Mary, Did You Know?

Uh, the tradition o- of the church, the distinctive teaching of the church, is that we want music that's not reminiscent of what you sing at the pub or in, in the concert hall.

And yet, somehow, you know, we end up with Mary Did You Know, and, you know, people doing, uh, you know, the Uber driver who thinks that he's a liturgical musician 'cause he's playing the guitar at Mass, doing, uh, Pete Townshend Windmills during his, his, uh, guitar jam at Let There Be Peace on Earth.

Uh, there, there's... [laughs] Well, we, we, we have a lot of problems here, and I think we've lost sight of what the church has always taught.

So let's shift and say regardless of preference, we have an obligation to at least make ourselves aware of what the church has always taught, and that for the Mass of the Roman Rite in any form, objectively speaking, certain types of music are better suited to it than others.

Lex orandi lex credendi.

Right.

You know, I, I caused a stir s- uh, several years ago when I was writing for, I had a, used to have a weekly column for, for Aleteia, and I referred to a song as the song that canceled Christmas, and it was Mary Did You Know? And I was, I was at, uh, my, uh, my sister's parish, and it was during the Christmas season, and they started to sing that, and my sister thought I was gonna have a stroke, and she said, "Please go outside and, you know, lie down out in the parking lot, 'cause I don't want my young daughters to be traumatized seeing their Uncle the Priest drop dead during mass." I mean, Mary, did you know that the baby you delivered would soon deliver you? Look at me, I'm a poet.

And I said, "Well, sure, if there's no immaculate conception, then that makes sense," but without the immaculate conception, you can't have the incarnation.

I nearly had a stroke a few years ago.

I was visiting with my family, and it was around Christmastime, and during Mass they started singing Mary Did You Know, and I ended up publishing a controversial article called The, The Song that Canceled Christmas.

Mary, did you know that the baby you delivered would soon deliver you? Well, that means there's no immaculate conception, and if there's no immaculate conception, there can't be an incarnation 'cause human flesh is in rebellion against its creator.

You can't have the, the divine Son take on rebellious flesh, can you? Can, can you talk a little bit about the necessity of the immaculate conception as the precursor to the incarnation?

Mm-hmm

... one of which is my all-time favorite Christmas song, and that would be Mary, Did You Know.

[laughs] Well-

And-

[laughs] Okay.

That was actually a reissue.

Um, we re- when Thirteen Minutes formed, it was, Mary, Did You Know was actually the first song that we recorded as a band.

Get out.

Well, I will say last year we had the pleasure of going to see some friends of ours perform a country Christmas set at Puckett's.

And we ate like cobbler and listened to like the country version of Mary Did You Know and a bunch of country Christmas songs I had never heard before.

And everybody's stomping and clapping.

And I looked around and I was like, this is Nashville.

What is yours?

Mary, did you know? You know what? She knew.

She didn't.

It's in the Bible.