“I must honestly tell you that our Christmas Eve liturgy was so slap-dash, so irreverent and untrained and featured music so poorly chosen and executed that it was joyless, perfunctory and at times just so awful as to feel more like torture than celebration.
Even my husband, who never has a bad word to say, called it ‘unendurable.’ The observation was made within our group that ‘that mass is exactly why people can’t be bothered coming to mass and young men do not think of becoming priests.’ Certainly for those Catholics who only show up for Christmas and Easter, there was nothing there to entice their return any time soon. It is said that in monastic houses, if the community can be taught to really learn the chant that is the prayer of the church, the rest falls into place.
I suggest that if we could get our ordinary liturgy back into shape it would be a step toward saving the church.”
– Elizabeth Scalia, scribbling on this wall.
And today we celebrate...