Please Stand for Our Opening Hymn (NOOOO!)

Yesterday was Sunday and is my new routine, I went to St. Mary's for the 10:30 service. We have a small parish with only 2 masses: 8:00 and 10:30. (There is also a 5pm mass on Saturday.) Anyway, the 10:30 mass is by far the more popular because not many people like to be up early. There is an adequate parking lot and some street parking. Even though I usually screech in at the last minute and race past Father before he starts his procession down the aisle, I never have trouble parking. Yesterday I was early by at least 5 minutes. I pulled into the lot and every spot was filled. Every single one. I am not sure if there was a cash giveaway for attending mass yesterday but there was no place for me to park. So I had to change strategies: I decided to grocery shop before mass, instead of after as I had planned, and then attend the noon Express Mass I wrote about a few weeks ago.

Having finished my grocery shopping early I was 15 minutes early for Mass. I went into the church and stopped dead in my tracks when I heard an ominous sound: the sound of a church organ. If you read this blog, you'll recall that the Express Mass has no singing, no fancy prayers...it's just a straight up mass. So I began to panic. All kinds of thoughts raced through my head. "I KNEW it was too good to be true! The organist must have been on a religious mission to Somalia and is now back!" Then I heard something that was even more disturbing...the sound of a choir. And it was a very good choir at that. They were singing all kinds of long Hosannas in the Highest, various Psalms and hymns. I think I actually broke out in a cold sweat. "I know what's happened," I thought, "they've changed the Express Mass to the choir mass and I'll be here forever." And then suddenly the music stopped. I checked behind me a few times to see if the organist or choir were returning. I saw Father Speed come up to the alter and fling his sermon notes onto the chair like they were a comic book. And then he said "Please stand for our opening prayer."

Ah the relief. It was unchanged. There was still no singing, Father Speed gave his usual 7-minute sermon and the Express Mass was done is 37 minutes flat. I timed it. I had just enough time to run into Home Goods to see if they had any more of those candles that smelled like glazed doughnuts.

This disturbs me in some way. I feel like I should enjoy the church music and not dread each verse that drones out of the organ. (By the way, how did the organ become official musical instrument of the Catholic Church? Every church has one and why? Why not a piano or a saxophone? Where does one even learn to play the organ?) But the hymns they play are these long, dreary dirges. They are not filled with positive energy or happiness. Those Gospel choirs have the right idea. They fill a church with spiritual music and they dance around, happy as clams. Why can't our churches have that? Why do we have to sing these awful songs that no one sings anyway?

Well, in any event, I was relieved to find that my Express mass was still intact, although sad that there were no more Glazed Doughnut candles. I guess we can't have everything! Amen.