Maybe your church is different, but in all my life, I’ve found something to dislike about the music at Mass. When I was little, the freshly post-conciliar church was still struggling in the smothering arms of liturgical silliness, and the music followed suit (a clown suit, to be specific). Then there was the priest who seemed to be trying to swallow the microphone; the warbling cantor who thought she was a soprano despite all evidence; the crazy Poles with their hymns that sounded good, only they didn’t have any vowels in them; and then of course the banjos. Oh, my lord, the banjos.
Read the rest of my latest at The Catholic Weekly.
Image: An angry woman: 16th C. misericord, the Collegiate Church of Notre-Dame (Collégiale Notre-Dame), Le Puy-Notre-Dame, Anjou, France, photo by Spencer Means via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Thank you for this! I struggle with a musical ego as well–I sing in the choir at the more traditionally-flavored Mass, so I generally like our music just fine, but when circumstances force me to go the contemporary Mass…well, I sing along, but I roll my eyes on the inside. Thanks for the reminder to quit that.
When we have heretical music, I’ll usually sing along but quietly change a word or two (unless it’s when I’m in the choir, in which case I usually just don’t sing that word at all–less disruptive.) I’ve never heard of any of the ones you mention except Ashes, thankfully, but the main one that grates on me is “Worthy are the ones who believe to receive the goodness of God.” No, we aren’t. So I just say “blessed” instead of “worthy” and that’s fine.