From the producers of the hit Trading Worship Spaces comes an all new ecclesial reality series Extreme Makeover: Church Edition. Put together a Church renovated sometime since or during the sixties, a deserving parish, and our team of experts. Our special team consists of Duncan G. Stroik and others of the new wave of classical architects, liturgical experts who actually follow Church documents, artisans in hand embroidered liturgical vestments, and Choir directors specializing in Gregorian chant.
Each episode of Extreme Makeover: Church Edition is self-contained and features a race against the liturgical clock on a project that would normally take months or years to fully achieve. We work with the local ordinary to ensure the parish staff is pulled a way for a week for a retreat while we go to work to totally surprise them in time for the following Sunday’s Vigil Mass. Our team of experts and hundreds of artisans in just six days renovate a Church and its liturgy. From the Nave to the Sacristy we pore over every detail to bring back both beauty to the Church and transcendence to the liturgy.
The lives of the lucky parish are changed forever as they find that there is actually more to liturgical music than modern ditties such as "Here I am Lord" and other its all about me hymns. When they find that texts for parts of the liturgy are not some created off-the-cuff or improvised but are something that unites the whole Church in prayer. Parishioners accustomed to the modern iconoclasm and stripped Churches are shocked by how they respond to beauty and just how conductive it is to both praising and worshiping God in the Mass. Priests are surprised to find that transcendence trumps relevance in both attracting the faithful and helping people to pray.
Our experts can deal with any challenge including a parish prone to extemporaneous liturgies or even a deVosko-ization of a wreckovated parish. No challenge is too much for our experts and artisans to overcome!
 |
The host of Extreme Makeover: Church Edition is Francis Cardinal Arinze. Yes straight to you from the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments he’s the perfect prefect and host to introduce you each week to our latest Extreme Makeover and keep our team of experts on track and the liturgy divine! We would say he is the host with the most, but Jesus in the Eucharist fits that bill. |
Episode Preview
To give you an example of a sample episode we will give you an actual example of what Extreme Makeover: Church Edition can do in just six days! First hundreds of building contractors and artisans in specialties such as stained glass work around the clock to transform your "worship space" into a place actually conductive to a new worship pace.
 |
 |
|
Before
|
After
|
For you skeptics out there yes this is an actual transformation and reverses the trend where the before picture looked better than the after picture. But we don’t stop there we also worked non-stop to retrain the choir.
 |
 |
|
Before
|
After
|
When the week is almost up and the parish staff returns they are in for a shock! We work with them to condition them to the new surrounding and the concept of beauty. Our crash course on the GIRM and liturgical documents transform their outlook. Some priests are less amendable and so we specially outfit their stoles with wires to shock them whenever they stray from the approved texts and attempt to leave the Sanctuary to shake hands with everybody within 500 feet. We also give them a crash course in homiletics by introducing them to both Patristics and a lifetime subscription to Homiletics and Pastoral Review.
Here is one of our most extreme makeovers!
 |
 |
|
Before
|
After
|
So if you think you have a deserving parish why not submit your parish for an Extreme Makeover since even the Pope is doing it. So enter now and you never know – your parish could be on Extreme Makeover: Church Edition.
Disclaimer: Not responsible for liturgists who go into a state of shock mumbling "Where’s my copy of Environment and Art in Catholic Worship" or people surprised to actually find the tabernacle in the center of the Church. Some people may need additional training who have had their tastes ruined by years of Marty Haugen and David Haas to accustom them to the fact that sacred music does not need to be sappy. Though we will provide them with a set of CD’s to help to gradually wean them off of standard OCP/GIA fare.
* If you are a member of Sacred Heart Catherdral in Rochester, New York we have already recieved thousands of requests. Extreme Makeover: Church Edition works fully with the local ordinary and will not procede without permission which is unlikely to occur in this case.
31 comments
This is awesome! I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself!
One minor correction, I think you mean that the priest is shocked upon leaving the “sanctuary”, not the “sacristy”. Or do I have that wrong?
Brilliant…
I’m pretty sure you could get everything you wanted off e-bay, but as to who would sponsor this little show, I can’t think of anyone off hand. Sears is already taken, and I don’t remember ever seeing a section that had pews, or kneelers.
I have a lengthy list of parishes just in my diocese alone that could use something like this.
BMP
You need a separate Canadian edition
Last month we had our Tabernacle moved front and center behind the altar of sacrifice. Now all we have to do is bring the cucifix back into the sanctuary, and relegate the huge golden seated “welcoming” Jesus to the closet^H^H^H^H^H^H Eucharistic Chapel where the real presence of our Lord and Savior used to reside.
Yeah I’ve been telling people we should have a show like this. I called the show “So you want to be a liturgist?” and includes not just re-decoration but liturgical renewal.
“we specifically outfit their stoles with wires to shock them whenever they stray from the approved text…”
This could be part of another ‘reality show’. A panel of chosen parishoners could hit the shock buttons when determining that Father has strayed out of compliance with the GIRM or when obviously sermonizing outside of Sacred Teachings and Traditions (such as one priest we had long ago who spent half of every homily quoting from the writings of Martin Luthor).
Could be promoted as either a ‘Survivor’ type thing — or even a ‘Fear Factor’ with a little extra thought put into it! Another thought in the same vein – a spinoff: “Catholic Priests Say the Darndest Things” with an amiable old Cardinal – say Cardinal Martini – holding a mic and interviewing a group of priests each week and showing the not-quite-Catholic ‘bloopers’ from their weekly homilies.
(Do you have those stoles available now, or is it for promotional purposes only…?)
Jeff,
With the lunacy in Rochester, this was a welcomed parody. Pray for us.
One moment, big fella! We artisans certainly don’t go about working our little faces off wearing hand-embroidered liturgical garb, dear boy.
Now I’m curious. How many years did the parish have to save to do the renovations, pray tell?
If you or others have some idea of how to go about locating Catholic artisans, we sure would like to know (see link). That is like pulling teeth finding them, never mind getting them together on the net much less doing a work together.
God bless.
Oh, and nice snapshots too!
Last year, we wrested the tabernacle off the sideboard, and put it in the center behind the altar. We still have several reliquaries with relics from St. Theresa, that are parked in the tabernacle’s former stall.
Source and Summit, folks, repeat as necessary..
I’d like to submit my Church for this, Holy Spirit church. It seems to be run by liberals and we use Gather books a lot… (HELP!!!)
I’ve seen the “clown Mass” picture before, because that Mass took place at a parish not far from where I live. It was a truly sad event at Christ the King parish in Pleasant Hill, CA.
I echo Nerina’s sentiment. The biggest problem up here in the Roc is figuring out where to begin!
This is AWESOME!!!!! 🙂 Too bad it isn’t real! I would nominate my entire diocese!!!! We’re are expecting a new bishop any time now, so maybe our prayers will be answered.
Just went back to April to see that you nominated ST. Jerome for patron of Bloggers….cool,since I grew up in that parish in St. Louis County…as to your extreme makeover schtick….well done.
(tho I must admit to liking the music of the St. Louis Jesuits)
I hope you don’t mind. I linked this from my blog- againstallheresies@blogspot.com
Loved it!
Fortunately the tabernacle is still front and center at the local parish church. Unfortunately, the Risen Christ looks like a cross between a butterfly and a UFO because of shadow-causing spotlights. Not to mention the 4 Extra-ordinary Eucharist Ministers in green choir robes..
If only this show were real.
Can we also have another Reality TV Show called “What Not to Wear?” I think that should follow this one.
Mr. Jester,
Here I am…
it is actually a favorite tune of mine. If it was in Latin, would that be okay?
Pax
The Vox
Why can’t we have the clown?
God bless you Jeff – you have outdone yourself!
I think my parish qualifies for this. Although we haven’t been excommunicated (like one parish in my diocese–true story!), some of these would make your stomach turn. Here is what i can come up with off the top of my head:
-At least 4-5 EMHC per mass, who stand around altar during consecration and consume host approximately .01 second after priest. More altar girls than boys.
-Music: “Gather” books, an “adult folk group,” a now-defunct teen “contemporary group” (now indefinitely replaced by a soloist and electric piano), both of whom sit in a side section of the sanctuary, and an adult traditional choir that sings pretty much the same music, except in the choir loft with a sub-par organist.
-Hand-holding during Our Father, gratuitous signs of peace, lots of loud talking before and after mass. Liturgical dancers for Christmas and Easter.
-Renovated a few years ago, tabernacle off to the side where everyone can ignore it (and usually does), confessional has a window where priest can easily see who is up next (if anyone comes at all, it’s only offered Sat 4-4:30 and “by appointment”)
Those are just a few things. I could go on about the youth ministry program and other problematic aspects, but you get the idea. Things do seem to be improving though. After our last pastor was arrested for sexual abuse (no lie), we have a new one who seems to be interested in at least reforming the music, and at Christmas Eve he actually sang the Kyrie! There is a glimmer of hope.
Thanks for letting me vent…
Sandy
It sounds like you are in a church ripe with evils and ills that plagued the church during the reformation, and hence the reason for the Council of Trent
I would recommend you find an Indult mass or an independent traditional or society church and save your soul-lex orandi lex credendi. Maybe when we all leave as my wife, family and friends did some 4 years ago as we sat through a joke of a mass and communion and all other abuses, the church will finally learn we want to worship God as most reverently as possible and yes , we take it seriously, to bad the clergy of Vatican II do not
God bless
Because, Shelray, clowns are scary.
Here’s my submission:
St. Boniface Cathedral, Winnipeg, Canada. The original stone structure COULD NOT BE BUDGED after a fire decades ago and still stands around the new circular kneeler-less building within. Pics at http://www.venite.ca/prefix.html
Oh, wait, I found some better pics:
http://www.winnipegfiremuseum.ca/fotos/k_elder/stboniface.jpg
http://www.where.ca/winnipeg/article_feature~listing_id~12.htm
Great website. We just completed our “makeover” at our parish. Tabernacle is in the middle again. Slowly but surely the Restoraration is taking place throughout the country. Often visitors from other dioceses will say “nice Mass” or “good Mass.” All I do is follow the GIRM and do what the Church says. Remember the old proverb “those who eat Rome, die.”
Jessica,
Bwwwwaaaahahahahaha!
Curt Jester, please, please, please do a ‘What Not to Wear’ parody.
P.S. I nominated Holy Name Cathedral (Holy Shame Cathedral) in Chicago.
It would have been cool if that entry box really kept a tally of what’s been nominated.
😉
What a horrible show! I cringe when I think of all the good renovations we have been doing over years being reversed by these barbaric Neanderthals who have no appreaciation for the spirit of Vaticn II! But I know that God is on our side. She must be as our conversion of churches to community worship spaces marches ever on!
oh my goodness, i almost fell off the chair at this one. my parish is pretty good, we moved the tabernacle from the side of the church to being front and center again. Though when the Pastor, Deacon, pastoral associate and I all at once genuflect when we enter the Church, we still gets looks from the congeration. 😉
i can think of a few churches around me in NJ that could do with this show. And I so agree that a What Not To Wear show is needed as well, especially for my generation and younger.
Comments are closed.