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Friday, 11 July 2014

And THIS is why more care must be taken in the "sacred" music we use

After a mountain top experience such as the CMAA Colloquium, and the opportunity to celebrate three or more liturgies almost every day for a week, the plain holds a  bit of, not "dread" perhaps, but certainly, concern?
But the fact is, I am, as always too fortunate to survive "too lucky to live FOR LONG, Aunt G!"

I get to ease back into regular life gradually.

Fr Brian King, a priest whose approach to ars celebrandi is of an exemplary, elegant reverence had the Mass.
And, since it was a Memorial, he led us, (as I believe is his custom on all days out of in Ordinary Time,) in a simple Gregorian Sanctus and Agnus Dei.
Lovely.

And on the drive home it was nice to have access to my wonted radio station, Jesus, Prince of Peace Catholic Radio.

And there was an interesting program on, which prompted me to suggest a ministry in which Himself might be interested.

Good enough, so far....

And then a musical "bumper" came on.

Now, I'm used to this, I know that the taste of the station manager, or whomever selects this stuff is different from mine.
Not a problem.
If light rock, or what I call sacro-pop, (or sacchro-pop, when I'm in a bad mood,) is your cup of tea, if it brings you closer to Jesus, great. This is the perfect place for it.
Devotional music can properly have a much greater range of style and affect than liturgical music.

There is one song that makes me want to put a gun to my head, children shout-singing, (as gratingly as the "one eight seven seven cars for kids" torture-jingle on the news station to which we used to listen,) but the words, at least those i can discern, are unimpeachable, "we fall down, we get up."

So this isn't about likes and dislikes, this is about WORDS THAT ARE FALSE.
Okay? It is about a Catholic Christian radio station promulgating untruths. It is probably just sloppy theology rather than the heresy for which some seem always to be on the look-out, or actually a figurative way of expressing a WarmFuzzy, but it needs to be addressed.

In a song which the mighty interwebs inform me is the work of a protestant "pastor" of some sort, we hear, over and over again, that "when we are weak, He becomes stronger."

No.  NO!
When we are weak, He doesn't "become" anything, much less stronger. He is, surely whatever denomination you are teaches this, He is ALMIGHTY.
Already, before you are or are not weak, He is already, and more importantly, UNCHANGINGLY  almighty.
God does not change, He does not evolve, He does not become other to suit you or your needs.

His presence might become stronger in you as you change, your perception of Him might change, and that's probably what you meant, but He does not.

So stop saying it.

This is, I think, the natural result of an unfortunate way of presenting a truth, which has lead to a widespread false notion.

We are wont to speak, much more than in previous times, of relationship.

Pope Emeritus Benedict, (happy name day, PapaRatz!) in his magisterial, (in both senses of the word!) Deus est caritas, tells us that "being Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with .. a person," Jesus Christ.

And in the CCC, "[The mystery of Faith] requires that the faithful... from it in a vital and personal relationship with the living and true God."

So yes, we must have a relationship with Him.

But it is human to understand "relationship" to mean give and take, to mean, if a relationship is "good," that both parties to the relationship are improved by it, become better people, in a word, change.

And that's not how it is with Him, and we think that is is, sing that it is, to our peril.

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