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Musical Musings
17th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Year B
July 25, 2021
MD Ridge

Seemed Like a Good Idea

A much-loved former pastor was often heard to say, “All stories are true. Some of them really happened.”

The following really happened.

Laughing in church is discouraged, unless it’s at the homilist’s jokes.

—A pastor had a bum knee and when it was really bothering him, he wore a heavy brace on it. Giving communion to a parishioner in a wheelchair one Sunday, he overbalanced, wrenched his knee and nearly fell in her lap, then limped back to the altar to continue the liturgy. At the end of Mass, three people helped him limp out of the worship area during the recessional: “We Walk by Faith.

—The pastor at a military chapel came into the office after the noon Mass for the feast of the Assumption, muttering about the organist. “I’ve heard about it for years, but she really did it. She actually said, ‘Let us welcome our celebrant with ‘Hail, Holy Queen.’” Someone deadpanned, “Well, the least you could have done was a Loretta Young twirl!”

—The pastor at the Ash Wednesday evening Mass was mystified by what seemed like a never-ending communion line. After Mass, he went into the parish hall, and the mystery was solved: all the Bingo players had fresh ashes on their foreheads.

—A pastor of a large parish and an organist were at loggerheads; their disagreements were exacerbated by the organist’s drinking problem. It all came to a head on Easter Sunday. There was an elaborate entrance procession, with crucifer, thurifer, a fleet of altar servers, and the priests in their finest vestments. When they reached the midpoint of the aisle, the organist segued into a really snappy rendition of “Here Come Peter Cottontail”—and was summarily fired.

Now, I have known musicians so solemn their sense of humor might have been surgically excised at birth. Laughing in church is discouraged, unless it’s at the homilist’s jokes. But liturgy is a human experience. All humans make mistakes, and laughter is the gift that helps us stay sane by recognizing incongruity.

Those who laugh, last.

MD Ridge
[7/29/12]
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Art by Martin Erspamer, OSB
from Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (A, B, and C).
This art may be reproduced only by parishes who purchase the collection in book or CD-ROM form. For more information go http://www.ltp.org

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