Monday, August 13, 2007

Hate Mail

Once in a while I get some nasty comments on a post I have written. But this comment was for a You Tube video that I posted on the Closing Mass of the Mahoney Conference. If you haven't seen it, it shows liturgical dancers strutting their stuff at the end of Mass. I thought about publishing the comment, but since that is such an old post, no one would ever see it. I didn't want to deprive the anonymous commenter from discussion or debate about his/her heretical views, so I decided to make a post out of the comment. Here it is:

No offense but thats just pathetic. Why do you feel the need to bash people who want to freely praise their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. What a beautiful idea, to praise and honor God through the wonderful artform of dance. God gave us our bodies just as He gave us our voices...both should be used to praise Him! I don't see dance as any less legitimate than singing. Whoever posted this video was being completely ignorant and closed minded.
Posted by Anonymous to Salve Regina at August 12, 2007 9:47:00 PM MDT


Anonymous hails from Plymouth, New Hampshire and entered my blog through a Facebook page, which interestingly enough denounces liturgical dance, (yes, anon, I have sitemeter). I guess anon missed my follow up post called Cardinal Arinze on Liturgical Dance, where the good Cardinal states:

There has never been a document from our Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments saying that dance is approved in the Mass...So all those that want to entertain us -- after Mass, let us go to the parish hall and then you can dance. And then we clap. But when we come to Mass we don't come to clap. We don't come to watch people, to admire people. We want to adore God, to thank Him, to ask Him pardon for our sins, and to ask Him for what we need.
Need I say more?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

i thought all this dance stuff had died out! Obviously not...

Michele said...

liturgical dance unfortunately has not died out.

Anita Moore said...

Okay, I've said it before about a zillion times, but since the brave and fearless Anonymous obviously doesn't realize this, I'll say it again: the Mass is the sacrifice of Calvary, re-presented in an unbloody manner on the altar. At Mass, we are literally at the foot of the Cross. So all you have to do to find out whether liturgical dance (or bongos, or steel guitars, or clowns, or balloons, etc. etc. etc.) is appropriate is ask yourself one question: would this be appropriate on Calvary, with Jesus gasping and bleeding on the Cross, and the Blessed Mother and St. John and St. Mary Magdalene looking on? And if the answer is "no," then you shouldn't do it. Pure and simple. Nothing hard about this at all!

And if there were people dancing or playing chinga-chinga music or juggling or what have you on Calvary, whose side would you suppose they were rooting for?

Michael Leggett said...

Liturgical Dance?

Mahony Baloney!

The Crowds with Families are coming to The Traditional Latin Mass:

I was @ 1, yesterday;

Never Mind, "Kumbaya";

Give Me Gregorian Chant.

Michael Leggett said...

Mahony's "Mass" of The Kool Aid Pitchers:

He's hoping that everybody there will drink his Kool Aid.

318@Nicea said...

well,
QUOTE: "God gave us our bodies just as He gave us our voices...both should be used to praise Him! I don't see dance as any less legitimate than singing. Whoever posted this video was being completely ignorant and closed minded."

Well God also made our bodies for sex. So do we do that as well for Mass? In order honor him?

Dave

Terry Nelson said...

I really think it goes back to catechesis. Many younger people have been educated to believe what anonymous wrote. I had a young woman who worked for me who was a member of a typical liberal suburban parish - and she genuinely believed that liturgical dance was an appropriate form of worship. She felt her dance was prayer and worship.

I hate liturgical dance, but a lot of kids have been taught to think it is appropriate. It's the liturgists who have screwed everything up - they have made themselves into a parallel Congregation of the Lturgy. These lay people have been given so much power, they have completely screwed up the liturgy - and priests and bishops have allowed this.

Anita spells it out well - forgetting one thing - many of these younger people have not been taught that. As I stated in an earlier post of my own - I don't think many of the average Sunday Catholic crowd believes that stuff any longer - they just want to see their daughters (for whom they paid for dance classes) do her thing on the altar. (Yet I was told in my comm box I was being jugemental - go figure.)

Anita Moore said...

I don't think many of the average Sunday Catholic crowd believes that stuff any longer - they just want to see their daughters (for whom they paid for dance classes) do her thing on the altar.

Ever notice, though, that almost all these liturgical "dance" people could never in a million years get anybody to pay to watch them prance around in baggy sweats and chiffon? The only way they can ever get anybody to pay attention to them is in front of a captive audience.