Back to the Valley

It was supposed to be "Back to the Mountain". I had been looking forward to this weekend retreat, the second one of its kind, a reunion for Cursillistas hoping to recapture that mountaintop experience that Cursillo often provides. I had made my Cursillo almost 12 years ago, which was a great experience at that time in my life and yielded several close friends and a resurrection of my keyboard playing skills (such as they are) in nine subsequent Cursillo weekends over the next 10 years as a member of the music team. I had been a bit disillusioned with Cursillo the past few years after some truly awful liturgical and musical moments and had put my volume of praise music on the back shelf until I was asked to play keyboard for this weekend. I hesitated and then said why not and had been actually enjoying playing those tunes again, and it even inspired me to finally get a decent full digital keyboard so I could really start practicing again. We had one rehearsal which went pretty well, the guitars and singers were well above the norm for these weekends, so I went up to Graymoor on Friday hoping for the best. Barbara Crafton is always wonderful and her "Fireside Chat" would be worth the trip even if all else was a drudge.

It had been a wonderful Holy Week at St. Ignatius, no blowups and all the liturgies went very smoothly, with heavenly music and good attendance, and I hoped to continue the Easter spirit through Low Sunday before descending to the inevitable valley. But it was not to be. The music team leader (a rock and roll guitarist who confessed to not being able to read music, nor understanding how the music for a eucharist worked, himself not going to church very often) was on my case for playing too many extra notes in the songs (I play from arrangements, not the one note in the songbook) and was always telling me not to play so loud while I couldn't even hear myself the whole weekend for his loud banging away on his 3 power chords. Then he decided I wasn't to play for the highlight of the weekend, the Fireside Chat, supposedly because he couldn't find the cord for the electronic keyboard in the chapel, meanwhile there was a perfectly good piano in the corner, on wheels even. The Chat and eucharist were okay, but sort of ruined for me by someone telling a stupid joke spontaneously right after Communion. It had been a very informal consecration, with Deacon DePue doing a silly running ad lib against Barbara's attempt to be instructional, but the joke was taking it way too far.

However, the real moment furthest from Christ came during the last service on Sunday morning, which was Morning Prayer because all the priests had either had to return home to their parishes or were ill or their dog was ill. So we were left with Deacon DePue, who was just delighted that her moment to shine had finally come. This woman had driven me over the edge a couple of times before on other weekends with her antics, but today she not only hijacked the final music session with one of her "tunes" but she offered to give a "homily" for Morning Prayer and that my dear readers was the fabled straw that broke my back. She got up, hiked the altar cloth up and planted her fat butt right on the altar to give her homily. It was supposed to be on the subject of placing your heart and soul on the altar (and yes, even your ass) rather than obsessing about objects like candles and flowers. That could have been a worthy topic, but I really don't think God (not to mention the dear friars of the St. Francis Chapel) appreciated her butt sitting on His altar. I know I didn't and this is just one reason why Cursillo gets such bad press. No one seemed to bat an eye at this and several people were just thrilled at such innovative preaching. As for me, I'll just stay down in the valley next time.