I am not picking on him...

... honest.
I'll drop the subject after this.
Fr Joncas is very learned and seems like a nice guy. Melo, IIRC, tells me he is, (although he also said something about appearances and attractions which I don't see, so there ya have it.)

But this beautifully pitched criticism ...

I am stumped by musical practice that doesn’t seem to prize unison tune-singing so much as providing a melodic formula at which the assembly can throw its voices without worrying about exact pitches or rhythms.

... coming from the pen keyboard of the person who set the words "You who dwell..." and then, "The snare of the fowler..." as he chose to, would almost seem like deliberate irony, (yeah, so, "not authentic.")

I positively REFUSE to Feel Guilty Over My Cheeseburger Habit....

... regardless of what Mark Bittman has to say about my drug of choice.

 Besides, :

Yes, it costs money to treat the diseases that come from having rolls of fat dripping off one’s frame. But we all have medical expenditures in every year of our life and we all also end up dying of something (limited exceptions such as Enoch and Ezekiel won’t change the population numbers very much). The net effect of that is that if we die younger (as the obese tend to do) then this will be a savings in health care costs over the lifetime.

That's reassuring, because although, as I said, I'm no economist, something about Bittman's line of through seemed hinckey to me.

So, it boils down to the fact that I am actually being a better steward of the gift of creation and your tax dollars, (and less wasteful of the resources at mankind's disposal,) by indulging in Arteriosclerosis on a Pretzel Bun.

Oh, and if you're ever in Indy, try Punchburgers.

Burnt Cheese Burger?
Yes, please.

Making the Light Shine Brighter

The Dominicans of Summit New Jersey need your help -- not, in the way of many communities because things are not going well, or they are dying off -- it is because they are THRIVING.

(If they were to start making Apple Butter again, as the did when I was a child, my purchases alone would probably cover their entire capital campaign...;oD)

(Seriously, you've never tasted anything like it.)

If you have the slightest scintilla of interest in sacred music you should own the Summit Choirbook, although it is now, sadly, sold out.
Will there be a reprint, I wonder?

Meanwhile, enroll yourself and loved ones in their Perpetual Rosary Association

Interesting side note, many years their prioress is Sr Mary Martin.


(No, not that one, but I couldn't resist.)

Fr Joncas on "Jesus is My Boyfriend" Songs

He's ag'in'em.
BUT, and to quote Pee-wee, "it's a big but,"

But I had to question my desire to wall off this music from liturgical settings when I acknowledged that I was quite willing to be emotionally overcome at communal prayer by the spiritual intimacy and emotional rapture of African-American pieces grafted onto the Roman Rite.

Interesting read.

I know what he means, trying to discern if there's a principle one will only apply selectively.
It's a real hazard in the environment of religious music, and (sub-set,)  Sacred Music and, (still smaller subset) Liturgical Music, since we're all subject to our won prejudices.

Used to have arguments with our DRE,

in which she would hiss, "That's just you opinion!" however much I assured her that if putting the kibosh on, say, a Polka Mass were a mere matter of personal preferences, I would have then plumped for  a Jig Mass, or  better yet, a Tango Mass, or best of all, a Waltz Mass! (Couldn't Beautiful Blue Danube be adapted for the Asperges? I digress.)

Pietist movements is that they appear in Christian history whenever religion seems to be divorced from experience. Thus among German Lutherans in the 17th C, the movement emphasized personal faith against the perceived stress on doctrinal and theological issues to the neglect of developing a Christian way of life.

I thank him for the "seems" and the "perceived." I have known of people condemning the more traditionally minded in a parish, who "just want Latin and their Expositions and Benediction," instead of worrying about "Social Justice," referring to them as"the pro-Life adoration crowd," ignoring the fact that these people were also the "Soup Kitchen, St Vincent de Paul Society crowd."
(Not to mention the fact that there is no "social injustice" greater than the deliberate private execution of an unborn, innocent life.)

Arlene Oost Zinner

Incidentally, it detracts nothing from the gratitude I feel toward those Three Graces, that the person I missed most at the Colloquium, (despite fierce competition from Mons. Wadsworth, and a lovely religious sister whose name I can never recall, and Dom Mark Kirby -- hmmm, notice a pattern here?) (okay, also Kathy Pluth, breaking pattern...) the person who I kept finding myself wishing were there, was Arlene Oost Zinner.

What a debt, not just the CMAA, not just musicians, but all of anglophone Christendom, owes her!

LaShanah Haba’ah Bi Pittsburgh?

A Belated Thank You the the Three Graces for the CMAA Colloquium

Speaking of James Joyce, during the closing brunch in Indy, kept thinking of Gabriel's toast to the Morkin sisters in The Dead, and of how I wished to make such a toast to Mary, Janet and Mary Jane -- and then finally, of how the way in which my toast would most resemble his was in it's nervous ineptness, and pretentiousness

But in the safety of my own blog, I'll be as pretentious and inept as I please!
So with apologies to Joyce...

Ladies and Gentlemen.
—It has fallen to my lot tonight I'm going to seize the opportunity this morning to perform a very pleasing task but a task for which I am afraid my poor powers as a speaker are all too inadequate.
But, however that may be, I can only ask you today to take the will for the deed and to lend me your attention for a few moments while I endeavour to express to you in words what my feelings are on this occasion.
Ladies and Gentlemen. It is not the first time that we have gathered together under this hospitable roof, at such a repast, around this hospitable board. It is not the first time that we have been the recipients—or perhaps, I had better say, the victims—of the hospitality hard work of certain good ladies.
—I feel more strongly with every recurring year that our country the CMAA has no tradition which does it so much honour and which it should guard so jealously as that of its hospitality. 
—A new generation is growing up in our midst, a generation actuated by new ideas and new principles. It is serious and enthusiastic for these new ideas and its enthusiasm, even when it is misdirected, is, I believe, in the main sincere. But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought- tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity, of hospitality, of kindly humour which belonged to an older day. Listening to-night to the names of all those great singers Praying at the Requiem for CMAA members of the past...  let us hope, at least, that in gatherings such as this we shall still speak of them with pride and affection, still cherish in our hearts the memory of those dead and gone great ones whose fame the world we will not willingly let die.
There are always, in gatherings such as this, sadder thoughts that will recur to our minds: thoughts of the past, of youth, of changes, of absent faces that we miss here tonight. Our path through life is strewn with many such sad memories: and were we to brood upon them always we could not find the heart to go on bravely with our work among the living. 
—Therefore, I will not linger on the past. I will not let any gloomy moralising intrude upon us here to-night today. Here we are gathered together for a brief moment from the bustle and rush of our everyday routine. We are met here as friends, in the spirit of good-fellowship, as colleagues, also to a certain extent, in the true spirit of camaraderie, and as the guests of—what shall I call them?—the Three Graces of the Dublin musical world CMAA.
—I will not attempt to play to-night the part that Paris played on another occasion. I will not attempt to choose between them. The task would be an invidious one and one beyond my poor powers. For when I view them in turn, whether it be our chief hostess herself, whose good heart, Janet Gorbitz whose too good heart, has become a byword with all who know her, or her sister, Mary Webster who seems to be gifted with perennial youth and whose singing must have been a surprise and a revelation to us all to-night at Mass, or, last but not least, when I consider our youngest hostess, talented, cheerful, hard-working and the best of nieces, Mary Jane Ballou I confess, Ladies and Gentlemen, that I do not know to which of them I should award the prize.
—Let us toast them all three together. Let us drink to their health, wealth, long life, happiness and prosperity and may they long continue to hold the proud and self-won position which they hold in their profession and the position of honour and affection which they hold in our hearts.

Incidentally,if you have seen neither the movie staring, IIRC Donal McCann, nor the very moving musical of The Dead, I urge you to take any opportunity to do so.
In Chicago I saw an actress named Paula Scrofano play Greta, and it was an astoundingly centered, to use a much over-used word, performance.

Three Things I Like About the Church

Everyone complains about junk eMail, but I, at least, will admit it's almost all my own fault.
Did I need to register for that site? 
Of course I do, how dare I deprive the community of Greater Posting-on-the-webs of my astounding insights on the subject at hand?
Well, why haven't I at least gotten off my duff and set up a free eMail account to absorb the junk that I know perfectly well such registration will inevitably produce.
But their might be coupons! 
Search for them if and when you need them!
Well, how can I know I need them if i don't know they exist?
Besides, there might be something I have to know about!
Or I might miss a funny baby video!

Yeah, that's how my mind works.

Anyway, I don't remember ever receiving anything newsletterish from a particular Catholic website before, but "Name 3 Things You Like About the Church" was a topic heading in one such missive, (along with, "Is helping kids with homework a sin?" Really? I digress.)

Well, after. 1. The Presence of the Second Person of the Triune God in the Eucharist Freely and GRACIOUSLY Given to Me a Miserable Sinner ... whew, that's a biggie, do I need anything else? I mean, what's not to like?

So yeah, that's enough, but 2 other things about Catholicism that really float my boat?

2. Here Comes Everybody! (thank you, James Joyce)
The universality of the constituency to whom all this is on offer, and the utter destruction of the perceived barriers of not just space but time is awe-inspiring and delightful and reassuring to me.

and
3. We're All in This Together
The Economy of Salvation is the greatest re-distribution of wealth of which the human mind can conceive, isn't it?
And unlike in, say, a ponzi scheme, there is no loser, no ones capital is ever depleted, by one person getting more no one thereby has less! And I can not just ask for intercessory prayers from him who is my neighbor by accidents of time and place, but of all the inhabitants of Heaven, and all the "inhabitants" of Purgatory,  even those of whom I am unaware, (thank you, Communion of Saints!) - and Graces received can be, and are "applied" to anyone who is needful, either in the Ecclesia Expectans or Ecclesia Militans.

Is that great or what?

Yeah, it's great....

"What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness"

Remember  I said a beast of a preacher asked, what were each and every one of us, what were WE going to do with the rest of the day to get closer to God?

H/T to Fr Z for this,which asks the same question in a secular, (or at least potentially secular, since unless he notes it, Fr Z. seldom if ever links without opprobrium, or at least a caveat, to anyone who doesn't completely share his religious, cultural, gender and especially politically conservative agenda,) context:

What Good Shall I Do This Day?

[A successful suicide's note] read:

“I’m going to walk to the bridge. If one person smiles at me on the way, I will not jump.”

... Society has any number of pressing needs that are crying out to be tackled. But there’s a need that everyone can start addressing immediately — no experience or Kickstarter campaign required: regularly showing more human kindness

I know, I know. Talking about kindness can seem cheesy. It isn’t cool. Doesn’t have much currency in our cynical age. Kindness doesn’t scream “manly” either. But I truly believe that helping our brothers and sisters along the way is what this life’s journey is all about, for men and women alike. At the same time, this service is the surest path to finding our own happiness....

The writer George Saunders ... recalled some of the bigger mistakes and mishaps of his life, and notes that despite their negative consequences, he regrets none of them.

Instead, it is a small moment from his youth, a foible of omission rather than commission, that still niggles at him [a school days' memory of failing to stick up for a bullied outsider]

"It bothers me. So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it:

What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.

Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded . . . sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.”

I suspect we all have such memories.
And we do know what to do with them.
Maybe the kindness I can do today can help atone for a failure from the past. And that can help bring me one step closer to Him Who is all loving-kindness.

Is an ectopic pregnancy a pregnancy?

In order to maintain that certain contraceptive methods are never abortifacient, it is necessary to redefine pregnancy as something apart from conception and fertilization. Federal medical definitions in this country state that pregnancy begins only with implantation, but since birth control doesn't inhibit implantation, only ovulation or fertilization, QED, birth control never ends a pregnancy. The medical establishment in the UK doesn't think it so cut and dry.
I haven't seen the Federal definition in any official document, but numerous pro-abortion editorials say that the definition is, specifically, implantation in the endometrium.

So an ectopic pregnancy isn't pregnancy?

Oh, and how about this bit of reasoning, from a "Catholic" source:

Now, just because an egg is fertilized doesn't necessarily mean that it will develop into an embryo. For that to happen, the fertilized egg must be implanted into the endometrium that lines the uterus. Implantation happens seven days after fertilization, if it happens at all. ... 

For this reason, according to the medical definition, a woman is not considered pregnant until the developing embryo successfully implants the lining of the uterus.[emphasis added]

Pardon, NCR, but according to you an embryo can't implant, successfully or otherwise, because there's no such thing as an embryo until the  implantation occurs.

"It is not open to people to deny the validity of the decision"

 The Church of England has given the go-ahead to women "bishops," and PIPs saying they are wrong to have done so is not acceptable, according to Justin Welby, the Abp. of Canterbury.
Or rather, he says they are wrong to disagree now.
Presumably they could have been right to agree before.
It is a vote that determines the validity of  a truth promulgated by the Body of Christ, its truthiness.
Majority rule, doncha know.

But truly, I had no idea the Church of England was so doctrinaire, "not open" to dissent?
It's as if their leader is saying that they had, I dunno, some kind of unchanging theology, or something.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, (quite rightly, I suspect,) said that some aspects of their decision was or would be or had been or might have been "incomprehensible", but different medium  organization spin the quote differently, so absent an actual, in context quotation, you know, with actual subject and contiguous, or at least nearby, predicate contained in the same set of quotation marks, not absolutely positive I agree with him.
What's the mood of the verb, the tense? indicative, subjunctive, perfect, historical present, future?

Every new outlet seems to have picked up the same adjective, while disagreeing on every other word in the thought the man expressed.

But yes, if women priest, why in the world not women bishops? If there's no ontological reason to keep 'em out of holy orders, it just looks like sulky male privilege.

Some of the rest of what is said is a bit more dubious.

"Theologically, the church has been wrong...."

Then it wasn't THE church, was it?

"We got caught up in the culture over the centuries, as churches do."

Oh.
ChurchES.
 Plural.
One of several.

Then again, clearly not THE Church, right?

God help them all.

"Sanctity emerges from the MESS of humanity"

Visiting priests for a few weeks, and an absolutely top-notch preacher this morning, wonderful on the subject that saintliness is not a personality type, or limited in it's availability to each and every one of us -- and what were each and every one of us, what were WE going to do with the rest of the day to get closer to God?

Of Lincoln and Lesbians and Lopping Off Body Parts, or, What is the going price for a breast, do you think?

I admit I haven't read this in detail, or checked out its veracity,  but it seems to me, the gist of the story is that there's a woman who got her fifteen minutes of TV fame by kind of waffling about her "gender identity," (as opposed to her "gender," which is, like, different,you know, because it's like, a real thing?) and who is, according to an actual lesbian,  too pretty to be a lesbian, (this is not me saying this, I'm paraphrasing her partner, "When the camera panned over to her, my initial response was, 'Oh, my God. That woman's beautiful', I would have never thought she was a lesbian if I saw her walking the streets.")

Anyway, they wanted to get "married" before it was legal, but they wanted to make sure they'd get each others pensions, and social security, so, to make that possible -- one of them had her breasts removed.

I am not making this up.

Although it doesn't s say anything in the article to the effect that she had previously thought of herself as a man, she decided she would counterfeit it.

"I started looking into transgender. In the eyes of the courts, if I were to have my gender changed to male, just like that, she gets my Social Security, she gets my pension,"...

So, [she] elected to have a double mastectomy. In April 2013, he [sic] officially changed his [sic] sex to "male" on his [sic] birth certificate. He [sic] and [the other woman] soon married and just celebrated their one-year wedding anniversary last month.

"How many legs does a sheep have, if we call the tail a leg?"

I Am a First World Whiner

Well, yeah, I have enough to eat... yes, more than enough, well, all right, WAY more --- okay, TOO much -- but the salt-free blend I like best just changed it's formula and the first ingredient on the list now is CORN MEAL, (to which, as to all corn products, I am allergic.)

I did read the label before I brought it home and added it to, say, a grilled cheese sandwich.

 WHEW!

Okay, you're right, this is not an actual problem. (And I can probably find an online site with copy-cat seasoning blends.)

"Why, yes, I DO possess a priceless and vital treasure that you lack, but no, I wouldn't be so gauche as to call attention to you relative poverty by trying to share with you....."

In all seriousness, and in all charity, I can put no other construction on this, if true.
Help me out here!
An evangelical theologian called Brian Stiller, after a meeting with Pope Francis said that, 

[ the Pope claims to be] not interested in converting evangelicals to Catholicism. He wished that people find Jesus in their own community.

Of course, I gotta remember, like the second husband of the civilly married woman who claimed on TwitFace, or wherever, that  Francis had said there was no reason at all for the woman not to take communion, or like the atheist "journalist" who doesn't take notes or record what he publishes as "interviews," or like Cdl Kaspar claiming that the Pope believes half of all Catholic are invalidly married -- what we have here is someone expounding on what the Pope said to him or her in a private conversation that we have no way at all of verifying, and no one in the Vatican is giving us much help here.

Of course we also have a Pope who doesn't parse his words with much care, I mean really, why should he, it's not as if people listen to him, or anything -- what was Eye of the Tiber's headline?

Man Whose Every Word Is Misrepresented Thinks 12,000 Word Interview A Good Idea 

VATICAN––It was reported earlier this week that an outgoing Argentinian born man, whose every single word is misconstrued and misrepresented by friends in the media, has for some reason, resolved to give them an additional 12,000 more words to have fun with. “If you think about it, what’s the worst that could happen?” said the man as he neglected to write down even just a handful of key statements that he could use during the interview so as to avoid the chance that someone misunderstand what he trying to say.

Jesuits, Jesuits, Everywhere, and Not a....

This thread at the Musica Sacra forum has devolved, partly through my own offices,  into a bit of Jesuit-bashing, through jokes at the expense of those good men, (I kid! I kid because I love....)
"A good liturgy by Jesuit standards is any where there are no serious injuries."

And in the strange synchronicity of life, my interest in matters Benedictine led me belatedly to this post.

So, H/T to The New Liturgical Movement for directing me toward a fantastic series of articles by the great Dom Mark Kirby at Vultus Christi, the best Blog-I-Forget-To-Read, (in my defense, since I always have an excuse, like New Liturgical Movement, it is a beautiful, often graphic-heavy site which my puny 'puter is wont to balk at loading.)

You understand, I knew nothing about the liturgical reputation of the Society of Jesus, I have, to my knowledge, only encountered them as teachers.

But a commentator at Dom Mark's blog says that he is a Jesuit, so naturally his liturgical formation is wanting, as if that were stipulated by all and sundry as a matter of course.

That is wonderful humility, (a dear friend who is CPPS speaks quite frankly about the liturgical lacuna in their society's current approach to formation where Liturgy is concerned, and I cannot think but that such honest self-examination is a good sign of better days ahead.)

Anyway, I knew nothing of a Benedictine/Jesuit controversy/conundrum, but it seems to me that all this is an explication of the thought that is behind my unconsciously profound statement of belief when I coined the phrase, "Save the Liturgy, Save the World.")

The Benedictine—Jesuit controversy over the place of the liturgy in the Christian life was ignited when, in 1913, Dom Festugière, a monk of Maredsous, published a lengthy article in La revue de Philosophie, in which he developed the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X in Tra le sollecitudini (22 November 1903): the liturgy is the primary and indispensable source of the authentic Christian spirit. Certain Jesuits, alerted to Dom Festugière’s article, took offense at its premise, and set out to counter it with their own arguments in favour of the Spiritual Exercises. Zealous sons of Saint Ignatius, among them the learned Father Navatel, director of the Jesuit review Études, argued, even in the face of Pope Pius X’s clear affirmation, that the liturgy need not be considered the primary and indispensable source of Christian piety, and that one could grow in holiness without engaging in the liturgical life of the Church save, of course, in the sacraments. Many Jesuits, as well as a multitude of religious congregations and pious sodalities under Jesuit direction, felt shaken by the new wave of emphasis on liturgy, fearing that it would gain popularity and, in the end, diminish the appeal of the Spiritual Exercises and of the various currents of piety derived from them.

By the way, I've never delved much into the frequent blogosphere argument about whether or not a layperson who is not bound to praying the Office engages in a liturgical actions or not when he does so alone, and maybe I should.
Himself joined in Compline and Lauds at the end of the Colloquium, and except for the fact that we had arrived at a totally Latin singing of those Hours by that point in the week, (against which his Protestant upbringing more than disinclines him,) found it both edifying and do-able.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand... we're back

The most important take-away from today's Mass's scripture readings?

That we won't be able to understand the metaphors about fruitfulness if we pollute, and by so doing fail to be good stewards of the earth and creation so that our children and our children's' children can enjoy nature too.

Yeah, that's it....

Or is it?

Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled in them, which says:

You shall indeed hear but not understand,
you shall indeed look but never see.

Speaking of Miracles, II

How is a miracle ever credited to an uncanonized person, clearing the way to official sainthood?
How can the Vatican congregation that does such investigations ever state definitively to whose intercession a miracle was due?

In the entire history of the Church, has there ever been anyone suffering in a life-threatening situation, who a member of the faithful himself, or whose case was known to  some other believer, on whose behalf prayers for succor were offered ONLY to some departed and uncanonized, perhaps even un-beatified Servant of God?

No, no! no Hail Marys, no, please don't ask St Padre Pio to step in, please, we don't want any requests aimed St Jude's way, we're putting all this in the hands of the late founder of our order, we don't want any interference muddying up the chain of command, so if little Jackie recovers it can be guaranteed to be due to Abbot So-and-so's intercession, certifying HIS sanctity, got it?

Would you ever put all your eggs in one basket that way?

I know I wouldn't.
I pray to every saint and possible saint i can think of.

Speaking of Miracles...

Am I the only one who thinks it's a little unfair, the whole process? that it's not just the squeaky wheel, but the doubting wheel that gets oiled?

Because He only works outside of the natural law that is His own creation when to do so is necessary to bring glory to His name and faith to those without it?

I realize this is a silly, glib over-simplification, but it seems that possessing faith, rather than giving one a leg up in the miracle-praying department, makes ones prayers less efficacious...

Of course, the efficacy of prayer has always confounded me. If there is a benefice the Almighty might wish someone to have, would He deny it simply because someone else neglected to ask?

I cannot think so.

A Good Death

Catholics mean something different from most people, when they speak of a "good" death, they refer not to peaceful freedom from pain, or worry, but to the soul having persevered in a state of grace to the last.

St Joseph is the saint most invoked in prayers for such a death, for a Happy Death, a Good Death, however pain wracked.

I cannot understand this concept -- oh, intellectually, I do, but I have such a terror of pain that I cannot imagine myself at the end wanting anything but a release from whatever agony takes me, by whatever means.

This isn't good, I know.

I do not know how to pray for others either, I do not know what to say to good when someone is near death.
I am in an even greater state of bafflement since the death of the person most dear to me in all the world. The loved ones of the dying want miracles.  Miracle? what miracle would I pray for? what miracle would God grant, Who didn't grant that which I asked for before?

Everyone dies.
Everyone.

He's not going to make an exception in your case.
He will not grant a miracle.

And yet -- I know He can, He does... Lord, I believe , help my unbelief.
And meanwhile,

"Go forth, Christian soul, go forth in the name of the almighty Father who created thee, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, who has suffered for thee, in the name of the Holy Spirit, who has been given to thee, in the name of the glorious and holy mother of God, the Virgin Mary, in the name of blessed Joseph, her spouse, in the name of the angels and archangels, the thrones and dominations, the principalities and powers, the cherubim and seraphim, in the name of the patriarchs and prophets, in the name of the apostles, the evangelists, the martyrs, the confessors, the virgins, and of all holy men and women of God. May thy dwelling today be in peace, in the heavenly Jerusalem, with Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."

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.