Today, at the Mass we attended, the Rite of Welcoming was celebrated from 1 catechumen and 6 candidates – always nice to see, although the presider does things not quite right – rather than replacing the Opening Rite with the Rite of Welcoming, he just adds it. But ah, well. The music was fairly standard, except for the totally forgettable Communion meditation. I am not musicall literate enough to be able to describe in words the impression, after 5 years, that the choices of this parish’s music minister make on me. I’ll just say that after about 3 years, I turned to Michael and said, "I don’t think this guy is Catholic," just judging from his music selections. Sure enough, he discovered just a month or say later that he isn’t. It’s simply that given a chance to select a choir solo/meditation, the pieces are never even faintly suggestive of Catholic lyrical or musical vocabulary. Does that make sense? And since I’ve starting noting this, I’ve tried to pay attention to the composers listed in the programs, and they’re never any with whom I’m familiar – and even though I haven’t done parish music myself in several years, I’m familiar with the names, at least, of many of the composers currently used as standards in Catholic churches. Anyway.

The homily was, in part, at least, a repeat of last year’s of the same feast – separating fact from fiction in the story of the Magi (don’t worry – the "fact" was what Matthew relates and the legend was, well, the legendary material). It all led to a good point – the Magi went to an enormous amount of trouble and took a very long time to follow the star to worship Jesus. What moves us to prioritize our time and resources? Is it our faith?