Our family has spent 10 of the last 11 years living in Maine without a generator.  Last Christmas, a very generous family member bought one for us.  You'd think I'd be overjoyed.  ( Yay, the generator will save our food!)  We've already had one day this year without power and surely there will be more to come.  (As my husband likes to say, "If you sneeze out where we live, the power goes out.")  That said, there was part of me that secretly looked forward to those days and evenings when we were forced to unplug, dig out the candles and pull out the blankets.  Hunkered down in one or two rooms while the fireplace or woodstove crackled and we enjoyed forced family together time wasn't such a bad thing.  Sure, we'd prefer to have access to the outside world through our smartTVs, phones and watches, but honestly, living a bit like "Little House on the Prairie" for a spell didn't really hurt us.  I mean it's like the olden days right, and plenty of people survived (dare I say thrived?!) in former centuries without all these modern technological advances.  Which brings me back to music and the Church.  

We've been having some serious sound system glitches at Sacred Heart this past week. Began out of the blue on Sunday morning after a flawless Vigil Mass on Saturday.  What had happened overnight?  Gremlins?  Turns out after multiple phone calls to our Sound Management company the theory goes that some exterior force was most likely the culprit - someone somewhere in the neighborhood setting up some electronic device had inadvertently squatted on the same CHANNEL as our priests' wireless mic.  WHAT?!?  Now the Technology Devil is attempting to thwart our Mass?  Needless to say, I got frustrated.  And annoyed.  And that's right where the Devil wanted me.  Looking for someone to blame.  Getting snarky with the tech guy on the phone.  "We have an insanely expenseive system and it's not reliable and, and, and...."  And then it hit me.  

What did Churches do in the olden days?  

Before mics? And Gremlins?

Huge Cathedrals. Rows upon rows of benches, chairs or pews.  Hundreds attending mass.

They had no sound system to go haywire.

How did the Masses "hear" the Mass.

And the answer was right there.

They didn't.  They sang it.

Have we perhaps become a different kind of worshipping body with the advent of technology?  One that sits comfortably in the pews - as if on our couches - and bingewatches the Liturgy week after week?  No participation.  Just consumption?

The Church once functioned well and beautifully in oversized houses of Worship, full of architectural beauty and finery, symmetry and wonder, all designed to compel our eyes to the Heavens.  (Why else is the most celebrated art in the Vatican on the ceiling????)  And the music sung in these spaces for this rich liturgy was designed for the space it was in: meant to soar out and hover and drift and gather up the prayers of the people, like incense....

Artistic Creation vs Common Consumption.

I wonder if we'll find a way back to a truly artistic celebration of our Faith.  As Bishop Robert Barron says,  "The best evangelical strategy is one that moves from the beautiful to the good and finally to the true." 

more from Jen and the Music Ministry Team...... https://pothe.org/notes-from-the-director-of-music-ministries