Singing in German

David Schütz, be impressed: being in Bavaria visiting a priest friend, I´ve sung an incredible number of hymns, in German, at the three Masses I´ve so far attended!  (The very first, on Monday, had so much singing - as well, alas, as a very lengthy and to me incomprehensible sermon - that I asked if it were a special occasion: the reply being, this is normal for weekday Mass here!)

I find that singing in German is a good deal easier than speaking it, since the pacing is slower and I can read the words then strive to pronounce them, rather than falling behind (as I do in the spoken parts of the Mass).  Luckily, my friend (whom I met when he was studying in Australia years ago) speaks excellent English, else I would be all at sea.

Father is at present off celebrating the first Mass and Procession for Corpus Christi (still on Thursday here); to-morrow I´ll attend the morning Mass and Procession, then, poor priest, he has a third Mass and Procession in the afternoon!  He has several parishes in his care, albeit all very close together (two of them less than a kilometre apart); having seen all bar two of the churches and chapels, I can testify that the Baroque art in these alone far outshines anything I can recall back home.

(I can´t yet upload my holiday photos, but will when I get back to Australia and my own computer.)

Yester-day, I was lucky enough to visit several famous churches (one a World Heritage site) and, last but not least, Neuschwanstein Castle, built by poor Mad King Ludwig.  As I remarked to Fr, in the fulness of time Ludwig II´s extravagant expenditure of money on art both enriched the State and brought joy to millions, while the King of Prussia spent up big on the military instead, thus bringing decades of misery and slaughter to the world: so who was mad, and who sane? who deserved to be forced from the throne (and to die under suspicious circumstances) and who to reign?

King Ludwig died on the 13th of June; no doubt the Wittelsbachs will have a Requiem for him, as befits a Catholic royal family.