number one reason. And I don't think that makes them bad people, or even bad Catholics. I think it needs to be kept in mind that trying something new, especially if that something new is actually something simpler and more to the point, is almost always worthwhile. Like when we got rid of preaching at Advent prayer services (another thing Lynn wanted to cling to, I might add, and that meeting with her has got me all gun-shy about going to more meetings with Lynn). It was a nice thing. But maybe we didn't need it. It took a lot to get people to do it. It didn't really add enough to make a difference. Let's try it without. And it was nice.

The great thing about having a liturgical year, like I've always said, is that you can always do-over next year if it seems wrong.