Day Four -- why you can't negotiate with a liturgist

By Fr. Paul Mankowski, S.J. ( articles ) | May 02, 2003

From Thomas Day, Where Have You Gone, Michelangelo? (Crossroad, 1993):

I wanted to buy a new tie.

"Need some help?" asked the salesman (a semi-retired gentleman I know).

"Yes," I replied, "I was thinking of something in a solid color," and then I showed him a few possibilities I had picked out.

He grabbed them out of my hand and put them back on the rack. He looked angry.

"I was a soldier in World War II and afterward," he said angrily, "and all during that time I could only wear a solid-color tie. When I got out of the army, I swore I would never wear a solid-color tie for the rest of my life."

I bought something with blue and white stripes and left the store fast.

We never know what traumas, prejudices, and notions people bring with them when they encounter art, or a man's tie. We never know what some Catholics bring with them when they form opinions about art, architecture, or music for the church; sometimes they give the impression that what they really have in mind is "getting even" with the institution that had controlled them in the pre-Vatican II days.