Fun

I just came back from a visit with my family, whom I had not seen in too long.

Yours, the New Liturgical Movement, and the Lion and the Cardinal were a few blogs to which I directed my discouraged brother. (His parish has really lost its way liturgically.) He was so overjoyed to find out that there are other people who feel the way he does.
But what really lifted his spirits was the Ten Step program (he said he's tired of being asked to sing "hymns" with less content and gravitas that the Tele-tubbies music.)
God bless you.
(I just received the form letter asking for suggestions about the new director for the Companions program. Not only am I not a Companion yet, I have nothing to bring to such a search. Oh, well...) (Nothing except my prayers, of course.)

This piece is way too mean for my taste.

Also, I think it's fair to point out that Marty Haugen, though he is one with us by baptism [to grab a line from the RCIA] is a member of a sister ecclesial community. If Roman Catholics publish and use his music at points in our liturgies for which it may not be completely suited, should we fault the composer?

I happen to find Haugen's setting of Psalm 22 affectively well suited for Palm/Passion Sunday.

I wouldn't use Shepherd me O God as a responsorial psalm, but I'd sure use it in a Mass of Christian Burial as a prep of gifts or communion meditation.

I happen to find God of Day and God of Darkness a solid song for evening prayer or other sorts of evening services. Yes, it does speak a good bit about what we are to do, but I find it pretty clear that we are beseeching God to enable us. And I think it's cool the tune is 19th century US.

Mass of Creation is a less flashy eucharistic acclamation setting than many in English, and it is a resource when people come together from disparate places.

If there are too many Haugen psalms in GIA hymnals, and too many songs/hymns by Haugen and the rest of the Minnesota crowd, that's a bone to pick with the publisher, IMO.

But because getting down in the gutter and slinging mud is sometimes an irresistible temptation, are we sure this author isn't confused and dissing on David Hass?

I liked the Haugen song-writing program, as it somehow seemed somewhat true, even if a satire. I have never liked his music for liturgy. I can hardly stand the his Mass of Creation and Gather Us In is either influenced by the great composer of Gilligan's Island's theme or The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Forty years after Vatican II and I can't believe we can't do better than this.

Perhaps one of the reasons we can't do better is that some folks spend an inordinate amount of time indulging in their own form of meanness.

Parodies are fun, and my friends have, in a good spirit, made parodies of many of my own songs. But at some point, as St Paul suggested, we leave childish ways behind and take on the burdens of adulthood.

For musicians that might mean channeling their God-given creativity to writing great new music, or at the very least, researching the horde of sacred music for their own choirs.

Quite frankly, beyond a few funny song titles, I have no time to waste in criticizing other people's music in this way. Marty Haugen sells a boatload of music and makes a decent living from it. That sticks in the craw of some people? See how much money you make from mocking other human beings.

Lighten up, Todd. Actually the complaint about the music is old. And those of us who just want to pray can be a bit defeatist when speaking about Church music. So it is completely understandable when some engage in this kind of black humor. I do not know who the person behind the Ox Files is, but I do know that many find refuge in that kind of humor.

The saddest thing for me is when someone asks for something more upbeat. We have inhaled a culture of entertainment and do not know how to worship anymore.

Marty Haugen sells a boatload of music and makes a decent living from it. That sticks in the craw of some people?

It's sad to see Todd's suggestion that people who hold differing views from his have base motives. We can do better than that, can't we?

"Marty Haugen sells a boatload of music and makes a decent living from it. That sticks in the craw of some people? See how much money you make from mocking other human beings."

Why is it always about money with some people?
I don't care for most of the music of, say... Jerry Herman, or Varese, or Usher.
That doesn't much matter, as no one is ever forcing me to listen to it during what is arguably the most imporant activity in which I will ever engage, or telling me that I am not worshipping properly, that I am a disobedient Catholic unless I sing along with the Jerry Herman or Varese or Usher tunes he has selected.
Not so with Mr. H's oeuvre.
They are virtually inescable.
They are the aural equivalent of the inconsiderate woman in the pew behind me drenched in Obsession or Jicky.
Mocking them (THEM, not him,) is a small way of dulling the pain -- would you deprive us of the palliative affects of humor?

And as to your last suggestion -- I've never tried, but I know several people who do make a meagre but satisfying living from mocking other human beings. What does that have to do with anything?