I attended a parish in a different city last night. I got a little concerned before Mass when I noticed a huge "Microsoft XP" logo on the wall and I figured that it was there for the organist to check her email during the homily if she got bored.
It turned out to be a MovieMaker presentation of slides from Haiti where a few of these parishioners had gone some weeks back, set to "Time to Say Goodbye" by Andrea Boccelli and Sarah Brightman and some other song I didn't know. Unfortunately, they fired the thing up right after the Gospel and didn't contextualize it at all, so I didn't know what the slides were about as 8-10 minutes of this video presentation with no explanation carried on. Plus, I'm half blind and sitting at the very back of the church, it was all very colourful but not much more.
"I am craving popcorn with this movie," I whispered to my companion.
Finally the homilist stood up once it was concluded and applauded wildly. Most others followed suit. Then he explained the context and encouraged others who could to go down to visit Haiti, and asked those who could not, to pray for the Haitians.
If we had been given a context, this might have been an effective use of media in church. Then again, I felt like I was in a non-denominational megachurch where I could expect everyone to get up and start clapping, singing and dancing. It seemed inappropriate for inclusion in a homily, and might have been better used during the final announcements or even after or before Mass as a special presentation.
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