So Much for Which to Be Grateful

Friday has dawned here in Chicago with cold wet weather - could have one to three inches of snow by tomorrow.

Our WLP staff celebrated Christmas as a group last evening at the home of one of our managers. We sang carols and a few broadway show tunes, and ate up a storm. Isn't it wonderful when you not only enjoy working with people but also enjoy having a good time with them? I am blessed to work with and lead such a great group of talented people here at WLP.

To be honest, it has been a particularly stressful and busy season for me, but there is something about the snow, and the decorations, and the lights, and the chocolates, and the baked goodies, and the appetizers, and the shopping, and the sending and receiving of Christmas cards that make all of the busy-ness so worth it. I am looking forward to celebrating the Fourth Sunday of Advent at St. James on Sunday. I am also looking forward to helping serve the Christmas day meal for the homeless at our parish. I did so last year. I was in charge of beverages. When the folks arrived, there I was with a tray of hot cocoa, coffee, water, and iced tea. It broke my heart when so many people looked at me and said, "I'll get something to drink later; what I really need now is some food." Having grown up with holiday tables of plenty, this experience helped me appreciate all the more the sacrifices that my mom and dad offered to make sure the six of us had plenty of gifts under the tree and delicious food on our plates. And it also made me realize that, as Catholics with grateful hearts, we need to reach out all the more to those who are in need.

It's back to the United Center for me tonight to watch the Chicago Blackhawks play the Boston Bruins. I fell in love with hockey as a kid because I grew up in suburban Boston, watching the Boston Bruins. I am planning to wear my Boston Bruins shirt tonight—we'll see how I am treated in the always interesting upper 300 level seating area in the arena.

I hope your weekend is filled with expectant joy.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.

New Translation Thursday: How to Implement the New Translation

Hope you are enjoying a good Thursday, another "New Translation Thursday."

Just a quick comment and a question today. It has to do—once again—with the new musical settings of the Mass. We are not quite sure how the implementation of the new translation will occur. Will the BCDW (Bishops Committee on Divine Worship) issue a "may use the new translation" date, followed by a period of some duration before a "must use" date is promulgated? None of us is sure about this. If that were the case, how would you handle this in your parish? Some people have told me that they would begin using new musical settings, as well as all of the newly translated prayers and antiphons immediately upon a "may use" date. Others have said that they would use the "grace period," if there will be such a period, to introduce gradually the new settings and prayers in some kind of organized way. At least one bishop I know said simply that the people in parishes would be using the old translation one week, and then, the very next Sunday, all of the newly translated texts will be used.

I, for one, hope that parishes will teach the ICEL chant settings of the peoples' parts early in the process of implementation, as well as one setting that is either newly composed or one of the revised settings—as a start. How all this will play out will, of course, vary from parish to parish. You can trust that we here at WLP are working very hard to provide the singing and praying church with the very best newly composed and revised musical settings of the Mass.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.

A Great Music Director

Happy Wednesday to you all.  Seven degrees here. Enough said.

Happy Birthday Beethoven.

I worked as the director of liturgy and music for extended periods of time in three parishes: St. Mary Magdalen in Altamonte Springs, Florida, Epiphany Parish in Port Orange, Florida, and St. Marcelline in Schaumburg, Illinois. When I knew that it was time to move on from these positions, it was painful to leave, because I had grown to know and love the people, as well as grown to know and love the sound of their voices joined together in song.

Last week I found out that our music director at St. James has made the decision to move on. This has been pretty heart-wrenching for me. For those of you who follow this blog, you know that I have often referred to him as our "great music director." What makes a "great music director?" As a pew Catholic, I think a great director is one who is sensitive to the make-up of the congregation; is someone who is able to provide a variety of music that makes the liturgy musical, music from the Church's treasury, as well as from the treasuries of other Christian denominations; is someone who obviously knows that the greatest sound that he is charged to produce is the sound of a singing assembly. With our music director, all of these things came together quite well. I will miss him dearly.

That's one of the the realities of being a pew Catholic. In my "professional" positions in parishes, it was I who decided when it was time to move on. Our current music director is the third since I have been at St. James. My allegiance is to the parish, obviously. Pastors and parish staff members come and go, yet we who are in the pews provide the steadiness that endures.

I've been asked and agreed to be a member of the search committee for a new director (my second time). I've been asked to bring musical and liturgical expertise to the search committee. Friends, please say a prayer for our work and for St. James parish during this time of transition.

Why? Because we gotta sing and we gotta pray; and St. James needs all the prayers we can get to find the next "great music director."

New Translation Tuesday: Proclaiming the Death of the Lord

Happy Tuesday to one and all. The temperatures are plummeting here in the Midwest today. Looks to be a very cold night. Five degree drop just on my 45 minute ride to work!

It's "New Translation Tuesday" once again. The "What Is We Just Said Wait" site has garnered nearly four thousand signatures. Check out the site if you haven't had the chance.

This past weekend I spent some time with a retired priest friend of mine. I was the organist at his parish in Massachusetts in the late 1970's and early 80's. He will be 80 years old next year. His attitude about the new translation: "I'll never use it." It made me wonder how many of our older and retired priests have developed an attitude of simply having had enough with the Vatican's liturgical legislation over the past decade or so. It will be quite interesting to watch all of this unfold in the next few years. Even today, there are priests who still use the old Order of Christian Funerals!

I'd like to comment on one of the anonymous comments from last Thursday's edition of "New Translation Thursday":

While some advocates of the new translation may indeed be desiring to "stick it to their brothers and sisters", those same advocates have had to endure having it "stuck to them" for some 40 years now...whincing whilst saying the Gloria or Creed, knowing that what they're saying is not even close to the actual prayer, all for the sake of advancing an agenda that has turned out, for the greatest measure, to be seriously in error.


I know that this is a forum that attracts those whose lives are bound up with matters liturgical and musical, but I wonder how helpful this comment is to those—especially older Catholics like my parents—who have prayed the post-Vatican II texts for most of their lives. To say that "what they're saying is not even close to the actual prayer" directly diminishes the lived experience of that prayer for decades. And to say to my parents that this all has to do with a group of people "advancing an agenda that has turned out, for the greatest measure, to be seriously in error" would be an egregious statement. My parents have taken their lives, especially the heartfelt pain of having lost a daughter at the age of 38, into their experience of the liturgy. There they have found comfort and solace in the paschal mystery of the Lord. Would they put it in these words? Probably not, but the liturgy has been a source of strength, encouragement, and challenge to them in their nearly fifty-five years of marriage. To discount that experience—to say that the words that they have prayed are the product of a group advancing an agenda—is not helpful and, I believe, would border on the sinful. I certainly would not want "anonymous" to be the person catechizing my parents and their fellow parishioners about the changes in the translation.


Just a caution here, folks. Let's remember that the Catholic Church is made up of people like you and me, and people like my parents, people who strive every day to live the words "When we eat this bread and drink this cup, we proclaim your death, Lord Jesus, until you come in glory." In the new translation, these same people will be striving to live the same mystery of our faith in these words: "When we eat this Bread and drink this Cup, we proclaim your death, O Lord, until you come again." Proclaiming the death of the Lord, and all the meaning that that phrase unfolds in the lived Catholic experience, is what this Catholic life is all about. Let's not forget that; let's not forget the center as these days, months, and years unfold.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.

"On the Ice" and a Full and Grateful Heart

Happy Monday to you all. I am back at the desk after four days off. Spent these days in the California desert, where it was cool and mostly cloudy, but relaxing nonetheless.

I've decided to give you just a small peek into my life outside of the publishing and church worlds today . . .

Most people raise an eyebrow when I let them know that I am an avid hockey fan. "How could such a  mild-mannered liturgist/musician be a fan of such a violent sport?" they often ask. Well, I grew up in Massachusetts during the era of the likes of Bobby Orr and Phil Esposito, two tremendous Boston Bruins players. I remember well listening to hockey games on the radio when my parents would pile all six of us into our "Country Squire" station wagon (the kind with the fake wood on the sides) and head back to the Boston area from our bimonthly visits to relatives in southeastern Massachusetts. I loved listening to those games and watching them on TV. That interest waned over the years and has been rekindled over the past five years here in Chicago, where I have become a huge fan of the Chicago Blackhawks. I attend many of their games, sitting a few rows from the last row in the upper level. Last night was a little different. Through the generosity of a friend, I found myself sitting in the first row "on the ice." It was thrilling, to say the least. I have great respect for these athletes who, unlike in any other sport, perform their sport on ice, skating with ease and precision. Folks, I had a wonderful time, and wished the game could have gone on and on. Incidentally, we won 4-0! Here's a photo. I look a little weary—I had been on airplanes most of the day!

Thank you for your comments over the past week. I hope your Advent continues to be a hope-filled one and that these remaining days are marked with joy and peace. Tomorrow, another installment of "New Translation Tuesday." Stay tuned.

After my experience last night, I was filled with lots of joy and had a full and grateful heart. I guess this is how a Catholic has to approach a gift like seats "on the ice." I kept thanking God up and down all night long.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.

Waiting in Joyful Hope

Happy Wednesday to you all. Snowy and raw here in Chicago. Temperatures expected to plummet into the single digits tonight, with wind chills somewhere near 40 below. Welcome to almost-winter in the Midwest.

Just a short post today. I was reading an author's manuscript yesterday here at WLP. She had written a catechetical session for inquirers and the topic was Christian hope. She was quoting Benedict XVI's encyclical on hope, Spe Salve. This all got my mind focused on a great phrase for believers during this Advent season, "waiting in joyful hope." And this brought me to recall a moving poem by John Keats that I once read. It's called To Hope and here's an excerpt:

When by my solitary hearth I sit,
When no fair dreams before my “mind’s eye” flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head.

Whene’er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon’s bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moon-beams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof.

Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!

Whene’er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbid fancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o’er my head!

My own hope for all of you is that, even when life becomes difficult and challenging, that you cling to the hope that comes through faith, especially during this Advent and Christmas season.

I'll be taking some vacation time for the next four days. I'll try to post, especially tomorrow. If I don't get the chance, I pray that your Second Week of Advent ends with an outpouring of grace and that the Third Week dawns with renewed hope.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.

New Translation Tuesday: It's Heating Up Out There!

Welcome to another edition of "New Translation Tuesday."

You have probably heard about the article in the current issue of America magazine by Fr. Michael G. Ryan. Here is the link. If you have the time, please read Fr. Ryan's article about the new translation. Reading the comments to the article on America's web site will also give you insight into what a hot button this issue is and will continue to be. Personally, I didn't find Fr. Ryan's article to be a launch of dissent, as some of the commenters argued. This is a seasoned pastor speaking from the perspective of a pastor. He is not arguing for a wholesale rejection of the new translation. He is inviting people to consider more pastoral experimentation, testing, and evaluation before the text is finally mandated. Frankly, I don't think there is much chance of this happening. However, as of right now, nearly 1200 people have signed the statement of concern on the web site "whatifwejustsaidwait.org" that Fr. Ryan has begun. You can find that site here.

There has also been at least one person (a fellow blogger) who has created his own survey. You can find that here. Clearly you will see the marked differences in tone. Folks, why all this argument? We are talking about the heart of Catholic life here. You can't do something that touches that heart without all kinds of emotions being stirred. It saddens me that this will inevitably continue to escalate further polarization within the English-speaking Catholic world. The texts of the Mass draw us into a real live experience of the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. If the new translation thwarts that movement toward Christ, then it will need further revision down the road. We will have no choice.

Thanks for your comments over the past week. Please feel free to comment here as well.

As more snow approaches Chicago, I hope that, wherever you are, you stay warm and safe.

Gotta sing. Gotta pray.