"It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." GKC

Liturgy and Sin Reply

by Jeffrey Miller January 3, 2003

written by Jeffrey Miller January 3, 2003

David Ancell of Danger!
Falling Brainwaves asks:

Is it a sin to use OCP
materials in your liturgy?

That depends:

Using OCP material is in itself “grave matter”, but the person using it must
have known it was wrong and also must have had sufficient reflection before
using it.

As the Catechism states:
1859. “Using
OCP material to be a sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It
presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to
God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal
choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart[Cf. Mk 3:5-6 ; Lk 16:19-31 .] do
not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a SIN.”

And for a little reflection on blogging 2002, OCP was the subject of my first
rant July 27, 2002.

Emily Stimpson in reference to the song “Shine Jesus
Shine.” says “(As a completely unrelated side-note,
that idiotic song is one of the few things in the universe to which I can
honestly say my hatred knows no bounds. Liturgists who inflict it on their
parishioners are just asking for time in Purgatory.)”

I agree whole-heartily with her. I heard that song at the
end of mass at a parish I was visiting a couple of weeks ago. To make things
worse the people were clapping in beat to it, as was the priest as he went up
the center of the isle. Songs like this should be put into a class of songs to
do penance by or songs that are penance. If St. Augustine was around today he
might have said “When you sing you do penance twice”. When visiting a parish and
I see the dreadful “published by OCP”, I know I am in for a real treat. The
acronym OCP must really stand for Often Causes Pain. Going through their hymn
books you would think that there were not any songs written before 1980. Now I
know that these hymn books are put out by Oregon Catholic Press and I just
wonder if there is any connection between these insipid songs and that Oregon
was the first state to legalize euthanasia. There are already too many
distractions in my head, and I need all the help I can to ensure that I worship
Christ at the sacrifice of the mass.

In addition Catholic light has posts on two songs (surprisingly both
published by OCP).