Okay, I'm a bit apoplectic after having watched the video below. In the name of all that is Catholic worship and holy, how can this be happening in the Church of the Now in 2014?
Wedding liturgies as well as funeral liturgies in the post-Vatican II era are in need of desperate reform and the mentality of a priest who thinks this is appropriate Catholic liturgy, piety and spirituality is truly amazing. And guess what folks, he's my age I think, the age of clergy trained in the 1970's and still functioning today as if it is the 1970's. I suspect if he got polled on the glorious new English translation of the Mass that he was negative about it! O me, o my!
And guess what, there is a unity candle on the altar. Who in 2014 still uses this silly non-sacramental created by marketers to make money.
However, the only bright spot is the church itself. It still has the altar railing and the high altar is still in tact but with the table portion pulled away from the reredos to allow for Mass facing the people, which has created priest-entertainers like the one in the video!
When will the bishops of the Church stop condemning priests for encouraging kneeling for Holy Communion and ad orientem and deal with the real liturgical problems like this one? I report; you decide!
Please note, thanks to a commenter, that I now know how to size these videos to fit properly on my blog. And certainly we don't want to give this entertainer priest more space than is needed! God is Great!
7 comments:
I think the reaction of the people is more disturbing. Their approval of such nonsense shows how the Faith is gone. I guess I have become used to priest acting foolish on the altar and I made myself believe that everyone else saw through the silliness. There is no denying that the Church has moved beyond crisis mode, it's beyond repair. The end has to be coming soon.
[Sarcasm warning] That was so beautiful! If I try this at my next wedding and get a standing ovation, will you post my video on your blog, Fr. McDonald? And, I agree that unity candles are ever so "1990's". I always use flashing LED lights, with a button the couple can press to make them flash in unison.
The normal advice to pop wannabes like this priest (who is old enough to know better) would be 'don't give up the day job'. But in his case it might be better if he did give it up, and better still if he had never taken it on in the first place.
Made even worse by the fact that they're abusing a beautiful sanctuary space! In a modern, auditoriumesque church it would be one thing, but this is even more upsetting. Forgive them, Lord, for they know not what they do....
John Nolan,
I see your point, but I think it's better to remind him that he's a priest forever, and needs to behave appropriately.
This video is certainly making it's rounds, and i'm suprised i resisted watching it for so long, knowing that it would get me riled up.
Father's performance (can it be called anything else? it's certainly not prayer!) offends against right worship.
"Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment." -Ratzinger.
Concerning the song itself. Yeah, it has a catchy tune. But how is it even appropriate to be sung during Liturgy? The lyrics detailing David's murder of Uriah because of his lust; in the song, David is rather uncontrite: "if there's a God above" i'll stand before him and tell him that i did my best...as if he defends the murder because it was done in the name of lust confused for love.
But then again, it's fitting: a perverted notion of faith and love for a perverted sense of liturgy.
Was the liturgy ever perverted like this before Vatican II? No. Never in the history of the Church. Did this sort of perversion begin with the Novus Ordo? No. Like every other distortion it began with the Council. It is no longer a tenable intellectual position to defend the Council on the one hand and blame the crisis in the Church on a false 'spirit of the Council' on the other. The liberals know this, but conservatives are understandably reluctant to admit that an Ecumenical Council could have been so disastrous in its effect, or that a pope (Paul VI) could have been so thoroughly wrong.
But it's sadly, historically and inexorably true.
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