Prior to Vatican II we simply celebrated the liturgy and oriented the sanctuary according to script and strict liturgical laws Holy Mother Church gave us.There were no silly obsessions about the "signs and symbols" of the liturgy, as Christ the Sovereign King was central and He is our main preoccupation as Catholics seeking his grace for Catholic perfection finalized at our personal judgement's purification!
Praytell geeks muse on bread, true Catholics center on Christ crucified and Risen!
THEY ONCE WERE LOST, BUT NOW THEY’RE FOUND… CRUSTY HARD ROLLS
4 comments:
If Ruff and Kwasniewski wanted to work together, they would have wafer irons made pre-order reformation style in which one could make homemade wafer bread that is unlearned. These irons are the ancestor of the waffle maker and the wafer the predecessor of the waffle. Such an approach would allow blessed, but not consecrated bread that could be given to those who do not receive communion, another pre-order reformation practice preserved in the Byzantine East.
The discussion at PrayTell reminds me of the last year of seminary, when my classmates and I were being instructed in how to offer Mass. The priest instructing us was all about grandiose gestures, because -- wait for it -- they were powerful "signs." (No doubt.)
So, when we kissed the altar, we were to "smooch" it, for example. (I am not making this up.)
And, when it came to the fraction, we were encouraged to lift the consecrated bread (as big as possible, of course) really high over the altar, and then dramatically break it, pulling the two parts wide apart. This was demonstrated to us.
Think about this. Most men have arms about 30 inches or so, plus the width of their torsos. Imagine the size of the arc in which the particles of Christ are being sprayed around the front of the celebrant, on and beyond the altar!
It occurred to me at some point, right then, that the mindset from which these instructions arose was paying more attention to the "sign value" of the Eucharist, than to the reverent treatment of the Eucharist itself. And after reading the article and comments at PrayTell, it seems little has changed.
I might add...
I am not indifferent to "sign value" and the power of symbols. It's just that at some point, practical considerations are very difficult to ignore.
And so, for example, baptizing people by immersion...even babies...
And another example, the whole business about trying to avoid distributing communion from the tabernacle, but only drawing from what is consecrated at that Mass.
Other examples might easily be cited.
I think that Praytell has done an invaluable service in that it has put on full display the arrogance, bullying, insecurity, nastiness, and pseudo-intellectualism, of the liturgists who use it as their platform. Before Praytell, much of this was just anecdote, now it's all out there and can't be wiped away. It will ultimately be a very useful tool for discrediting the establishment.
I was once sympathetic to Ruff's plight after he broke with the new ICEL but seeing the kind of acerbic rhetoric, shoddy reasoning, and bullying that he employs and tolerates from the likes of Paul Inwood, all that sympathy has been shattered.
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