I went to my first "Worship Committee meeting" last night. It was...interesting.
It's good for me to go, so I'm informed about things I otherwise would be completely clueless about (there's a separate First Communion Mass?) but it really emphasized some things I've been observing recently that, well, make me angry.
These well-intentioned people who are SO convinced that they are 100 percent right, and that anyone who disagrees with what they know that the Church teaches is just an awful, silly, uneducated or stubborn person who needs to be set right and straightened out IMMEDIATELY.
and it makes me really angry that they just COMPLETELY forget about *charity.*
at the meeting, there were about 4 men and 4 women, all except one would consider ourselves "completely loyal the Church's teachings," but at least the other man has a good heart and really does want to do what's right-as in CHARITABLE. (contrast those who look down for example, on the Our-Father-hand-holders with those who do it because isn't it rude to not take someone's hand when the offer it, or even-oh goodness no-those who do it because it shows that we are unified? but I digress...just trying to give a little sense of the difference between the people at the meeting.)
Anyhow, the meeting was frustrating because the MEN kept on going off on all of these crazy tangents about all sorts of somewhat relevant but actually things that won't happen for a long time, or just that the worship committee won't really have anything to do with, and then they kept on ARGUING! And all of us women were rolling our eyes...
but what made me the most angry is how the other men would react when the guy who has somewhat different opinions would disagree. seriously people, it's 7 against 1, and I'm sure he realizes it. Can he PLEASE finish what he's saying? and then not have 3 people jump on him with explanations that are filled with implications of "If you just read the (hundreds of pages long) Church documents...Oh you're so naiive, you just don't know what the Church teaches..." Basically, just the general assumption that everyone agrees with you.
really, you're not going to change anyone's mind if you don't meet them where they're at.
ok, this post is making less sense the more I write. Maybe the situation itself wasn't so bad, and I know that men aren't as sensitive as women, and so I'm sure that this guy wasn't nearly as upset at arguing with 3 people at the same time as I would be!
Father wasn't at the meeting, and I'm just curious if it would have gone differently.
One guy (I mean, I like this guy, I'm not lambasting him, I'm just making an example of an attitude that he has which I do NOT think is helpful for unity within the Church, and for furthering the explanation of the Reform of the Reform!) this guy kept saying (kind of jokingly) that he wanted to reinstitute the Inquisition, and how he wanted to be Pope cuz he'd just "take care of" all the dissenters and such... (I reassured him that that was probably why he was never going to become pope...)
I mean, I don't want to give the impression that the meeting was all horrible and intense, it really wasn't that bad, mostly just annoying cuz it took almost two hours cuz we kept getting sidetracked about silly things like when we were going to put the communion rail back up and remove the free altar, and introduce more Latin. (I kept my mouth shut during that one, not wanting to bring up the fact that, well, um, actually THIS weekend we will be learning the "Mortem tuam annunciamus...")
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