So, there’s this warm-up in the rehearsal room before the first Mass yesterday. I want to see if my smallish choir can pull off an a cappella piece. We’re doing it for the Christmas Eve prelude, but it’s really suitable for an Advent Sunday. One of the men misses an entry. It’s early, so not a bad mistake. He’ll also realize it when he looks up from his music. My lone alto stops singing to turn around and correct him. So I stop and get on my soap box. You never telegraph a performance error by one of your own, I preach. And I tell everyone else not to do this. And I overdid the criticism myself. I apologized for it.
I was thinking, fifteen hours and six Masses to go, and this isn’t a good start for me. Other people’s errors piled up as the day went on. Often enough, I was clicking them off as I went and thinking, good stories to tell my wife, who was home sick in bed.
But a funny thing happened on the way home from Missa in Nocte. I couldn’t recall any of those dozen or two errors. So I mentioned my own. I told my wife one of two things happened. Maybe I caught some Christmas spirit. Or maybe I’m getting old.
Maybe a bit of both.
On the plus side, I did remember the good moments, including one of my new singer’s fine rendering of our Christmastime Gospel Acclamation.
Catholic Sensibility 