Mayday!

[mcb]

I had an ear-bashing today from that bit of the church militant in this neck of the woods which likes to make its views known at this time of year - can we please have at least two hymns to Our Lady at our Sunday Masses before the end of the month? I made polite sympathetic noises about the decline of Marian devotions and said in the old days no-one would have been asking for Marian hymns at Mass, that it's not proper to dislodge hymns celebrating the resurrection, especially during Eastertide, that I'd have to think about it...

'Thinking about it' might just mean referring the question to the management at my place of worship, but does anyone here have any thoughts to share? It seems to me it's not a shocking request. There's a deep seated love of devotions to Our Lady that don't have an outlet these days, and the people asking are not arch-traditionalists on the fringes, just ordinary parishioners. And given that the 'recessional hymn' is hardly integral to the rite, does it matter if it wanders off topic (if that's how you view what is being asked for)?

Ideally we'd be singing a hymn of thanksgiving at the end of the Communion rite, rather than a final hymn, and ideally the church would be thronging with people for afternoon devotions at which they could sing about crowning with blossoms, wicked men blaspheming and so forth to their hearts' content. But neither of these things are going to happen in a hurry.

So what should we do? Just bung in a hymn to Our Lady at the end, unexplained? I'd hope to resist that. Flatly refuse to accommodate devotional needs that don't strictly belong in the Mass? That would feel a bit like riding roughshod over pastoral need. Catechise the faithful away from old ways? Rather you than me. Or find some way to incorporate Marian devotions (in the best spirit of Lumen Gentium, naturally ) at the end of Mass and leave everyone feeling as though there's, ahem, a hermeneutic of continuity at play here that integrates nostalgic sentiments with renewed liturgical thinking?

What do you reckon? And I wonder what the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy says? I'll have to go and look it up.

M.

[gwyn]

Next Sunday, (13th May) at the end of 10 o'clock Mass we have a short Procession in honour of Our Lady. She's carried around the rose petal-strewn church to Ave! Hail, rarest and fairest.

[mcb]

Here are some excerpts from the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy.

In the West, the practise of observing months dedicated to the Blessed Virgin emerged from a context in which the Liturgy was not always regarded as the normative form of Christian worship. This caused, and continues to cause, some difficulties at a liturgico-pastoral level that should be carefully examined.
[...]
Opportune catechesis should remind the faithful that the weekly Sunday memorial of the Paschal Mystery is "the primordial feast day". [191]

Earlier, the document says the best day for devotions to Our Lady is Saturday. [188]

I can't help feeling that taking a hard line in keeping with the above might do more harm than good though.

M.

[docmattc]

I think there are two issues.
1. The place of Marian devotion within the Mass
2. The fact that most Marian hymns are so full of soppy sentimentality and put Christ in a very poor second place to his mother.

Rome (for reasons I've never been clear about) sing a Marian anthem before the end of Mass, either the Regina Caeli within eastertide, or the Salve Regina without it. Would either of these satisfy the need? I suspect what people want is a wicked man blaspheming (although its not technically possible to blaspheme against a non-deity) etc.

Many of the Marian hymns are designed for a Marian procession, they loose their meaning if they're dropped into another situation. (Its plain daft to sing "This is the image of the queen, or "as I kneel before you" in the absence of a statue of Mary as the liturgical focus). They were never intended for Mass.
Saying that the recessional hymn isn't really part of the Rite so anything goes is avoiding the issue. A hymn here is seen as concluding the rite whether or not it should so needs to have relevance to it.

I would say that if there is a desire for Marian devotion, the parish should put on Marian devotion outside Mass. If folk don't turn up, is there really a desire for that devotion, or is it a longing for a bit of nostalgia?

I don't think refusing to add a Marian hymn in Mass is riding roughshod over pastoral need. It may however be riding roughshod over pastoral want, which isn't the same thing.

Of course its easy for me to say this as there's a range of mountains between me and your congregation!

[Canonico]

'Thinking about it' might just mean referring the question to the management at my place of worship,

Since I might just be that management, can I add a recently discovered fact to the discussion (which does not prejudice any decision that may have to be made at a later date concerning the use of Marian hymns during Mass in this particular place of worship).
Whilst agreeing that Saturday is normally the day put aside for devotion to Our Lady, it seems that according to our Diocesan Liturgical Yearbook (used to be called an 'Ordo'), we are not allowed to have a votive Mass of the BVM on a Saturday during Eastertide because both the readings and the prayers are proper to a weekday of Eastertide which ranks higher than a votive Mass of the BVM. This continues all the way through May this year and into June.
I personally feel that the place for Marian devotional hymns is during Marian Devotions and not during Mass. At the end of our Cathedral Chapter Masses we do always sing the Marian antiphon of the season, but that is very different from the devotional hymns that people want to sing during May and which should be kept for processions and services of devotion.
Whether I can be so strict when faced with a 'pastoral situation' is another matter, but if in doubt I can always blame the Director of Music!

[presbyter]

I had an ear-bashing today from that bit of the church militant in this neck of the woods which likes to make its views known at this time of year - can we please have at least two hymns to Our Lady at our Sunday Masses before the end of the month?

My answer is always "No". It is the Easter season and you could always point the church militant to GIRM and CTM on the use of hymns.

Not that I am averse to Marian devotion. In this first week of May, the parish has celebrated a Holy Hour with Exposition - which included the Joyful Mysteries (Scripture readings and meditations on each), followed by Benediction. On Sunday, the Litany of Loreto will get an airing at the May procession.

Popular devotions can only be "popular" if they are put on.

[Boadicea]

I suspect what people want is a wicked man blaspheming

Well, I'm afraid they may well be disappointed, as they'll certainly get no blaspheming if they're using Laudate.

Wicked men are gone - banished -and replaced by 'O may I imitate thee...'

Just doesn't do it, somehow!

[docmattc]

Well, I'm afraid they may well be disappointed, as they'll certainly get no blaspheming if they're using Laudate.
Wicked men are gone - banished -and replaced by 'O may I imitate thee...'
Just doesn't do it, somehow!

I think the Laudate text is much better. Talks about imitating Mary to magnify God. Mary is a role model because of her part in the life of Christ, Some of the old Marian hymns tend to loose sight of this.

The old version of the text talks about when wicked men blaspheme against Mary, but as Mary isn't God (or a god) is not possible to blaspheme against her if we accept the definition of blasphemy as a profane act against a deity.
So blaspheming against Mary elevates her from being Mother of God to being God, which is must be theologically dubious.

[sidvicius]

....that bit of the church militant in this neck of the woods........the people asking are not arch-traditionalists on the fringes, just ordinary parishioners.

Make up your mind. Which are they? It will make a big difference to how you could respond. If they are the former, I'm inclined to agree with Presbyter.

[mcb]

The Church militant just means the Church on earth, Sid. You and me and the rest of us. I meant it jokingly - the question of Marian devotions seems to bring out the militant in the most mild-mannered of our older parishioners.

M.

[mcb]

Here's what we did today. At the end of Mass we had a procession with flowers to the statue of Our Lady, accompanied by a hymn, and then after a prayer we sang Regina Caeli to unaccompanied plainchant.

To accommodate this action, we moved the usual recessional hymn from the end of the Mass to the place where it should be, namely after communion. That it was Christ is made the sure foundation may have looked like a stern reminder to the May-is-the-month-of-Mary crowd as to what's our proper focus in the Mass, but actually it was chosen because of the reference to the new Jerusalem in the second reading.

The choir usually sing a motet after communion, so that too got bumped - we sang it at the start of the communion procession. But since it was Tallis's If ye love me, it wasn't in too bad a place, since the text is that of today's communion antiphon. (We followed it with My Peace from Taizé.)

The hymn and procession came straight after the blessing and dismissal. We sang Bring flowers of the rarest, which the Management felt would best meet pastoral need. As hymns go it's cloyingly sentimental, but much loved by those whose needs we were aiming to meet. It seemed to me that if we'd had the same actions, but processed while singing Rachmaninov's Bogoroditse Devo it would have felt very tasteful indeed. So it was just a question of singing an old favourite hymn for the old folk instead.

It all seemed to work well, even if it would often be a good thing to make more time for rehearsing the choreography. It felt as though the old folk were singing with gusto, while the younger members of the congregation and our very welcome overseas visitors were perhaps a bit more nonplussed. I half expected some positive feedback, especially from those who'd been vocal in their requests last week. Didn't get any, but hopefully the people we were ministering to were quietly pleased.

We're doing it again next week, with Hail Queen of Heaven as the hymn, which to my mind is a good deal more tasteful. It usually raises the roof too.

Anybody else get up to something similar?

M.

[presbyter]

Anybody else get up to something similar?

M.

Rain stopped play here, and we'd done so much work on the garden too

Nevertheless we processed up, down, up and down the church and the Litany of Loreto did get its airing, along with "Bring flowers....." Lots of "oldies" stayed after mass for the procession, along with quite a few "not-so-oldies".

More prayers to delay the May Monsoon needed next year.

[presbyter]

So who's having a Corpus Christi procession and what are you doing for that?

[Canonico]

As mcb said, there was no feedback at all on the Marian addition to Mass on Sunday. After 33 years of ministry I really didn't expect any because the only 'feedback' that tends to come our way is 'complaint' that we haven't done something or that we've done something that has never been done before and they don't like it (mainly because its never been done before!).
However, I was asked what we were doing in June for the Sacred Heart, not to speak of Corpus Christi! Maybe even a Holy Souls procession during November!
Perhaps we need to go back to the drawing board for I fear we may have created a monster! I think next year I will give them the opportunity for Marian Devotions at some other time and it is up to them whether or not they attend. I have come to the conclusion that it is never a good idea to 'Mess with the Sunday Mass'!

[Dory]

Last Sunday, I went to Mass on Guernsey in St Peter Port. The homily we had consisted of the PP calling all the children out to the front, talking to them [with the rest of us listening in] about Our Lady of Fatima and then announcing to the children that they would now process around the church, complete with statue of OL of Fatima. Flowers were distributed to the children who then processed to the strains of Bring Flowers of the Rarest. Procession over, they returned to their seats and Mass continued. Bizarre!!