When my youngest son was tiny, perhaps three or four months old, I noticed that when we were in the car and music with a particularly strong beat came over the radio, Joseph’s body would start to move. Rhythmically. His whole little self, from toes, to head would move in time to the music.
Memories of Mass
Now that he’s walking, he can do more: he can dance. Of course, he falls down every five seconds, but it’s obvious he’s doing nothing but dancing. He pumps his feet up and down like he’s marching. He shakes his arms. He spins in a circle, holding his right arm straight out in front of him, his hand closed in a fist.
Yes, music is a mystery – a series of sounds that somehow bear on them the spiritual in a way that touches us before we can even speak words.
Which is why debates about music in church are usually so intense.
What I’m thinking about today, however, isn’t the usual topic of the miserable state of Catholic hymnody. No, today I’m thinking about Mass and the Top 40.
The memories are prompted by a moment in which, once again, we’re in the car. This time not only the baby, but my husband and I start bopping, just a little to the song on the radio. Then there’s a slight pause and my husband says, with wonder in his voice, “I remember when we sang this at Mass. Did you?”
The song was “Black and White” by Three Dog Night. You know – “The ink is black, the page is white…”
And no, I never heard that one at Mass. But I did hear “You’ve Got a Friend,” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
Moments to Forget
It prompted me to ask readers who frequent my website their memories – or even, sad to say, recent experiences of singing secular music at Mass. No weddings or funerals allowed, or else we’d never hear the end of the list. Just your normal, Sunday celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Here’s what I got.
A priest ended a homily by breaking into Bette Midler’s “The Rose.” At Midnight Mass, a parish in Hawaii sang the Lord’s Prayer to the tune of “White Christmas.” Moving down the globe, a parish in Argentina used “The Sounds of Silence” as a tune for the same prayer.
“Imagine” has actually been heard a Catholic masses (…'imagine there’s no heaven'…Yes. That one.) Not surprisingly, “From a Distance” has, too.
Try Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven” as a communion meditation. Or “Bridge over Troubled Waters.” Or “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother.” I hear that “Lean on Me” is actually included in a new Catholic youth hymnal. A pastor in a parish recently allowed a woman in his parish to preach the homily. She ended by singing, and insisting that the congregation join her, in a rousing rendition of “We are Family.” Double liturgical whammy there.
“Joy to the World” (not the Christmas carol!), “Follow Me” by John Denver, “Let it Be,” and George Harrison’s paean to the Hindu God Krishna, “My Sweet Lord” are all moments to be remembered.
Or forgotten.
From Bad to Worse
But I’ve saved the best for last, and this one happened to me.
About ten years ago, the pastor at the parish in which I was a DRE invited a friend of his from his former parish to come give the Stewardship talk during Mass. The man approached the ambo and set his notes and a very small tape player on top. He announced that he would begin by playing a song for us that for him, summed up the whole ethos of stewardship and sacrificial giving. He directed the microphone down, struggled with the player, and finally it clicked and whirred into action. The music swelled forth and fell upon our wondering ears: “Love is a Many-Splendored Thing.”
It’s a shame, isn’t it? Most contemporary Catholic liturgical music is banal enough. It’s too bad clueless parish ministers sometimes take the situation from bad to worse by trying to relevant when all they end up really doing is providing, not spiritual nourishment that fine music can provide and which can touch us even from childhood, but simply bad memories and painfully funny stories instead.
Amy Welborn is a columnist for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service and a regular contributor to the Living Faith quarterly devotional. You may purchase her books in our online store, by clicking here.
