I even reserve the right to call someone a “mensch”. How d’ya like them apples?

And you know, for your parish’s size, you really don’t do badly. In fairness, I realize that my parish is much larger than yours, and thus has a larger talent pool from which to draw. That could account for why I’m a bit spoiled re: music.

Besides - you’ve got us beat all hollow with those prie-dieus at the front — I LOVE being able to kneel to receive the Eucharist!!!

Every parish has its strengths and its weaknesses.

TBS: we’ve debated this before, and while I still think your title for “Here I Am, Lord” is funny, the fact remains that it’s rooted in Scripture - Isaiah, right? So if God and Isaiah actually had that conversation, why is it out of bounds for a hymn? It’s a little more “me-centered” than I like, in that it focuses a little more on the response than the call itself, but it’s far from the worst I’ve heard. In fact, compared to some, it’s downright okay!

DJ: I’ve heard a few ickies at your parish, but not many; and most of my gripes about music at your parish center less around the choice of songs than they do around the execution of said songs. By and large you guys do OK. The girl with the reedy little voice who always cantors and plays organ at First Friday Mass is competent. The one time she was gone - November, I think - was downright painful.

Also, I’d like to point out that I’m practically certain that Amazing Grace was written before House of the Rising Sun, whereas Haagen-Dazs were writing around the same time as the Brady Bunch was on the air, so the odds of “sampling” are more likely. (Of course, Vanilla Ice has cleverly debunked the myth of sampling for us, so clearly we are simply tin ears.)

And even though Amazing Grace is unrelentingly Protestant (it was written by one, after all) it is neither dumbed down nor egocentric.

OTOH, I ALWAYS refer to “Here I Am Lord” by its Protestant name: Our God is an Indecisive God. After all, how would he EVER know who to send, unless we pipe up?

TBS

I’m with you about the lyrics of H/H…the music varies from atrocious to decent, but the lyrics are pretty consistently banal. I remember reading something from a chorister whose daughter flat out refused to sing one of their songs because it kept talking ABOUT praising the Lord, but never actually DID it. :-p “Here I Am, Lord” isn’t that bad lyrically, but so far it seems to be the exception; and it’s vastly overplayed, at least at the Masses I attend, so it could be the best hymn ever and I’d still eventually see it as a torture device.

Personally, I love a reverently-celebrated Novus Ordo, no doubt in part because I like worshiping in my native language. (If we could only get a vernacular indult for the TLM…) But you’re right, it’s not easy to find one that lives up to what the Mass really is. Even if the priest is great, if the music is mediocre…well, you know…and vice versa.

My fiancé lives in a small city in southwestern Ontario. We have been to just about all the Catholic churches in town. Mercifully they just had a big personnel shift as of July 1 - they clustered parishes and closed one - but prior to the personnel shift, it had gotten to the point where I dreaded going to Mass anywhere in town. I’m cautiously optimistic that things may improve now…of course, there’s only six months left before the wedding, but I’ll take six months over nothing in a heartbeat.