Return to Mass

[organist]

I have been reading Stephen Bullivant's Catholicism in the time of Coronavirus and his earlier work Mass Exodus. The descriptions of liturgical experiment in the 1960s especially in USA are fascinating! What is your experience so far of people returning to Mass? I agree with Stephen that many will not return because they have found better online, not been approached by the church during this time, got out of the habit. He is not optimistic! The prospects for choral singing and getting the people to sing again are not good either.

My own experience has been interesting. I have found many great homilies especially Blackfriars Oxford and Fisher House Cambridge. The second part of Mass online is of little interest. I have started playing on Sundays (no singing at all) and the service is shorter and frankly dull. I have started posting recordings of my organ playing on Facebook. During lockdown we did record some hymns and piano music. It has been great to be back in contact with 2 priests for whose ordinations I played. Both are now Anglican priests. I had lost touch with them. I have also had a massive clear out of books, scores, records and updated my life story. I am now working through lots of cassettes with a view to digitalising some of them. 36 videos have gone off to be digitalised onto the Cloud and memory stick. We have not been out much - a couple of reduced price lunches. We are going to an organ recital on Saturday and I am playing for the church flower festival in September. Best of all has been doing Laudato Si' 4 week training course and setting up a zoom and email group for England Laudato Si' coordinators, The season of creation starts Sept 1.