The joy of Mass in my language

Allow me to divert from the theme of human development that this column has been exploring and record my experiences at Mass during the last seven months. This period coincides with the time of my relocation to Harare, Zimbabwe, after spending two decades in South Africa. In these 20 years I have always felt there is something I miss when I attend Mass—and that is Shona church music.

“The procession, [in a Shona Mass] for example, is a very important feature of the service. Of particular interest to me are the entrance procession and the offertory procession. (CNS photo/Leslie E. Kossoff, Catholic Standard)

When I was a child, I used to find Missa Cantata (the sung Mass in Latin) so inspiring and spiritually uplifting that I memorised the Kyrie, the Gloria and can even now still sing the Credo from memory!

I was so pleased when, as a result of Vatican II, Shona church music was developed, and I felt a new sense of inspiration when attending Mass in my own mother tongue. This is something I always missed during my 20 years of living in South Africa.

When I relocated to Harare in November 2012, I felt the spiritual uplifting I used to experience in my childhood days had come back. In the Latin days my favourite sung prayer was the Credo, but now it is the Gloria (“Mwari Ngaarumbidzwe”).

At St Joseph’s church in Hatfield, the parish is divided into sections called St Paul, St Peter, St Luke and so on, and these sections take turns to lead the singing on Sundays. At times it is a sodality of young people, the Society of St Agnes and St Alois, that leads the singing and does the readings. Clearly each section (or group) does its best to ensure that when its turn comes the singing is inspiring.

The instruments are African drums and rattles. There is dancing that goes with the songs, but it is very different from what you see in some Pentecostal churches, where the singing and the percussion instruments are very loud and the dancing very vigorous.

Here the sheer volume can bring the roof down, but the singing is angelic, the instruments controlled, and the dancing graceful and dignified. There is even ululation during the Gloria and other songs, but everything sounds so very dignified, respectful and angelic.

Would God not want to have such a choir in heaven?

The first Mass is said in English and the choir for that Mass does a really good job of making the worship uplifting, with drums, rattles and all, but there is something about modern Shona church music that makes it uniquely heavenly and angelic, and so I find myself drawn to the Shona Mass which at times is almost twice as long as the English Mass.

But there is more to the Shona Mass than the singing and dancing. The procession, for example, is a very important feature of the service. Of particular interest to me are the entrance procession and the offertory procession.

Take the entrance procession — it is a very long procession: There are very young servers in front, followed by up to 14 girls and boys with the girls usually in white dresses and two of the boys playing cymbals made of sticks. Behind the girls and boys are older servers, with the priest bringing up the rear.

The servers and the priest are processing in the normal way, but the group of girls and boys in the middle are moving in special “steps”, performing a graceful dance that involves the use of both legs and arms, moving towards the altar but alternately turning back, facing the congregation on this side and that side of the isle, and singing the entrance hymn in unison with the congregation and the sound of drums and rattles. The girls stay at the bottom of the altar and enact beautiful performances from there during  the Lord Have Mercy and the Gloria.

At offertory time the procession moves from the bottom of the altar to the back of the church to bring the gifts. The priest and the senior servers are not part of the procession this time, and have  been replaced by assistant ministers of Holy Communion and other officers.

The gifts are not just bread and wine, but include gifts to the priest such as sugar, bags of oranges and potatoes, tinned foods and others — all brought to the altar.

The movements and the dancing are so graceful that one Sunday a visitor could not contain herself—so mesmerised was she that she reached for her camera and started taking photos of this heavenly performance!

My next column will deal with the performance of the priest.