The Choir Show

At my local parish, Mass pretty much always runs about one hour and fifteen minutes.
By my calculations, we could shave off at least fifteen minutes if we cut out choir performances. The choir could only sing for as long as it took for the priest to reach his chair, purify the vessels*, or do whatever else he had to do. We could also recite the Gloria rather than sing it (which would also probably increase the number of people praising God).

*Why do we talk about purifying the vessels when he wipes them down? It makes it sound as if containing the Body of Christ makes them impure

Comments

[Akh Ari]

Regarding purification,

This has to do with the ancient Roman and ancient Hebrew sensibilities of which we are the heirs. It's really about the transition of an object from one grade of sacredness to another or the removal of something that is ritually 'out of place.' (see last 4 paragraphs of http://www.ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur115.htm )

For the Romans, a lustratio (Gk. katharsis, 'purification') did not necessarily mean that guilt or dirt was being removed (consider http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Lustratio.html )

Similarly, you may have heard people talk about how in the Old Testament, "unclean" doesn't mean the same as "dirty." As far as I can tell it is closer to what the ancient Romans meant by "sacer," which could be something good or something bad, but always involved ritual and social boundaries of some sort. Notice that in the OT there are cases where the priests are instructed to wash or change clothes so as not to transmit the holiness to places where it doesn't belong (e.g. Ezekiel 44:19)

[Akh Ari]

Regarding music,

The Gloria is the 'Hymn' of the Mass and should be sung, preferably chanted according to one of the traditional melodies (so that everyone can know it and join in), and not the silly-songs that probably are making you wish it was recited. (The whole Mass should be so chanted, but that's another story).

The traditional music (mostly neglected, unfortunately) of the Mass, namely the Antiphons of the Roman Gradual, have just the characteristics you wish for: that the ones that accompany a sacred action such as a procession or the Communion rite last only about as long as the action they accompany. The only problem (if you consider it a problem) is that they are in Latin, and they do not tickle the ears of the music directors of most parishes.

The sacred music should be well-executed, but when a Mass becomes "the choir show," something is out of order, even should the music be really good (worse yet if it's not).

[Peter Terp]

Thanks for the comments, AA.
I assumed "purification" was one of those liturgical words whose meaning becomes pretty much lost once it's translated into English.

I suspect the most egregious example is the phrase "celebrate the Mass"--which is intended to express the solemn performance of a ritual but gets transformed into a suggestion that we should inflate balloons and make wishes before blowing out the altar candles.