Labor Day (rants about civil holidays)

Holiday weekends—civil, holidays, I mean—are interesting. Labor Day weekend is especially fun and slightly strange, because on the one hand everyone’s already back at school so we don’t have tons of travelers the way we do at other times, but on the other hand it’s the semi-official signal for the End Of Summer, so anyone who can get away usually tries to. And attendance at liturgy is usually inversely proportional to the relative beauty of the weather: Saturday 5pm is a tomb, Sunday 7:30 has extra bodies, and Sunday 5:00 is heavily populated by all those who know they need to get to Mass but couldn’t bring themselves to give up any part of the beautiful weekend. (Not knocking this in the slightest, by the way! At least they're going to Mass!)

I also often get asked, not so much for Labor Day as for things like Memorial Day and July 4 weekends (July 4 especially perplexes me because it is not necessarily a Monday and can occur on any random weekday) why I don’t program patriotic hymns on the nearest Sunday to the civil holidays.

(So glad you asked!) The reason is very simple: each Sunday of the church year has its own readings and over-arching emphasis (I hesitate to use the word “theme,” since it gets easily distorted), always focusing in the end on the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. We are a universal church, bound in our baptism to every other human being on the planet, gathered in spirit around a single table to share in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Ever notice that there is no American flag in the sanctuary? Or ever been to the funeral of a military veteran, and noticed that though the casket is brought in covered by the flag, it is removed and replaced with the white pall (reminding us of our baptism) before being brought into the church? It’s the same symbol: once we enter into the Eucharist, all other signs of outward allegiance are removed, and we are all One in Christ Jesus.

The other, more practical, reason as far as I’m concerned is that for every civil holiday we do have a celebratory liturgy. It’s one of the reasons music ministers never actually get a three-day weekend, or any weekend at all, for that matter! Those Mondays off when other families get to pack up the picnic basket and go somewhere fun for the day, or sleep in and have pancakes for breakfast, I have to get up and play 9:00 Mass. (No, I really don’t mind, except after really long weekends when that extra day off would be really nice!) And we always do some kind of patriotic hymn on those days. Labor Day is actually the least obviously “American” of the civil holidays, so sometimes we won’t then (it just doesn’t feel that appropriate, since that’s not really what we’re praying about). But Memorial Day, Independence Day, etc. always get one or more patriotic hymn.

I always get hot under the collar, just a little, when some person comes up to me with righteous indignation that I didn’t select a patriotic hymn for Sunday, June 30 or whatever, because of Independence Day, who then responds with even more righteous indignation that I would suggest they actually come to church on July 4 if singing those hymns is important to them. (“But that’s our Family Time,” they say primly. “What a wonderful opportunity for the family to come to liturgy together,” I reply. At which point they usually shake their heads in frustration and go tell Father how uncooperative the music minister is… J)

Happy Labor Day!
peace,
Jennifer