Wednesday, May 30, 2007

SO TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU DO WITH FELT BANNERS?

Burn them, of course!

Thanks to the Roving Medievalist, there is a new order, established to do just that - burn tacky felt banners that you can often still spot to this day in churches, banners such as this hideous thing to the left.

What really sucks is that the church that I'm subbing for at a funeral Mass this Friday has crap similar to this on the wall behind the altar - where there was most likely once a reredos. (And the funeral is chocked full of greatest hits requests too - blech! I'm doing it for the money.)

The name of the order: The Militant and Just Bloody Rotten Order of the Torch.
Here's the motto:



Red Sox cap tip to the Curt Jester.

Peace,
BMP

4 comments:

Fr. Erik Richtsteig said...

I'll start mixing up a batch of napalm now!

Brian Michael Page said...

That is napalm, right, Father, and not N(a)P(al)M? :P
We should spray some of that napalm stuff on those pesty unicorns too - the ones that keep annoying Charlie.

BMP

Paul Stokell said...

Generally speakng, torch 'em all. I'll bring the thermite. But I'm wicked bored, so I wanna play Devil's Advocate here:

What if the banners were well-designed, not like the overwhelming majority?

What if the banners had phrases in Latin?

What if the banners looked decent, and also in a place outside the presbyterium?

I've been to some places where banners - well, strips of color appropriate to the liturgical season, actually - were hung in places which made the otherwise empty space of a *very* large church look better, but not to the point of distraction, such as (may God forbid) being used in a procession.

Sadly, I don't think such things are used well, and the folks that use them haven't a snowball's chance of being shown how.

Brian Michael Page said...

Closest thing I saw to a Latin felt banner was one that said "Ave Maria". This was at a good sized Gothic-style church that housed a 1927 IV/70 Casavant organ and (at that time) Worship II.
Otherwise, with the majority of banners in most churches, it's amazing one doesn't say "Honk if you love Jesus" (that classic 70's bumper sticker).
OTOH, my neighborhood parish where all four of my kids made their first Communion once had a banner above the altar that said WELCOME HOME! Blech!
BMP