Some battles in church music are not really worth fighting. One is the Sunday morning seven o'clock music-free mass. It's a fixture of many Cathedrals and some parishes, hardly needing explanation--an early mass without any music, usually lasting about 30 to 40 minutes. Parishioners who regularly attend it feel embarrassed when they meet the organist at some social function, and say things like, "It's just easier that way--I get church out of the way and can get to the farm." Or, "I like the solemn mass--it's easier to pray that way, without the music." At which point I may wish to beat my head against the wall and mumble about solemnity and the function of music in the liturgy... but it is probably best to keep silent. Some battles, as I said. Who amongst us actually really wants to get up at at 5:30 in the morning? Let it go.
Harder to let go for me this year was the 4:00 p.m. low Christmas mass. Low, of course, not solemn, because of the lack of music. The logic was that this mass was for grieving families who had lost loved ones in the last year and found the musical celebrations of Christmas oppressive.
Scrooge has come to represent those people in our midst who dislike Christmas, or at least how others of us celebrate it. Most people I know who dislike Christmas dislike the materialism that surrounds it. It is most obvious on a day like Black Friday, when human beings are trampled underfoot--literally--for possessions that will, after all, one day be dust and ashes. Perhaps calling them Scrooge is not fair to them OR to Scrooge. You have to admit they may have a point with this whole materialism quibble.
I think the real lesson here is harder, more elusive. I think people are just as prone to materialism at Christmas as they are any other time of the year. I think Christmas is made the scape-goat, and come December 26th (or perhaps the 27th), materialism sinks back into the fabric of our culture, out of the spotlight, but not out of our lives. We all run the risk all year round of treating things as more important than people, or not understanding our priestly relationship to the material world.
This year, I was not shocked by materialism. I had a good time doing some shopping of my own, despite the slimmest wallet in the history of ever (my bank account dipped down to 14 dollars at one point). Instead I was shocked when a grieving woman told me she didn't want any music at mass on Christmas because Christmas would never be the same without her mother, who had passed away that year. She wasn't going to put up her decorations, or buy gifts, or anything.
My mother is living and I cannot imagine life without her, so I could hardly say out loud what I thought inside, which was, "You of little faith!" I've never had a Christmas vendetta--I don't have a bumper sticker that says "keep Christ in Christmas." Forcing one's December celebration on others does not seem to exactly follow the command, "and with true love and brotherhood each other now embrace." But I now have my own vendetta about Christmas (oh noes!). It had never occurred to me that for many people Christmas is not about Jesus or about stuff--instead it's all about family.
It's an easy enough mistake to make. The Christmas story is focused on families--the very odd and virginal Holy Family, the human family, the Christian family. Domestic scenes dominate the tale--Mary at home, Mary with Elizabeth, Joseph with insomnia, innkeepers and stables. If we're lucky, our own celebrations are rich family time as well--gathered about a tree, soon to be buried beneath wrapping paper torn to shreds, or stuffed with the fruits of the earth about a large table. We might begin to think that all these very good things are what Christmas is all about--until death comes and shatters our illusion.
I'm not arguing that family is a bad thing. What this parishioner experienced in mass on Christmas was exactly the problem with this attitude, however, that no matter how good family is, even as it reflects the love of God in the Trinity, the human family alone cannot answer the questions of life and death and eternity. Christ did not come so that we could have family time. Christ came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly.
I know it's asking a lot. I know that sorrow can be deep and wider than the sea. I know that one must be braver then than at any other time, to sing through tears. But there is no sorrow greater than Christ's triumph. That is why we celebrate Christmas, why I celebrate it bravely, with feasting and gifts and decorations and music: to give as Christ gave: abundantly.
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