Liturgy Meetings

[alan29]

Well we had our annual pre-Triduum meeting the other evening. We are a combined parish where a another parish has joined us after the closure of their church. The people who have joined have largely gravitated to the Saturday vigil Mass, where their old musicians provide the music. I am part of the Sunday morning set up. We combine (with some difficulty) for the Triduum. We have different levels of skill and different ideas about the role of eg cantors. And we serve mass communities who have very different notions about active participation.
So, the meeting. There were the leaders from the two groups, the person who coordinates the readers, the pp, the parish sister the liturgy coordinator (who is not a leader of musicians, readers, ministers or servers .... but is from the parish who joined us. Some might say a political appointment.)
The meeting went well. We perused last years music choices and made slight adjustments. All done and dusted in 45 minutes.
At the end the pp suggested that we should meet more often. While everyone nodded assent, I can't help wondering why?
So, does anyone else have regular liturgy meetings? Do you do any more than pick hymns?

[organist]

While I have never found the word committee in the Bible, there can be value in meeting to reflect on what was good and what could be better. A good way to start the meeting is a short lectio on the Gospel.

[High Peak]

Given that you are now a combination of two parishes it may be of value.
We are two parishes with one priest and three Sunday Masses (though three are CERTAINLY not required) and, much to my frustration, there is little if any crossover or coordination. On Thursday we had our first rehearsal for the Triduum liturgies. I have put together a very varied collection of music. It was very striking that singers from one Mass, where they do little but post-Vatican II music, does not know some of the "traditional" music (eg "Praise to the holiest in the height"), whereas singers from another Mass, where they sing little but pre-Vatican music, didn't know some more recent music.
It would benefit all concerned to meet, coordinate and share. But, I am presently a voice crying in the wilderness.

[IncenseTom]

My parish is in almost exactly the same situation as Alan - a smaller church in the town closed in September and became part of our parish, they had a music group of guitars, flutes, violins and sometimes a drum, and played music pretty much exclusively from the 1970s onward. They've taken over the Saturday Vigil Mass where there was no music (even though we made it clear they would be welcome to join us on a Sunday morning).

For Holy Week I contacted them (in January) to ask them to be involved in providing some of the music and was rather shocked to discover that they were assuming they wouldn't be doing anything and some were planning on not coming to church at all over Holy Week because "it was so sad that they wouldn't be doing anything".

I asked them to play a few hymns so that the balance of hymns between the music group and the organ and choir from the Sunday Mass is fairly even.
They never do any Mass setting or psalms so that'll be covered by the Sunday team as we normally do all that anyway.

I was quite directive (with the full support of the PP) in what I asked them to do to avoid precisely the sort of endless liturgy committee discussions and back and forth and politics and blah blah blah that can so easily come into these sorts of things.

We rehearse on different evenings and they've asked if I can go through the things they're playing with the choir. Likewise I've invited anyone who wants to to come along to choir practise to have a blast through the various psalms, etc.

They seem happy, we seem happy, the PP seems happy so we'll see how it all goes............

[justMary]

Why

To start with, fellowship with your brother and sister Christians is never a bad thing.

After than, provided everything is going to stay the way it is forever, then of course there's no need for meetings: everyone can keep doing exactly what they do now, nothing will change, no one needs to learn any new skills or grow in their knowledge of either liturgy or music.

But is there s even the slightest chance that someone may leave or get too old/sick/dead to play any more, or that someone new might come along and join your music team - perhaps even someone who knows lots about music but not so much about liturgy? Is there an chance that the number of Masses may be reduced further when you don't have a resident priest any more at all? Or that you might need to combine for some efforts other than Easter?

If there is, then being experienced at working together and leading people through a process of learning about what the church does when it prays and how music enhances this is a good thing.

You may be surprised at how much you can learn from people with lesser musical qualifications than yourself - and they may be surprised at how much they can learn from you. Provided you do actually talk to each other occasionally.

[alan29]

Do these things need the formality of a regular meeting. All too often they end up as number picking exercises ..... dull. I agree about formation, but there are ways that include more than the musicians/readers etc.
Any parish worth its salt will be chatting about the health of people etc over coffee on a Sunday after Mass. Any parish that needs a meeting to encourage that sort of thing needs to think seriously about what it is doing.