This is a time capsule to say the least. Elvis is singing at a EF Mass in the movie "A Change of Habit" starring him and Mary Tyler Moore! It is about five minutes long, but if you are impatient go to minute 2:21 or so and you'll see the EF Mass and Elvis singing away! I'm so nostalgic!
10 comments:
How is that the EF with a procession at the offertory?
You caught that! I believe this was the 1965 missal which was the Tridentine Mass, except it did allow for Prayers of the Faithful (as an option) and an offertory procession. I still lament that the Holy Father, Pope Paul VI didn't keep this order of the Mass, (1965) which had the prayers at the foot of the altar, but with Psalm 42 omitted and allowed for the vernacular of all the parts that the laity heard and spoke.
Yes, this was the now-called EF Mass as many of us experienced it in the mid to late 1960s.
I never cease to be jarred by Catholics who think that liturgical abuse started when the Novus Ordo was implemented in 1970. As by the typical UGA freshman who thinks WW I preceded the War Between the States.
Actually, I think that part of Paul VI's motivation for the NO was to bring order to the liturgical chaos in the late 1960's when hundreds of do-it-yourself Eucharistic prayers were circulating, a new one showing up on some altars almost every Sunday.
And, actually, he may have been right. In my experience, on the average with some ups and downs, liturgical abuse has been mostly declining over the past four decades.
At this rate, a few more centuries, and things will be back to normal.
Wow, very nostalgic! I had forgotten that the film ended so ambiguously. As a young Elvis fan, I'm sure I was rooting for him, but now I prefer having Mary Tyler Moore's character stay true to her vocation. :)
OK, this was so bad, it was hard to watch (and I can't handle the sideburns). Anyway, I see in the credits that Ed Asner was in this movie, too--a foreshadowing of the Mary Tyler Moore Show.
painful...absolutely painful
And therefore valid evidence that those who think that a simple abolition of the Pauline rites will restore liturgical and theological sanity are in fact gravely mistaken.
Well, if people are going to play the guitar, drums, cymbals, whatever, at the Mass--even in violation of the norms--at least it should be done that well. Say what you will about our separated brethren, they can rock out a nice beat.
Still, I'd rather have Latin and chant.
As I recall, the 1965 missal allowed almost immediately for the Mass to be celebrated facing the congregation, although it was still the EF Mass with minor alterations. It was also in the vernacular, except for the quiet prayers of the priest including the Roman Canon. But all that changed rather quickly, so much so that by 1966/67 we already had the lame duck English translation of the Roman Canon with dumbed down rubrics as well as the three newer Eucharistic prayers. By 1966/67 folk music was entering the scene which would corrupt the solemnity of the Mass for decades to come, from which we have not completely emerged. While contemporary music is much better than the earlier forms of folk music we dragged into the Mass it still falls short of what should be the norm for the Mass, and that is singing the propers of the Mass, i.e. Official Entrance Antiphon (Introit), Offertory and Communion Antiphons in a chanted style, whether in Latin or English. Hymns are not our tradition for Mass, hymns were our tradition for devotions, although even in pre-Vatican II times, a low Mass could have four vernacular devotional hymns, opening, offertory, communion and ending, but these never replaced the spoken introit, offertory and communion antiphons. These hymns were not a part of the official Mass.
What happened after Vatican II was the explosion of vernacular hymns of dubious quality, not the explosion of writing music for the official Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons in English but in keeping with Gregorian Chant or Polyphony which is the music that is normative for even the Post Vatican II Mass. That renewal has yet to come to be, but the days are coming says the Lord.
What this Elvis movie captures in a very artistic way is the confusion reigning in the Church of that period of time (late 1960's) as it concerns religious life and identity as well as the Mass. It is truly a time capsule!
Liturgical abuse is a result of spiritual confusion, immaturity, engendered by diminished or a profound lack of faith.
The OF has nothing to do with actual abuse. To paraphrase and old political slogan: "It is the lack of Faith stupid!"
Ickus est!
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