I Feel Sheltered

[Brigid]

I was searching online for pictures of St. Brigid (so I could make more pretty personal photos ) when I ran across a site for a Catholic church in Australia named after her. I wondered if they had any statues or windows of her in their church (I found one in Canada that did, which is now my current personal photo ), so I was looking through their photo albums. While looking at the Christmas Eve album, I found this:

[img]http://i195.photobucket.com/albums/z266/Brigid_Ireland/random/2176561771_faa79d9db9.jpg[/img]
[i]Bernadette, one of our Samoan parishioners, dances with a machete during the Offertory Procession [/i]

I mean... seriously? seriously?? I'd heard that it happened, but it didn't really hit home until I saw this. people actually do add random dance moves to the Mass.

*shivers*

it's not a situation where it's acceptable because of the culture, is it? I mean, I guess I don't know much about the Australian or Samoan culture, so I can't say for sure. but if I had to guess, I'd guess that that wasn't the case.

I complain about the little abuses at my parish, but when I see stuff like this, I'm grateful. thank goodness my parish doesn't believe this is acceptable.

Edited November 10, 2008 by Brigid

[qfnol31]

Ahh, you should see the African dusters...they bring up the offertory gifts with feather dusters.

Also, the Paulist women (though they aren't technically Paulists) can be pretty intense when they have incense bowls in their hands.

[url="http://www.paulist.org/150/story_gala.php#"]http://www.paulist.org/150/story_gala.php#[/url]

I won't tell you where I am in those pictures, but I'm not the women.

Edited November 10, 2008 by qfnol31

[Archaeology cat]

I like the look on the face of the woman immediately to the right of the dancer in the picture. I mean, her look is like "this should not be happening!". Happy to say I've never encountered this particular happening.

[tinytherese]

Some dance like that happened on tv down under at world youth day. Afterwards, someone emailed Life on the Rock and asked if it was a pagan ritual. Fr. Mark explained that the dance was okay since it was apart of the culture. Then Doug went on this long tirade about how we don't know that much about other people's cultures and that we need to learn more about them and be more considerate. I think that he spent too much time talking about that, besides the real issues were whether or not it pagan and if it was a valid thing to do at mass, and not cultural intolerance.

[CatherineM]

We had a woman do a liturgical dance last Easter. I can't remember now if it was to a song, or to one of the readings. I mean, she's got a BFA, so she can certainly dance, but I just found it creepy for some reason. She was wearing this white tissue kind of flowing dress that reminded me of a costume from Midsummer's Night Dream. Maybe it was from some play she did in college. I hope she doesn't do it again. She had just gotten baptized the year before, and our former pastoral assistant who just died, was very liberal about such things. It certainly wasn't cultural in any way, except she's Irish, so I guess maybe Druid.

[thessalonian]

Liturgical dance is not approved in the US. Write your bishop please.

[CatherineM]

This probably won't happen since our pastoral associate passed away. She was the force behind these kinds of things.

[prose]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1698946' date='Nov 10 2008, 12:06 PM']Liturgical dance is not approved in the US. Write your bishop please.[/quote]

Well, we are Canadian, not American... Not sure what the official stance of the CCCB is.

[Church Punk]

Ridiculous. Is it the mass or a pow wow?

Ive seen pretty bad before too. A young woman in way too pants and top dancing with a bowl of water and this was the Easter Vigil weird eh?

[Lil Red]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1698946' date='Nov 10 2008, 11:06 AM']Liturgical dance is not approved in the US. Write your bishop please.[/quote]
+J.M.J.+
umm, hello? brigid said it was in Australia. they might have different rules there.

[prose]

I thought he was responding to Catherine. Either way, none of us are American.

[dominicansoul]

during the offertory at Mass for the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe in most of the churches in my area, dancers in traditional Aztec dress dance up the aisle...i think i saw this at St. Juan Diego's canonization Mass, too.

I don't believe it belongs in the Mass, but since higher ups don't stop it...i don't know what else to think about it...

it's disturbing...

Edited November 10, 2008 by dominicansoul

[alicemary]

This is in Australia, among Samoans. I doubt reporting this to your bishop is going to help much. A little open mindness might be nice on this phorum. Attitudes here scare me more then someone dancing in their culture at their Mass in their country.,

[thessalonian]

Only place I know it may be allowed is africa. Ask cappie but I seem to remember him saying it wasn't allowed in australia.

[Lil Red]

[quote name='alicemary' post='1699041' date='Nov 10 2008, 02:40 PM']This is in Australia, among Samoans. I doubt reporting this to your bishop is going to help much. A little open mindness might be nice on this phorum. Attitudes here scare me more then someone dancing in their culture at their Mass in their country.,[/quote]
+J.M.J.+
and sometimes your 'whatever goes' attitude scares me.