The following is from a short biography of Antonio Vivaldi:
Though ordained a priest in 1703, according to his own account, within a year of being ordained Antonio Vivaldi no longer wished to celebrate mass because of physical complaints (“tightness of the chest”) which pointed to angina pectoris, asthmatic bronchitis, or a nervous disorder. It is also possible that Vivaldi was simulating illness – there is a story that he sometimes left the altar in order to quickly jot down a musical idea in the sacristy…. In any event he had become a priest against his own will, perhaps because in his day training for the priesthood was often the only possible way for a poor family to obtain free schooling.
It seems that we now have the perfect way to get the lay people and nuns and the like out of the sanctuary when they’re up there glorfying themselves, not God: asthmatic bronchitis.
Or perhaps we can just pray that all of the liturgical befuddlers become musical prodigies who prefer to worship the “god of music” rather than our Eucharistic King.
