From my faith journey blog:
Jon has a 2006 Heritage Missal from OCP that he borrowed from the nursing home and I was going through it last night to decide whether or not I should go to Mass on Tuesday. Let’s just say that looking at the OCP readings and liturgy made it painfully obvious that I could *NOT* go without being incredibly snarky and feeling like I was worshipping with people of a completely different religion. (**Nota bene** I am not saying that Catholics are not Christians. Let me be very intentional about this.) As far as I know, neither JPII nor Papa Ratzi have proclaimed Mary to be the co-mediatrix and apparently, the OCP peeps didn’t get the memo. Seriously, I rarely see the Psalms so proof-texted (they gutted Psalm 45 to get verses to fit) or Revelation as the first reading. (They could have put Hannah’s song from 1 Samuel since it is similar to the Magnificat.) I was seriously tempted to ask exactly where Jesus fit into the equation since it was crossing the line from veneration of Mary to worship/adoration. Mary *was* special — she was chosen to be the Theotokos and she complied willingly with God’s instructions but… SHE’S NOT GOD!!!!!!!!!!
I went through the rest of the missal and they have quite a bit of Marty Haugen including the Mass of Cremation Creation and a few of his more “interesting” (read: inclusive) hymns. (I really wonder if most Catholics know that one of their hymnwriters is formerly Lutheran and now UCC.) They had some fairly good David Haas ones and a few ecumenical ones like I Am the Bread of Life, Christ Be Our Light (which I actually like), and Blest Are They. Mostly, it was a couple decent hymns, then a weird song, and then something by David Haas. It honestly made me thankful for With One Voice which has some “interesting” hymns but is 99% Orthodox. (The exception is their egregious word changes in Be Thou My Vision — the “High King of Heaven” was the one who opened a can of whupass on the hill of Slane, not the “light of my soul”.) Granted, I really am not fond of some of their hymns (especially ones like Hallelujah! We Sing Your Praises which are muchly overdone), but at least theirs are somewhat placeable in the history of the church.
[/end snarkiness]
I seriously am not trying to be anti-Catholic but dude… some of what was published was just wrong on so many levels. I wish the Church would return to worshipping in Latin because it would mean that they took worship seriously and didn’t screw around with theology like they do now.
