On Easter Day I went to the main English-language Mass at San Thome Basilica in Mylapore (a suburb of Chennai/Madras). I’d been there once before, for a Mass at Epiphany, and recalled that there had been a small choir, mostly leading in the hymns.
There was still a small choir, giving a lead in standard Easter hymns, which I joined in. But the Gloria and Sanctus and anthems were replaced by recordings (apparently American in origin) of worship songs of the most soupy ‘love song to Jesus’ type. Probably just over half the congregation were Indian, the rest being from all over the place and I wondered whether they got much more than I did out of this. Is it even liturgically correct to replace (say) the Gloria of the Mass with a recording of a very loose paraphrase of it?
Now there is a time and place for using recordings at services; it’s quite common at funerals, for example, when a recording may be the best way of saying what needs to be expressed. But at the main Mass at a Cathedral on Easter Sunday? If there has to be a recording, couldn’t it be of something with musical content? Or something that acknowledges local musical traditions? Or could there be something simple, but live?
I suspect a change of clergy is behind this. I couldn’t have escaped it by going to an earlier Mass; the preceding one also had recordings of worship songs, but in Malayalam.
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