Spotted! Inner Goddess!

Well, I haven't had an inner goddess spotting in a while. It's amazing where they turn up. This time it blindsided me at an otherwise lovely Mass for the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.

I think the OCP composers - you know, the same 6 people who wrote the same 24 songs we've been strumming on guitars for 40 years now? - are probably geniuses. Let's write a series of dreadful, nearly impossible to sing accompaniments to the Psalms of the Sunday Masses & they'll have to sing them; we'll be nearly immortal! We'll be more popular than the Beatles! We'll be more popular than Jes... er, never mind.

And so we have Psalm 98 with the oh-so-familiar melody "All the ends of the earth (I hope you're all swaying side-to-side) have seen the glory of God; all the ends of the earth have seen (go down here instead of up) the glory of God."

Well, I thought I just had wax in my ears again, but I was sure I had heard the cantor skip a word here or there or use different words in the verses of the psalm.

Sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done wondrous deeds; God's right hand has won the vic-tory; God's holy arm... Then the cantor signals "Touchdown!" & everyone joins in the refrain.

The Lord has made salvation known... Revealing justice to the nations (or something like that)... Remember your kindness & faithfulness to Israel...

OK, so what are my problems with that, you ask? Well, a few. First, this little ditty doesn't follow the approved text of the Psalm. Hopefully, the new translation will fix that.

Further, the version we sang last night didn't even match the same one we've been singing forever. What was different? Every reference to God as masculine was eliminated. The Psalm for Mass was hijacked by someone with a feminist agenda. They want God castrated. The psalm actually goes:

Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done wondrous deeds His right hand has won victory for him; his holy arm.

The Lord has made his salvation known; in the sign of the nations he has revealed his justice. He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel.

The psalmist was pretty careful to include those masculine references. I'm not sure by what authority someone would arbitrarily eliminate them. I guess by Luther's.

Why all the fuss, you ask? God is neither male nor female, right? Well... There are libraries full of theological explanations of why God is "father" & not "mother" or simply "it." But consider this: the Second Person of the Trinity took on human nature & flesh by way of the Blessed Mother. Jesus was a man & Jesus was God. Jesus called the First Person Father. It is unequivocal that God & the masculine, even maleness, are related in a special way.

Look, I know when I'm being played, & last night someone decided that the Sacred Liturgy was the place to air out their radical feminist ideology. Since this was not my parish, I tried to put it aside & focus on the more important aspects of the liturgy. But, I hope the pastor intervenes. I hope this miserable arrangement is never played again. I hope people holding & publicly forwarding heretical notions either repent or formally leave the Church; the scandal they give is awful. Hasn't enough damage been done?

Holy Mary, vanquisher of heretics, pray for us.