Malaise

I am having trouble discerning whether my current defeatism regarding the liturgy is real or just a manifestation of my physical problems (the hives, the possible side effects of the medications, the irritability and jumpiness, the lack of sleep...)

I am in such pain... well, is that too strong a word? But "chronic and too-distracting-to--allow-me-to-do-much-of-anything-useful-discomfort" is kind of unwieldy as a phrase, isn't it?

I'm not getting anything done and I can feel the heat coming off the angry patches right through my clothes. (Several layers of same, as it has turned cold and dmap again.)

Maybe it's not physical, and yet not pessimism -- perhaps just realism: after all, note the lower case "l."
I am less than sanguine about the future of the liturgy, yet I remain hopeful about the Liturgy.

But here in my little pocket of the Kingdom?
Let's see, Pascha Nostra sung by an experienced, rehearsed schola? Or the notorious Least And Last Option? (Which, I might add, in contrast to the Proper, will perforce be sung in a language "owned" by only one segment of a fragmented community.)

The excuse put forth that those on the altar have to wait for the EM to return from the loft is just that, an excuse.
The wait occurs, or not, as a result of the speed with which the EM reaches the loft; the number of incapacitated choir members at a given Mass requiring the EMs to travel to them, rather than vice versa; and the attendance at the Mass (on some Holy Days there IS no choir communion piece and yet the "runner" as they call that EM still does not make it back to the Sanctuary until all the other extraordinaries are cooling their heels at the credence table. )
(And I won't even go into what I think of the impatience over that...)
It is discouraging that when we actually have the wherewithal and the will to follow a norm, to accomplish a liturgical ideal, we are instead reverting to someone's personal preference.
And it is a weird amalgam of discouragement and hope that fills me when TPTI admits that TPTWB is wrong, but we are going to try to enforce the latter's personal preference nonetheless.
Well, the Apostolic Exhortation won't have any effect on people who won't read it, who won't be told what it says.
And that is discouraging.

On t'other hand -- choir is going well.
We are growing.
They are more accepting of concentrating on liturgical, rather than performance music.
They are learning some finer music.
They are sounding good, and they becoming accustomed to actually watching.
And most exciting, they are becoming accustomed to LISTENING; I mean to each other, more so than to me. The simple chanted Introits have been very well done.
And the Farrant, Langlais, Smith and Gluck we are adding, and the Croft, Proulx, Cherubini, V-W and Tallis we have already successfully added to our repertoire are both good and USEFUL.

Shall we learn Oremus Pro Pontifice to celebrate April 16?