Sunday 22 June 2008

Silence

...the new noise.

so important it's an element of music in the National Curriculum. Amazing when you consider that metre, rhythm, harmony, tonality and form aren't, but I digress.

Silence is great in Church because you can't annoy other people by being silent, unlike
  • playing hymns people don't like, (Me playing hymns that I don't like.)
  • giving unnecessary instructions, ('Please stand to great the Gospel. ' Don't we know we have to stand up then?)
  • twittering about and being petty.

It has occurred to me that all the twittering and fancy stuff just acts as a total distraction and is often frankly bewildering. I haven't seen any for a while now and it's great.

At the Candelmass Mass at Blackfen at the point where the Congregation were to approach the Altar to receive candles, the MC gestured with his sleave. The big sleave. Transcends language and spoke so much more eloquently than a long wordy explanation. You can after all just watch what other people do and copy them. Works a treat for me. New to the TLM? Not sure about when to kneel etc. Sit at the back and copy the pros.

Silence; the new noise. Shhh.

Fr Ray puts it so much better on his blog.

4 comments:

LizzieD said...

-whispers- hear! hear! shhhhhh (Actually, we sit at the front and make fools of ourselves ha! ha! but we don't care)

leutgeb said...

Good for you!

Marita said...

In my parish recently there was a week's Retreat and everyone agreed that the best part was the 20 minutes silent reflection in the church before going back to the hall for discussion.

Adrienne said...

I crave silence in church....