Alternative to hymnals

The road trip has continued, this time to Budapest - a beautiful city.  We attended Sunday morning Mass at St Stephen's Basilica, architecturally a magnificent building (though far too ornate for my taste) which had something I have never seen before.

An area of contention in parishes is the issue of hymnals.  The advantage of them is that you have a convenient collection of hymns and Mass settings, easily accessible, week after week for a one-off (if substantial) investment.  But the disadvantages are many: no hymnal will contain every single hymn or Mass setting that you wish to use and as soon as a hymnal is printed it is out of date anyway; also hymnals result in many of the congregation, often not confident singers, looking down rather than up.

One solution is to take out a license that allows you to use a very wide range of music and print the words on a sheet for each Mass.  When done well, this means that you can hand out one convenient pamphlet which contains everything needed for that Mass; but it does mean that you have to plan what music you are going to use well in advance with no last-minute alterations, it involves work to set out the pamphlets each week and there is still the issue of some members of the congregation looking down not up.

Another solution is to project words onto a screen of some sort, but this presents a whole load of other problems.  There is again the fact that someone will have to set out everything on PowerPoint or something similar.  A retro-fitted projector screen tends to ruin the aesthetics of a church, especially a traditional church.  I have seen TV screens on the pillars of the church, but this can mean people (awkwardly) looking towards the side and not the sanctuary.  But the Basilica had the best solution that I have seen.

Suspended over the sanctuary was a very large TV screen, but one like no other that I have come across.  It was a large, transparent glass panel without any bezels (frame).  When there was something for the congregation to sing, the panel became opaque and the words were clearly legible.  So, the panel had almost zero effect on the aesthetics of the building when not being used and it meant that the congregation faced towards the sanctuary, heads up.

I can't imagine that it was cheap, but I wouldn't mind one in our parish!!! 😇

Comments

  1. MTGF28 August 2017 at 10:55

    This is presumably a Hungarian thing. I experienced similar in Pecs earlier this year - a transparent screen in the main Cathedral and a screen on a wall in a side chapel (I seem to recall that the background was akin to flock wallpaper.

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