Back to the 70s

[nazard]

You people obviously had a very different seventies from me. I always think of the liturgy of the seventies as characterised by joss sticks, ladies in their thirties dressed in the fashions of teenagers a decade or so earlier with flowers in their hair dancing round the altar, excruciating guitar playing twanging out "Songs of the Spirit" and make it up as you go along liturgy. I thought Cappae magnae had gone long before the seventies.

[Nick Baty]

The latter part of my 70s mainly consisted of mincing my way across the dancefloor and dreaming I was John Travolta! The earlier part? The Rubettes – 'nough said!

[oopsorganist]

Nazard says

"You people obviously had a very different seventies from me. I always think of the liturgy of the seventies as characterised by joss sticks, ladies in their thirties dressed in the fashions of teenagers a decade or so earlier with flowers in their hair dancing round the altar, excruciating guitar playing twanging out "Songs of the Spirit" and make it up as you go along liturgy. I thought Cappae magnae had gone long before the seventies."

Love the image of ladies in their thirties (what is wrong with ladies in their thirties and while I am on that subject, why ladies, I take it they were not landed gentry or titled in some way?) dancing around the altar ( I remember when women were not allowed on the altar area. There were gates to prevent this kind of exhuberant display by females) wearing knee length white plastic boots and mini dresses.

To be quite accurate the maxi came into fashion around 1968 and stayed in vogue along with the midi skirt for quite a while. It is still considered to be modest attire. Or didn't you mean that particular kind of outfit. The colour purple had a big following around the same time, followed by a craze for rusty orange.

I can't imagine what kind of Catholic church you attended. It sounds interesting. Or were they nuns?

Is it the fashion, the sex, the particular age of the women, the guitars or the dancing that so caught your attention I wonder.

I think I may have missed out on all this.

Ladies in their thirties! Shock horror.

I'm off before I get done by the bear.

I can't quite see the difference between joss sticks and incense either. By golly, I bet those haridans lit candles too. By gum.

[presbyter]

Or were they nuns?

ROFL

[musicus]

I'm off before I get done by the bear.

Oh, anything goes on this thread.

[nazard]

Oops,

I wasn't criticising anyone, although it wasn't exactly my cup of tea. As Rabbi Blue said, "You go and worship the Lord in your way, and I'll go and worship Him in His..."

I used the word "Ladies" in the same sense it is used on Lavatory doors. You have set me thinking, they may have been up market drag artists.

Presbyter, it was on another occasion that I first heard guitars used for religious music, sometime about 1968. It was played and sung by a group of nuns who were touring the catholic schools introducing the new music of the reformed catholic church. They had shortened their otherwise traditional black habits to mid calf and were wearing high heeled shoes. Of course, for all I know, nuns may have always worn high heeled shoes under their floor length habits. They dropped in on a choir rehearsal and did a quick five minute demonstration of the future. As they closed the door behind themselves, we went straight back to Victoria.

Mr Bear, you may yet live to regret saying that anything goes on this thread. The seventies is often referred to as "the decade that taste forgot."

BTW, Songs of the Spirit is open on my piano at the moment, at No 39, which I rather like. Just to show that I am the organist who forgot taste...

[oopsorganist]

In a way a criticism is more easily dealt with than a negative female stereotype.

I remember the sixties. I could be forgiven for thinking that the role of women in liturgy was to trot about the streets wearing a white frock and a veil and clutching a posy of flowers for some reason, along with a tribe of other dressed up children, in the month of May.

To see a women reading from the Lectern or giving out Communion was unthinkable.

And how old they are and what they are wearing is irrelevant.

[VML]

We still have girls on the altar with (polyester) flowers in their hair, and bright pink crocs on their feet, and bright pink nail varnish, which I am not sure goes with the cream albs.

[Peter]

In a way a criticism is more easily dealt with than a negative female stereotype.

I remember the sixties. I could be forgiven for thinking that the role of women in liturgy was to trot about the streets wearing a white frock and a veil and clutching a posy of flowers for some reason, along with a tribe of other dressed up children, in the month of May.

To see a women reading from the Lectern or giving out Communion was unthinkable.

And how old they are and what they are wearing is irrelevant.

My chaplain at university (early 70s) was once asked if he had women reading (not usual practice in those days) at the university Masses. His reply was: "I get students to read. If some of them wear trousers and some wear mini-skirts, that's their business."

[presbyter]

which I am not sure goes with the cream albs.

Polyester albs too?

[VML]

Inevitably polyester. The current ones replaced similar ones I helped make in 1989. When I went to look for extra material at that time, one salesman said he would not knowingly stock such nasty stuff.
Servers, even in polyester, would look more dignified, (and less 70s..) with suitable shoes and less ornamentation.

[nazard]

I remember women reading from the early seventies. It seemed quite unremarkable. I had been prepared for it because in the last few years of reading the epistle and gospel in latin in the parish next to ours, where we went sometimes, a woman read the corresponding passages in English (well, Douai English) from the pulpit while the priest was reading at the altar. At that particular church, you could get into the pulpit without going onto the sanctuary, so no one could moan about that.

The thing which really phased me when lay readers started was hearing the readings read with a heavy black country accent. That was the accent of everyday work. For liturgucal use, an Irish accent was appropriate.

[presbyter]

The thing which really phased me when lay readers started was hearing the readings read with a heavy black country accent.

I am trying to imagine the experience

GOD’S BOSTIN’ RULES:

1. “Ar bin the Lord yaar God, yow cor ave ova daft un’s befower me”

2. “Dow put stuff befower God”

3. “Yow cor tek the naame o’ the Lord yaah God in vain”

4. “Git yaself to Sunday Mass ay it”

5. “Honor ya dad un ya mom”

6. “Yow cor kill con ya”

7. “Yow woe av it off with sumone elses missus/bloke”

8. “No pinchin’”

9. “Dow mek out ya muckers dun it”

10. “Dow get jealous of ya maates stuff”

[nazard]

Am yow shewa?

[Southern Comfort]

The thing which really phased me when lay readers started was hearing the readings read with a heavy black country accent.

I am trying to imagine the experience

GOD’S BOSTIN’ RULES:

1. “Ar bin the Lord yaar God, yow cor ave ova daft un’s befower me”

2. “Dow put stuff befower God”

3. “Yow cor tek the naame o’ the Lord yaah God in vain”

4. “Git yaself to Sunday Mass ay it”

5. “Honor ya dad un ya mom”

6. “Yow cor kill con ya”

7. “Yow woe av it off with sumone elses missus/bloke”

8. “No pinchin’”

9. “Dow mek out ya muckers dun it”

10. “Dow get jealous of ya maates stuff”

Who would issue the Concordat cum originali for this, I wonder?