Men of Christ Conference in Milwaukee

I will when time allows share a rather humorous video on the way to Milwaukee.... My window came off the track in my car in the middle of traffic....  well, let me bleep out any potential cussing before sharing.

For those of you following along at home, last Saturday I attended the Men of Christ Conference in Milwaukee. 

The location is at The Milwaukee Theater which I joked was probably a more beautiful building than most of our churches nowadays.  It was a great venue for the conference.  I did not realize but there was a Traditional Latin Mass offered at 7 am.  They just advertised a "Morning Mass" but had I know it was the Traditional Rite I would have made sure to attend(don't hate me for being trady-ful).  The place was packed with around 2,300 men.  The altar and fantastic crucifix remained up throughout the day.

At the beginning, Major Matt Strub in the US Army(I think) from the Milwaukee area read from Sacred Scriptures and lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance(who was teleconferenced in and was stationed in Iraq).  Somewhat awkwardly the "born and unborn" was left out although many men(probably KCs) said it anyway.  Still a very powerful moment as his son held the flag on stage.  The opening blessing was given by a priest wearing a cassock and given in Latin!  John Pridmore has one of those jaw dropping conversion experiences.  Fr. Wade Menezes(rhymes with diseases) was as effective as he is on EWTN. 

Let me say this though, Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers stole the show.  I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I've heard him on EWTN before explain scripture and was fine...   but he passionately hammered on everything from contraception to liturgical abuses.  I honestly got a bit choked up at that point.  These kinds of conferences can be watered down, but Deacon was on fire.  I mean, this is Milwaukee!  No offense, but you guys got the MAPA clowns and dissent galore, and a brave few desperately trying to recover the area from Weakland's devastation.  I just.... lose hope, sometimes I guess.  This talk made the conference. 

After that was a Eucharist procession and adoration(it was held in a small chapel... too small... during the entire conference to this point).  No female altar boys.  Vestments tasteful. Procession all the way through the theater.  Tall guys trying to figure out how to kneel without enough room.  Chant by boys choir.  Booyah!  I was jacked up.  As an aside, through adoration the altar remained set ad orientem.  I thought Abp. Listecki might be planning on celebrating Mass facing God, leading us men as Moses through the chaos of the Red Sea.  It is certainly a more manly way of worship and I thought IT was going to happen.  They did end up closing the curtains and resetting the altar right before Mass.  I was going to stay to take pictures if IT happened(we had a long drive back).  Who would believe otherwise.  Let's face it, IT is the biggest disconnect in the modern liturgy.  The thought of it got me choked up too.  What a gift that would be to priests by His Excellency!

Okay, fantastic conference and I will absolutely be going next year.  One of my main feedback items was the music.  Throughout the day there was a musician who was fine (besides one sighting of a praise and worship song before the conference began).  My suggestion is this, if you want to encourage singing, you would do better to have a small choir lead in song.  One singer suggests a performance, whereas I think we were really looking for a more fraternal approach for the conference.  The selections were okay, many patriotic hymns(a little awkward when your first speaker is a Brit).  But I kept waiting for Faith of Our Fathers, how much more manly and Catholic can a guy get!  We will be true to thee til death!  There are others that could fit the bill too but I thought the music missed the mark.  You don't need an instrumentalist necessarily.  3,000 passionately Catholic men singing in unison is a pretty powerful thing.  Don't get me wrong, it wasn't terrible like guitar guy at Mass or anything, but I think it could be even better.  If everything else at the conference wasn't so top notch it probably would have been less noticeable.  And the other thing is it didn't really make sense to me to have a vigil Mass.  So all these men are supposed to go home and say "Sorry honey, you're taking the kids in the morning.  I'm sleeping in."  Not that they can't go twice, but why not have the Mass in the morning with the archbishop, and just celebrate the daily Mass?  And two words in conclusion, ad orientem.  Go.for.it.

We stopped at TGIFridays in Madison on the way home for supper.  Six of us guys.  We bowed our heads to pray and when we looked up, everybody was staring at us.  A profanity laced tirade would have gotten less attention(I am capable of both).  I wondered at how many protesters at the capital are praying together.  Gotta love Madison.  Cheers to you fools that have never seen men pray together before! 

I wish I would have wrote down notes, I had other things that slip my mind now.  Maybe next year I'll do some live blogging from the conference.

And to all you dudes out there; Esto Vir!  Be a Man!  Go to the conference!