One sermon of about 10 minutes in German is from the cathedral in Salzburg .There are various homilists so different person each week. - always good.
One sermon is from the grotto at Lourdes. Again there are many differing homilists ,some good others not so good. Usually the language is French but it depends on the nationality of the group.
The third sermon is from an Anglican church in London. The rector is an excellent homilist and I always listen with interest to what he has to say.
The tangent about the sermon reminds me that for me Salzburg cathedral is the most wonderful church in the world. It is bright and light and very spacious. It declares itself to be a 'Festsaal des Glaubens' a 'festival hall of faith and belief'.
The music of the solemn Mass is almost always top class, not that I am really a musician,so perhaps I can't really judge.
This coming Sunday it will be a' Pontifikalamt' with the archbishop,Franz Lackner, as the celebrant and the music will be Schubert's Messe in C-dur. Given the importance of Pentecost the archbishop will be in full pontificals. With his episcopal role as Primas Germaniae and also Legatus natus (permanent representative of the pope to the German lands) he is, FWIW, entitled to wear cardinal's dress.,which one notices in the red zucchetto.
Due to years, if not centuries, of practice the Mass will be celebrated in a very relaxed manner though if one listens very carefully one will hear the MC remind the altar party when to stand and when to sit with the words 'Surgite!'(stand!) and 'Sedete !'(sit !)
The Mass is celebrated at 10a.m. C.E T. which is 9a.m. BST.
This Sunday's 10 minute sermon will be by the archbishop.
One advantage (?) of listening to a sermon in a foreign language with which one has some acquaintance is that it involves attending to the preacher perhaps just a bit more carefully than one might otherwise do.
It can also improve one's knowledge and understanding of that language, of course.
The same goes for the rest of the service, especially if it is of a liturgical nature (the Mass/Eucharist etc. has much the same shape and structure in many denominations).
I have musician friend who took his highly accomplished school choir on a singing tour that included Salzburg. They had to perform a capella as visiting musicians have to cough up 1500 Euros to use the organ. That squashed my desire to be one of the organists at one of the four organs that sit high under the building's dome.
They had two Hungarian youth choirs singing there two weeks in a row recently - one a group of 15/16 year olds and then a group of university age. I can't remember what the musical accompaniment was.
If you pay 1500 euros for the use of one of the four organs under the dome what on earth does it cost for the use of the organ in the choir loft ?
I thought that they would be pleased to have groups from other parts of the world come to sing. I am sure that they are if the cathedral pockets 1500Euros for the use of the organ.
I thought that they would be pleased to have groups from other parts of the world come to sing. I am sure that they are if the cathedral pockets 1500Euros for the use of the organ.
On the other hand they might feel that they are doing visiting choirs a massive favour by letting them open their mouths at all!
I like many Reformed went to church to listen to the sermon. That is the practice. I use "listen" rather than "hear" because just as in the Eucharist we are receiving something beyond the physical bread and wine, in the sermon we are trying to hear something beyond the physical words spoken. Thus a good preacher, and I enjoy such as much as the next person, is not a necessary requirement for a valuable sermon.
The traditional prayer before preaching "may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord" gives a hint. The meditation of the congregations' hearts is an important part of any sermon. It is believed that the very Word of God in such circumstances can be heard afresh speaking into that specific context.
Now I will freely admit there have been occassions when the Word was most present for me in what was not said rather than what was but that still is a valuable experience.
What I feel is that most critiques of sermons here basically is like critiquing the Eucharist on the quality of the bread and wine!
One advantage (?) of listening to a sermon in a foreign language with which one has some acquaintance is that it involves attending to the preacher perhaps just a bit more carefully than one might otherwise do.
It can also improve one's knowledge and understanding of that language, of course.
One sermon of about 10 minutes in German is from the cathedral in Salzburg .There are various homilists so different person each week. - always good.
One sermon is from the grotto at Lourdes. Again there are many differing homilists ,some good others not so good. Usually the language is French but it depends on the nationality of the group.
The third sermon is from an Anglican church in London. The rector is an excellent homilist and I always listen with interest to what he has to say.
They are all much better than duolingo
That reminds me of the occasion I was in church in Cologne. I did German to A level a number of decades ago, though (funnily enough) it didn't involve much in the way of theological or ecclesiastical German. So my German is rusty, but good enough to follow much of the general sense of what's going on. Until we reached talk of Johannes der Täufer. Not a noun I knew, though I was familiar with der Teufel, so my brain processed the word I knew. And I was very confused about why the preacher kept referring to John the Devil when from the whole context it could only be John the Baptist ... Until some time later when I got back to my hotel and was able to check my dictionary. Sure enough Täufer = Baptist, and Teufel=devil . I'll not get that muddled up again in a hurry!
On the "I Go to Sing" thread we are discussing the reasons we go to church and "to take communion" has been cited by several people as a reason.
When I walk in and realise it's a communion service at our church my heart sinks. I am still working out why.
What form does a communion service take at your place of worship (or another you have attended and either found helpful or unhelpful) and how do you feel about it? What makes it helpful or unhelpful for you?
Our church is Episcopalian so a Communion service would be the normal service on a Sunday. Communion would also be regarded as Sacramental, meaning that we meet the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine - his body and blood. So it trumps sermons and singing. In many Episcopal/Anglican churches this would be why the altar is the centre of attention - with a pulpit to one side, if present at all. I know lots of folks whose favourite service is the 'early or mid-week communion' where it's traditional not to have either sermon or singing - just pure sacrament without all that extraneous blether and noise!
Our early service was moribund before Covid with three people turning up to enable the service and only one or two in the congregation, sometimes none in the winter. Our Wednesday service looks to be heading in the same direction.
Our early service was moribund before Covid with three people turning up to enable the service and only one or two in the congregation, sometimes none in the winter. Our Wednesday service looks to be heading in the same direction.
Yes, I suspect Covid was, in many cases, the last straw.
OTOH, Our Place's daily Mass usually has a few people present - often, it's those who missed last Sunday, or who can't make it the following Sunday, or a few others whose church no longer has a weekday service!
Covid had done for membership across many organisations, not just churches.
Indeed.
FWIW, Our Place's situation will no doubt change when FatherInCharge retires, but I expect at least one weekday Mass will continue, as we have Friends at the Cathedral...
Sadly, more and more churches seem to be ditching their early or mid-week Eucharists, possibly as a result of Covid.
Our parish is almost back to daily Mass after COVID took us down to just Sundays and Wednesdays. Now we have Mass every day but Saturday. Now if I could just overcome whatever broke in my discipline of being in church every Sunday. I've missed many Sunday Masses lately. I can watch the streaming video, but "Mass in my jammies" is not why I've been going physically to church so infrequently.
We were away for a few days last week and over the weekend in a retreat house and on Sunday attended Eucharist at the small chapel there. It's a long time since I've been to a service conducted in that way - a set order of service with wafers and a shared chalice administered by the priest - and I am still thinking about whether I found it more or less uncomfortable than the way our Baptist church does it.
I have been regularly attending a very traditional Church where communion is only offered in one kind (the host) and is administered only on the tongue, whilst the communicant is kneeling in front of the altar.
I'm not 100% convinced (as the priest explained on Corpus Christi Sunday) that it is more reverent than receiving communion on the hand, nor receiving only in one kind is more respectful as it is sufficient (as the priest also explained). However, this is the way this particular Church does things, and I'm not going to argue with a Church that has a daily mass that I can attend before going to work, and a Sunday Mass with very intelligent preaching and quite good liturgy.
As a very good late friend of mine used to tell me... don't have arguments that aren't worth having.
Sorry if I haven’t read all of this thread, but the topic resonates with me because I almost never receive communion because of LGBT dead horse issues that if we go too far into will take this thread to Epiphanies, which I don’t want. Basically, if the RC Church hierarchy says I shouldn’t receive communion, even if my priest says I should, I won’t, except maybe for once a year immediately after confession to that one priest who knows everything about me.
This means I spend all year listening to homilies about how central it is to the faith to receive communion and how transformational it is to receive Christ in this way - how it unites us, makes us into Christ’s body, and prepares us to go into the world and do Christ’s work, but I don’t receive. Even when I rarely receive, I feel like I am stealing and profaning the Sacrament and that the effects of receiving it will be my damnation, as Aquinas explained.
All that and my own mental health issues aside, along with the not small chance that I might convert from
Christianity to another religion - all not relevant to this thread - I wonder if anyone else can relate to the experience of coming to Mass first and foremost to be close to and worship the Real Presence of Jesus, even if you don’t feel able to receive the Sacrament.
I know there’s such a thing as spiritual communion for those who don’t receive, and I pray the prayer for
it, but it is a temporary solution and it is a sin to rely on it permanently.
The bad thing is I feel kind of comfortable in this state - almost never receiving, worshiping the Sacrament from a distance, praying for spiritual communion. I am much happier doing that than breaking the rules, even if the rules may be unjust, because unjust laws will never be changed unless they are enforced and people see the effects of their injustice. Also churches must be governed by the rule of law - and if Church law does not align with God’s law then Church law should be enforced strictly so people will see the disparity between it and God’s law and then change Church law.
One advantage (?) of listening to a sermon in a foreign language with which one has some acquaintance is that it involves attending to the preacher perhaps just a bit more carefully than one might otherwise do.
It can also improve one's knowledge and understanding of that language, of course.
The same goes for the rest of the service, especially if it is of a liturgical nature (the Mass/Eucharist etc. has much the same shape and structure in many denominations).
I have found this to be so in my experience. With a good knowledge of French and a really really poor knowledge of Castilian Spanish, I pay very close attention to the sermon. While they may be as bad as the many many English sermons I have heard over the years (about 2,500 by a rough guess), my focus is more on trying to follow the essentials of the sermon, and much less likely to be distracted by inanities.
In the Plague and post-Plague years, about half of the sermons I have heard were funeral or wedding sermons in French; African clergy use the subjunctive an awful lot. It was interesting to hear references to refreshing rains from a Mauritanian (a country with a lot of desert) cleric as the outside temperature was -25°C.
Sorry if I haven’t read all of this thread, but the topic resonates with me because I almost never receive communion because of LGBT dead horse issues that if we go too far into will take this thread to Epiphanies, which I don’t want. Basically, if the RC Church hierarchy says I shouldn’t receive communion, even if my priest says I should, I won’t, except maybe for once a year immediately after confession to that one priest who knows everything about me.
This means I spend all year listening to homilies about how central it is to the faith to receive communion and how transformational it is to receive Christ in this way - how it unites us, makes us into Christ’s body, and prepares us to go into the world and do Christ’s work, but I don’t receive. Even when I rarely receive, I feel like I am stealing and profaning the Sacrament and that the effects of receiving it will be my damnation, as Aquinas explained.
All that and my own mental health issues aside, along with the not small chance that I might convert from
Christianity to another religion - all not relevant to this thread - I wonder if anyone else can relate to the experience of coming to Mass first and foremost to be close to and worship the Real Presence of Jesus, even if you don’t feel able to receive the Sacrament.
I know there’s such a thing as spiritual communion for those who don’t receive, and I pray the prayer for
it, but it is a temporary solution and it is a sin to rely on it permanently.
The bad thing is I feel kind of comfortable in this state - almost never receiving, worshiping the Sacrament from a distance, praying for spiritual communion. I am much happier doing that than breaking the rules, even if the rules may be unjust, because unjust laws will never be changed unless they are enforced and people see the effects of their injustice. Also churches must be governed by the rule of law - and if Church law does not align with God’s law then Church law should be enforced strictly so people will see the disparity between it and God’s law and then change Church law.
Comments
Or run it at double speed.
One sermon is from the grotto at Lourdes. Again there are many differing homilists ,some good others not so good. Usually the language is French but it depends on the nationality of the group.
The third sermon is from an Anglican church in London. The rector is an excellent homilist and I always listen with interest to what he has to say.
They are all much better than duolingo
The music of the solemn Mass is almost always top class, not that I am really a musician,so perhaps I can't really judge.
This coming Sunday it will be a' Pontifikalamt' with the archbishop,Franz Lackner, as the celebrant and the music will be Schubert's Messe in C-dur. Given the importance of Pentecost the archbishop will be in full pontificals. With his episcopal role as Primas Germaniae and also Legatus natus (permanent representative of the pope to the German lands) he is, FWIW, entitled to wear cardinal's dress.,which one notices in the red zucchetto.
Due to years, if not centuries, of practice the Mass will be celebrated in a very relaxed manner though if one listens very carefully one will hear the MC remind the altar party when to stand and when to sit with the words 'Surgite!'(stand!) and 'Sedete !'(sit !)
The Mass is celebrated at 10a.m. C.E T. which is 9a.m. BST.
This Sunday's 10 minute sermon will be by the archbishop.
It can also improve one's knowledge and understanding of that language, of course.
The same goes for the rest of the service, especially if it is of a liturgical nature (the Mass/Eucharist etc. has much the same shape and structure in many denominations).
If you pay 1500 euros for the use of one of the four organs under the dome what on earth does it cost for the use of the organ in the choir loft ?
On the other hand they might feel that they are doing visiting choirs a massive favour by letting them open their mouths at all!
The traditional prayer before preaching "may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord" gives a hint. The meditation of the congregations' hearts is an important part of any sermon. It is believed that the very Word of God in such circumstances can be heard afresh speaking into that specific context.
Now I will freely admit there have been occassions when the Word was most present for me in what was not said rather than what was but that still is a valuable experience.
What I feel is that most critiques of sermons here basically is like critiquing the Eucharist on the quality of the bread and wine!
Oh! I’ll have to look into that, then. 😉
Well, yes, it may not be sufficiently masochistic for me, to be fair.
Blimey you're hardcore. I'd be reaching for the safe word halfway through the second sermon.
That reminds me of the occasion I was in church in Cologne. I did German to A level a number of decades ago, though (funnily enough) it didn't involve much in the way of theological or ecclesiastical German. So my German is rusty, but good enough to follow much of the general sense of what's going on. Until we reached talk of Johannes der Täufer. Not a noun I knew, though I was familiar with der Teufel, so my brain processed the word I knew. And I was very confused about why the preacher kept referring to John the Devil when from the whole context it could only be John the Baptist
Yet another time I wish we still had the “not worthy” emotion.
ROTFL!!
Our church is Episcopalian so a Communion service would be the normal service on a Sunday. Communion would also be regarded as Sacramental, meaning that we meet the real presence of Christ in the consecrated bread and wine - his body and blood. So it trumps sermons and singing. In many Episcopal/Anglican churches this would be why the altar is the centre of attention - with a pulpit to one side, if present at all. I know lots of folks whose favourite service is the 'early or mid-week communion' where it's traditional not to have either sermon or singing - just pure sacrament without all that extraneous blether and noise!
Yes, I suspect Covid was, in many cases, the last straw.
OTOH, Our Place's daily Mass usually has a few people present - often, it's those who missed last Sunday, or who can't make it the following Sunday, or a few others whose church no longer has a weekday service!
Indeed.
FWIW, Our Place's situation will no doubt change when FatherInCharge retires, but I expect at least one weekday Mass will continue, as we have Friends at the Cathedral...
Our parish is almost back to daily Mass after COVID took us down to just Sundays and Wednesdays. Now we have Mass every day but Saturday. Now if I could just overcome whatever broke in my discipline of being in church every Sunday. I've missed many Sunday Masses lately. I can watch the streaming video, but "Mass in my jammies" is not why I've been going physically to church so infrequently.
I'm not 100% convinced (as the priest explained on Corpus Christi Sunday) that it is more reverent than receiving communion on the hand, nor receiving only in one kind is more respectful as it is sufficient (as the priest also explained). However, this is the way this particular Church does things, and I'm not going to argue with a Church that has a daily mass that I can attend before going to work, and a Sunday Mass with very intelligent preaching and quite good liturgy.
As a very good late friend of mine used to tell me... don't have arguments that aren't worth having.
Max. All growed up
This means I spend all year listening to homilies about how central it is to the faith to receive communion and how transformational it is to receive Christ in this way - how it unites us, makes us into Christ’s body, and prepares us to go into the world and do Christ’s work, but I don’t receive. Even when I rarely receive, I feel like I am stealing and profaning the Sacrament and that the effects of receiving it will be my damnation, as Aquinas explained.
All that and my own mental health issues aside, along with the not small chance that I might convert from
Christianity to another religion - all not relevant to this thread - I wonder if anyone else can relate to the experience of coming to Mass first and foremost to be close to and worship the Real Presence of Jesus, even if you don’t feel able to receive the Sacrament.
I know there’s such a thing as spiritual communion for those who don’t receive, and I pray the prayer for
it, but it is a temporary solution and it is a sin to rely on it permanently.
The bad thing is I feel kind of comfortable in this state - almost never receiving, worshiping the Sacrament from a distance, praying for spiritual communion. I am much happier doing that than breaking the rules, even if the rules may be unjust, because unjust laws will never be changed unless they are enforced and people see the effects of their injustice. Also churches must be governed by the rule of law - and if Church law does not align with God’s law then Church law should be enforced strictly so people will see the disparity between it and God’s law and then change Church law.
Sorry for the tangent.
I have found this to be so in my experience. With a good knowledge of French and a really really poor knowledge of Castilian Spanish, I pay very close attention to the sermon. While they may be as bad as the many many English sermons I have heard over the years (about 2,500 by a rough guess), my focus is more on trying to follow the essentials of the sermon, and much less likely to be distracted by inanities.
In the Plague and post-Plague years, about half of the sermons I have heard were funeral or wedding sermons in French; African clergy use the subjunctive an awful lot. It was interesting to hear references to refreshing rains from a Mauritanian (a country with a lot of desert) cleric as the outside temperature was -25°C.
Prayers ascending, with hugs and love for you.
No worries! It feels like a long time ago that I wrote that post. Thanks for your prayers @Lamb Chopped and @ChastMastr .