By Larry Beane
GROSS: Do you still go to church?
Fallon is a comedian. He is being flip here. Whether he really understands the christocentricity of the Mass or not, who knows? But what is revealing here is his visceral sense (that I believe he shares with most people) that contemporary worship is not real worship. It's a show. It's at best a bait-and-switch manipulation. And by repudiating tradition, the church has become a self-parody.
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| Comedian Jimmy Fallon |
Mr. FALLON: I just, I loved the church. I loved the idea of it. I loved the smell of the incense. I loved the feeling you get when you left church. I loved like how this priest can make people feel this good. I just thought it was – I loved the whole idea of it. My grandfather was very religious, so I used to go to Mass with him at like 6:45 in the morning, serve Mass. And then you made money, too, if you did weddings and funerals. You’d get like five bucks. And so I go ‘Okay, I can make money too.’ I go, ‘This could be a good deal for me.’ I thought I had the calling…
GROSS: Do you still go to church?
Mr. FALLON: I don’t go to – I tried to go back. When I was out in L.A. and I was kind of struggling for a bit. I went to church for a while, but it’s kind of, it’s gotten gigantic now for me. It’s like too… There’s a band. There’s a band there now, and you got to, you have to hold hands with people through the whole Mass now, and I don’t like doing that…Now, I’m holding hands – now I’m lifting people. Like Simba. [Laughter] I’m holding them [Singing] ha nah hey nah ho.
I’m doing too much. I don’t want – there’s Frisbees being thrown, there’s beach balls going around, people waving lighters, and I go, ‘This is too much for me.’ I want the old way. I want to hang out with the, you know, with the nuns, you know, that was my favorite type of Mass, and the grotto, and just like straight up, just Mass Mass.
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Fallon is a comedian. He is being flip here. Whether he really understands the christocentricity of the Mass or not, who knows? But what is revealing here is his visceral sense (that I believe he shares with most people) that contemporary worship is not real worship. It's a show. It's at best a bait-and-switch manipulation. And by repudiating tradition, the church has become a self-parody.
Well, whaddya know! Have to agree, Fr. Larry. The wistful anxiety of Mr. Fallon, lying beneath all the wry laughs, is palpable, I think.
ReplyDeleteIt brings to mind the unease of Aaron, amidst the people desiring to rise up and play in worship ... which play, of course, went somewhat beyond the point of hand-holding.
Whatever is being clasped in the nave, the behavior is fundamentally driven by an unholy fear of a seeming abandonment (to the eyes incapable of transcendant seeing), and frank denial of the Presence. At the foot of Sinai, the people's hearts were utterly convinced that God was as distant as a Ba'al on vacation; and so they elected to steady themselves through the means of distractions which they chose for themselves.
Aaron dedicated the day immediately following the casting of the molten calf, as one given over to "a feast to the LORD (Ex 32:6; AV)" ... and one supposes he had longings resembling those of Mr. Fallon in L.A., although the latter didn't fashion the Frisbees encountered at Mass. But the people, then as happens now, had "corrupted themselves (v.7)." Lacking a faith in that Presence, the One St. Paul says holds the Universe together, and you find that instead of staying calm and being carried on, you disintegrate and freak out.
Cheerio.
Your (unworthy) servant,
Herr Doktor