Music doesn't make the Mass.

People like going to theaters, and they like going to casinos, but they don't like going to church. Why? Because it's a drag."

Those are the words of Whoopi Goldberg as Sister Mary Clarence in the hit movie "Sister Act." If you saw the movie you'll remember that she saved St. Catherine's Parish from a choir of tone-deaf nuns by remaking old favorites such as "Hail, Holy Queen" into Vegas show tunes, complete with some boogey-woogey on the piano.

Her goal was to "get some butts in the seats," and she was more than successful. The pews started filling up - even the rowdy neighborhood kids were drawn in off the streets by the pied piper of liturgical music. The collection basket overflowed with cash, and the nuns were even inspired to leave their cloister to do social-justice work in the streets.

If only it were so simple. In the effort to create a meaningful liturgical experience, much emphasis has been placed on improving the music. Granted, most parishes don't go to the extremes they did in "Sister Act" - in which Mass is referred to as the show" - although I've been to a few that come close. I remember a service at the suburban megaparish my family attended when I was growing up. We had a music director who liked to "rock this place," as Whoopi would say, so we were used to the trumpets, tambourines, piano, guitar, and organ competing to drown out the congregation. One Sunday, the processional hymn began with a drum solo that sounded like something my sister and I were more used to hearing on our radios than in church. We exchanged looks that said, "Cool!" My parents weren't so enthusiastic.

Such excess isn't limited to new music. An inner-city parish my parents attend is well-known for saying portions of the Mass in Latin and hiring professional musicians - members of the Minnesota Orchestra - to play long selections of Beethoven and Mozart. It's beautiful music, to be sure, but just as the suburban megaparish's "show" belonged at a rock concert, this music belonged in a concert hall.

As in "Sister Act," both of these parishes attract lots of people to the pews with their music. In fact, the Christmas midnight Mass at my parents' parish is usually packed an hour early for the pre-Mass concert. When I attended, the pew i front of me was filled with tourists who got impatient whenever the priest started talking, apparently regarding it as an interruption to the real show; they left during the Consecration.

I am not knocking good liturgical music. After all, the psalmist repeatedly exhorts us to "sing joyfully to the Lord," and the new Catechism of the Catholic Church encourages liturgical music whose "beauty [is] expressive of prayer." Good music enhances the Mass, and many parishes do a good job of providing it. For instance, during Lent last year, I found the music at my parish consistently helped me get in the mood to prepare for Easter.

Still, I can't help feeling that we put the cart in front of the horse in pursuit of a meaningful experience at Mass. Ideally, music should serve as a form of prayer, preparing us to receive the grace of the Word of God and the Eucharist. The "Sister Act" syndrome strikes when the pursuit of magnificent music becomes an end in itself, overwhelming the celebration instead of enhancing it. The Mass, rather than being a eucharistic celebration, becomes a free concert designed to make us feel good.

Music is subjective, and I don't want to attempt to define what makes good liturgical music here except to suggest that there is probably a problem when the congregation is so overwhelmed by the music that everyone stops singing. (At the other extreme, the same sort of reaction is easily prompted by bad music.) Rather, I'd like to suggest that at the core of the "Sister Act" syndrome is the attitude that the right kind of liturgical music is the answer to poor Mass attendance or participation. It's true that putting on a good show will "get some butts in the seats," but what good is that if scripture and the Eucharist have relatively little significance to the people?

Music doesn't make the Mass; the eucharistic celebration does. If parishes want to boost Mass attendance, convert all those Christmas Catholics, increase giving, or launch a social-justice program, they need to begin by preaching the gospel. When Catholics are excited about the gospel and awed by the mystery of the Eucharist, joyful music comes naturally.

My friend Vivian, an African American who worships in a Baptist church, is always boasting about the music at her church in Chicago. Everybody sings with gusto, she says, without instrumental accompaniment or a music director. "How does that come about?" I asked.

"That's just our way of praising the Lord," she said. "Actually, I don't think I sing that well anyway, but it's like the Lord doesn't care. You come to him as you are, so I sing to him with what I've got. I give him praise through my singing."

As with the psalmist, the impulse to praise comes from an awed awareness of the presence of God, and the impulse bursts out in song. Where that impulse to praise already exists as the result of evangelization of the gospel, then beautiful music strengthens and magnifies that praise.

By contrast, parishes that try to leverage praise from their congregations by glitzing up the music end up with, well, a packed concert hall. That feels artificial, no matter how wonderful the music, as if it were an attempt to simulate a spiritually alive congregation. I imagine when the spiritual needs of parishes are attended to first, music ministry is a cinch.

Jesus didn't have the benefit of al full-fledged music ministry, after all. The apostles Probably sang a few traditional Hebrew hymns before the Last Supper, but let's face it, the 12 men Jesus picked off the streets and docks of Galilee probably weren't selected for their musical ability. In fact, the music at the first Mass was probably worse than anything served up by the typical American parish.

Mass is still inherently messy, full of crying babies, people who wear too much perfume, hypocrites, and, yes, bad music. Fortunately, if we come together as people open to receiving the grace of God, that grace can transcend even the worst music. That's one reason I like celebrating Mass on Monday nights in the small prayer room at the Catholic Worker house of hospitality where I am a volunteer. Except for a lone guitar, we're left to wing it. Somehow, there's something intimate about all our voices joining together in praise of God, just like that first Mass. It reminds me of how my elementary-school music teacher implored us to sing: "God gave you your voice as a gift; now he'll have to put up with it."