IF YOU THINK THE PAST 50 YEARS IN THE CHURCH AND HER LITURGICAL LIFE HAS BEEN A SUCCESS STORY OR A NEW SPRINGTIME OF RENEWAL, I WOULD HATE TO SEE WHAT AN UNSUCESSFUL WINTERTIME WOULD LOOK LIKE

This is copied from Rorate Caeli who copies it from the New York Daily News who had a Rorate Caeli contributer write it, but I digress:

NY Daily News Op-Ed -Pining for the Latin Mass: Reflecting on major changes to the Catholic liturgy, 50 years later

By our own contributor Kenneth Wolfe:

Pining for the Latin Mass: Reflecting on major changes to the Catholic liturgy, 50 years later

By KENNETH J. WOLFE

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

NOV 30, 2019 | 5:00 AM

Fifty years ago this weekend, the Catholic Church debuted a new version of Mass following reforms made by the 1960s’ Second Vatican Council. From the use of vernacular language instead of Latin, to the priest facing the people instead of the tabernacle, the changes became mandatory at all parishes on the First Sunday of Advent 1969.

Read more »

CLEANING UP THE MESS OF THE PAST IS IMPORTANT, PREVENTING THE MESS IN THE FUTURE IS EVEN MORE IMPORTANT

I post below a speech Cardinal Cupich gave in early November. It is just one more "mea culpa" that so many are making for the lack of proper oversight of bishops as it regards rank and file clergy and no oversight of bishops given to debaucery in their dioceses.

Yet preventing abuse now and in the future is what is even more important and I think the Church has made some inroads into that but not uniformly from diocese to diocese.

A blessing in disguise is the knocking off of the pedestal the high esteeem Catholics had for priests prior to Vatican II simply because the priest had answered a call from God to serve the Church in this capacity.

Many superficial presumptions were made that the priest could do no wrong in the sexual area because of his promise/vow to celibate chastity. Thus a priest could be trusted with parent's children because he had no sexual desire for them, especially boys, because all presumed that priests were heterosexual albeit eunuchs.

But because the benefit of heterosexuality was given to priests, most rank and file laity prior to Vatican II knew that it was inappropriate to tempt priests by women and girls dressing immodestly or creating situations where a priest might fall.

Parents would never entrust their girls to priests to spend time with as they would with their boys. This certainly opened the door of temptation and actual sin when the priest realized his dark fantasies could be fulfilled with children of trusting parents, naive parents and parents who thought a priest would do no wrong in the sexual area especially with children, boys in particular.

While we are doing a examination of the consciences of bishops and priests in authority who did little or nothing to stop abusive priests, maybe because of naïveté or even callousness, it is now the time too to expand this to parents who did not recognize abusive priests they invited into their homes and where abuse took place right under their nose and because of this aura of sanctity and morality that priests had from their pedestal.

So much of the abuse was unwittingly enabled by parents that allowed their boys to spend a great deal of time with priests alone and sometimes were glad that the priest took their boys on overnight camping trips or even extended vacations. Sleep overs in the rectory  as a form of baby-sitting were not even suspect.

And yes, many boys were abused in the homes of their parents by parents who invited their priest, sometimes  those they considered good friends, to spend time with the family and alone time with their children.

This mentality of both bishops and laity and other priests one would hope has come to an end. Am I naive in thinking that it has? Would one think so, given the widespread use of programs like "virtus" that train both clergy and laity to recognize what can lead to abuse?

Cardinal Cupich: How can we end clerical sex abuse and purify the church?

CHICAGO (IL)
America Magazine
November 29, 2019
By Cardinal Blase J.

Editor’s note: This article is based on a talk delivered by Cardinal Blase Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, at the Latin American Congress on the Prevention of Child Abuse in the Catholic Church, held at the Pontifical University of Mexico on Nov. 8, 2019.
One day, a man in his mid-50s came to my office and shared the painful story of being sexually abused by his pastor. He started serving Mass when he was 9 years old, and the pastor always asked him to stay afterward to tidy up the sacristy. One day the priest took him to the basement and sexually abused him. He did this every Sunday over four years. After abusing him, the priest would walk the boy home and have dinner with the boy’s family. Adding another demonic layer of pain to the sexual abuse itself, each Saturday the priest would drive the boy to another town and force him to confess his supposed sins to another priest. Finally, the boy had the courage to tell his father, and the abuse stopped. Seeing the suffering in this victim-survivor’s eyes, witnessing his courage in sharing this horrible experience with me, I knew I had to act.

A BACK HANDED COMPLIMENT OR TALKING THE SIGN OF PEACE FROM BOTH SIDES OF EACH HAND

Since we are talking the Sign of Peace, I won't use the euphemisms that most in the know call the blog Praytell, but this is what Deacon Fritz writes about the Sign of Peace:

It is worth noting that this is a practice that, in its current form of a handshake accompanied by a verbal wishing of peace, is a largely modern invention, an attempt by the modern liturgical movement to recreate something like the early Christian Kiss of Peace. Those who deride modern liturgies as “fabricated” might present the Sign of Peace as Exhibit A, since it is not something that arose from popular practice and has at best an indirect connection to historic practice. But whatever its provenance, the Sign of Peace seems to have become in the popular imagination a distinctively Christian and Catholic ritual, no less than veiled nuns and altar boys ringing bells. It is one of those weird things that Christians do.

Read the rest there:

3

The Sign of Peace and Popular Culture

November 29, 2019 Deacon Fritz Bauerschmidt 

BECAUSE OF ADAM AND EVE, WE LIVE IN A DISORDERED WORLD WITH EVERY HUMAN BEING WHO IS DISORDERED IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER, COME MORE SERIOUSLY SO, AND WE NEED TO TAKE PRECAUTIONS AND WE NEED A SAVIOR! OH, WE CATHOLICS HAVE ONE AND ONLY ONE, JESUS CHRIST!

The abuse of minors and other vulnerable people takes place not only in closed systems like Churches, public schools  and                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             yes, families, but also in open systems that can be progressive, conservative or anything else in Between.

Because of Original sin, which leads to actual sin, we live in a disordered world where every aspec of human life and the human person can be disordered, depraved, perverted, and unnatural.

In this world we need laws, both in and outside the Church to protect individuals and communities. It doesn't help that Pope Francis' 1970's religious ideologies leads him to call those who support canon law and stronger sanctions against those who break these, "doctors of the law," a derogatory statement against rules and regulations and laws of the pre-Vatican II Church and her adherents where following rigid rules and being rigid about morality was a hallmark of pre-Vatican II clerical, religioius and lay life. It (name calling) is in and of itself an abuse, spiritual abuse, when directed towards religious people and Pope Francis has made name calling a humorous art, but there isn't anything really funny about it.

I have three long articles below, but the first one by Cardinal Schonborn is the most interesting. But it is one sided and maybe the Austrian experience is different than the American one where an outside firm discovered that the peak of the sexual abuse crisis in the USA was 1974, post Vatican II whereas Schonborn says in Austria it was prior to Vatican II.

Yes, clergy formed prior to Vatican II in this country which respected law and order both in society and the church, were the ones guilty of sexual abuse in 1974. But what had happened with the sexual and cultural revolution of the 1960's in this country, respect for communal laws and rules and a rule of life both in secular and religious institutions collapsed giving clergy who needed these laws to keep them in check free reign with their sexual disorders.

And yes, part of the problem today from the Vatican to local dioceses is the refusal to name immaturity as it concerns homosexuality and Catholic priests as one of the culprits in the Catholics Church were more minor males are abused than females. The opposite is true in relgious traditions with married clergy, where females are in the majority of those abused. In other words, you can't take anything off the table when trying to find solutions to this scandal and curse and ways to protect the young and vulnerable.

The Jesuits have had some very significant scandals in high places in this regard, a very progressive order. So we need to point this out to Cardinal Schonborn too!
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

Schönborn spells out shocking reality of clerical sex abuse

LONDON (ENGLAND)
The Tablet

Belgian Salesians defend decision to send convicted pedophile to Africa

OXFORD (ENGLAND)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

Anglican church founder abused trainee priests & other young men

Patheos blog
Nov. 28, 2019
By Barry Duke

THIS IS A DOG ON GOOD FOUR MINUTE COMMERCIAL!

This isn't an in your face 4 something minutes advertisement for a cable/media giant and it tugs at your heartstrings. It is a very well done mini movie for those of us with short attention spans. I remember when ET first debuted, a priest in our diocese characterize ET as a Christ-Figure, and specifically a Sacred Heart-like Christ-Figure:

THANK GOD

Fr. Scott Nolan, St. Stephen's Catholic Church, November 27, 2019 Stephen Kokx / LifeSiteNews

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NEWSCATHOLIC CHURCHThu Nov 28, 2019 - 11:11 am EST

Hundreds of Catholics rally behind priest who told lesbian ‘married’ judge not to receive Communion

THE LITURGY OF THE LIGHTING OF THE ADVENT WREATHE AND WHAT ABOUT THE CHRIST CANDLE IN THE MIDDLE???????

Don't panic, I know, I know, I lighted all four candles, but it isn't even Advent yet, let alone the 4th week of Advent!

Advent wreathes are one good thing the Lutherans in Germany have given to the Christian world, although I wonder if the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Rites use them at home or in church?

I remember the advent wreathe in my parish when I was growing up and in pre-Vatican II times. It was placed by Mary's side altar and without ceremony (or in pre-Vatican II times, the lighting of the altar candles was a ceremony) and the candle or candles were lit prior to Mass.

Today, many parishes have elaborate Liturgies of the Blessing and lighting of the Advent wreathe. Some do it as a prelude to the Mass which is okay. Others, illicitly do it by omitting the Penitential Act. Some parishes have families actually carried the candle in procession at the beginning of Mass and place it in the wreathe and a prayer is said by the one member of the family who can read well publicly, or not read well publicly. I think that is a bit too fussy for a Lutheran product, no?

Some wreathes have a center "Christ" candle which is lit only at Christmas and the other candles removed, a kind a homage to the Easter Candle and of course illicit in the Catholic liturgy.

I think the Catholic Book of Blessings, as dismal as that book is and its blessings are, foresees the blessing of anything during Mass to take place during the Universal Prayer.

To bless the Advent Wreathe at that time seems a bit anti-climatic. If I do the blessing of the wreathe, I would do it at the Universal Prayer at our first Mass of the weekend only, which would be Saturday night at 5 pm. At all other Masses it would be lighted at the time the altar candles are. Our OF tradition, of course, does the lighting of the candles unceremoniously before Mass and usually by an usher. O the humanity of it all!

My parish has had the Christ Candle tradition but this year I banned it. Am I too dictatorial, a kind of liturgical terrorist?

You EFers and OFers, what does your parish do with the Lutheran Advent Wreathe and in EF parishes is it encouraged for home use, after all it isn't Catholic or is it? And you Easterners, what do you do with the Lutheran concept as nice as it is?

GOOD FOR THE BISHOP OF WEST VIRGINIA BUT MORE NEEDS TO BE SAID

As I reported yesterday, the new Bishop of West Virginia has taken great steps to rebuke his sick predecessor.

This is the Deacon’s Bench take:

In a first, WV bishop demands his predecessor apologize, pay restitution

 NOVEMBER 26, 2019 BY DEACON GREG KANDRA

“We regard the former bishop’s acceptance of this plan of amends as an act of restorative justice. It is also for his own spiritual good.” From The Washington Post:  West Virginia’s new bishop Tuesday called for his predecessor, Michael Bransfield, to pay $792,000, apologize to victims and to the diocese, and lose his place in the diocese’s cemetery as part of a restitution package for alleged financial and sexual misconduct that some church experts say is a first for a… Read more

My comment: What His Excellency wrote is good but not enough but more than what our now very politically oriented Church is doing.

It would be good to tell Bishop Bransfield that he is in a state of mortal sin and he should be publicly excommunicated until he publicly repents and makes the restitution that Bishop Brannen is asking. 

Bishop Brannen needs to make clear that if the excommunication is not lifted because of Bransfield’s intransigence, he risks the fires of hell, eternal damnation the loss of the integral salvation of his soul and eventually of his body. 

And you know what? The pope needs to do and say the same thing about that McCarrick character. But I won’t hold my breath.

So much in the Church’s development of doctrine ideology and drivel today fails to uphold the primary purpose and pastoral ministry of the clergy, bishops, priests and deacons. What is that? It is NOT about saving the planet as important as that is and is actually within the domain of the laity, but the salvation of souls.

Instead of telling the laity how to save the planet, tell them if they don’t they will go to hell. Let them figure out how to do it.

The pope should not tell nations to get rid of nuclear weapons or power plants but to tell them to find ways to secure them, keep them out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations and if the don’t they risk the fires of hell.

And the Church needs to emphasize soteriology and eschatology,  meaning, the world will end and this will usher in the Second Coming and Last Judgement and no amount of integral ecology will prevent the final consummation of the earth and our general judgment with heaven or hell looming for our resurrected bodies from the dust heap of this final consummation!

If the clergy don’t repent publicly of their public mortal sins, they will go to hell too. This applies to enabling bishops for the past 100 years who did nothing to ameliorate the sex abuse scandal of supposed celibate men under their charge. 

A little fire and brimstone these days will go a long way. 

WHAT’S GOING ON IN THESE VIDEOS? SEEMS THE HOLY FATHER IS QUITE DISTRACTED BUT NOT SURE WHAT IS ACTUALLY CAUSING THE DISTRACTIONS WITH A LOT OF MOVEMENT BEHIND THE POPE AND THE CHOIR FORGETS THE SANCTUS AND THE POPE SAYS IT A BIT WRONG IN LATIN

Let me know your thoughts on what is going on here:

NEW BISHOP OF CHARLESTON/WHEELLING STICKS IT TO THE CORRUPT FORMER BISHOP, BUT IS IT ENOUGH?

At least the new Bishop of the much victimized Diocese of Wheeling/Charleston, W. Virginia has been and is doing something about the corrupt former bishop and is transparent about it.

You can read Bishop Brennan's letter to the diocese HERE.

Is it enough?

And when, O when, will the Vatican come clean about McCarrick and require some kind of public penance and restitution and not only of him but his enablers? Transparency please!

YES THIS IS FUNNY BUT WHAT ISN'T FUNNY IS DRAGGING AMBROSIAN OR EASTERN RITE CUSTOMS INTO THE ROMAN OR LATIN RITE MASS ESPECIALLY ITS EXTRAORDINARY FORM! DON'T DO IT NOT ONLY OUT OF RESPECT FOR THE PURITY OF THE ROMAN RITE BUT THE SAFETY OF ALL CONCERNED!

This is copied from the Deacon's Bench in the Diocese of Charleston, SC, where I hold dual citizenship:

That’s just thurible. Here’s something to leave you incensed.

And amused. From Prince of Peace Catholic Church and School in Taylors, SC, as posted on their Facebook page. 

CARDINAL MULLER, IT WON'T ONLY BE IN THE AMAZON THAT PROSYLETIZING PROTESTANT FUNDAMENTALISTS WILL CAPITALIZE ON THE IDIOTIC APOSTACY OF WORSIPPING AN ACTUAL IDOL AT THE VATICAN BUT IN THE BIBLE BELT OF THE SOUTH TOO

In the south, most Protestants, not all fundamentalists, believe Catholics are idol worshippers without pachamama added to the mix. They think we worship Mary and the saints in addition to Jesus and they think our statues, icons and other artwork are idols for us too.

Well, they can forget all that. Now proselytizing Protestants can show that the pope and Catholics beginning at the Vatican do worship idols, pachamama! This is stunningly sad and the pope and others responsible for this reprehensible turn of of events have made the Church a source of mockery for other Christians not in full communion with the Church and will push full communion Cathoics right out of full communion:

Cardinal Müller warns ‘hundreds of thousands’ will leave Church over Pachamama idolatry

November 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) ― The Vatican’s former head of doctrine has warned that “hundreds of thousands” of Catholics from the Amazon region will leave the Church as a result of being scandalized by seeing videos of the pagan idol “Pachamama” being worshiped in ceremonies during the recently-concluded Amazon Synod in Rome. 

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, 71, told Die Tagespost, a German Catholic newspaper, that photographs of the “Pachamama” carvings used during celebrations at the recent Synod on the Pan-Amazonian have exacerbated anti-Catholic feelings in the region and will spark a mass exodus. 

“This whole sad story will give support to many aggressive, anti-Catholic sects in South America and elsewhere who in their polemics maintain that Catholics are idol worshipers and that the Pope who they obey is the Antichrist,” Müller said. 

“Hundreds of thousands of Catholics in the Amazon area and wherever the videos of this Roman spectacle have been seen will leave the Church in protest,” he continued. 

“Did anyone think about these consequences or did they just assume this was collateral damage?”

READ THE REST THERE!

ORTHODOX ITALIAN CATHOLICS ARE CALLING THE HETERODOXY OF THE CHURCH TODAY NOT PASTORAL BUT APOSTACY AND BISHOPS WHO ARE CAUSING IT NOT SUCCESSOR TO THE APOSTLES BUT SUCCESSOR TO THE APOSTATES--STRONG STUFF COMING FROM SUNNY ITALY, NO?

I am all about being pastoral and I have called for more direction on the "internal forum" for very difficult pastoral situations concerning what is perceived or presumed to be an illicit marriage.

For example, and this is very difficult for Protestants wishing to become Catholic, I have dealt with couples in presumed illicit marriages who would Ike to pursue an annulment for what the Church "presumes" is the sacramental marriage but can't because the previous spouse can't be found or won't cooperate. One women who was impregnated by her boy friend, both Protestants, both 16 years old were forced to have a Justice of the Peace wedding afterwhich her husband left to join the army even before consummating the marriage. She's now near 60 years old and never saw her "husband" again.

No annulment is possible because she doesn't know where he is or even if he is alive. Internal Forum anyone?????

Of course that's a pastoral solution within the context of the seal of confession. It is not a general call to all to receive Holy Communion who are in illicit and presumable immoral relationships.

But now, thanks to Pope Francis, Italian bishops have caused an uproar and more polarization and division even in flexible Italy. One wonders just how far away schism is, another Great Schism:

Two Italian bishops are making waves after issuing public statements allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the sacraments, with one apologizing for having “ignored” these couples in parish life and insisting that their decisions are in line with Pope Francis’s 2016 document on the family Amoris Laetitia.

Radio Spada, a well-known traditional Catholic site, published a reaction saying that even though the letter was written by a bishop, “there’s no call to abandon a gravely sinful situation that puts the eternal destiny of one’s soul at risk, no mention of the high Christian values of chastity and the holiness of the family, no reference to the unity and indissolubility of marriage.”

“More than a letter of a successor of the Apostles, it’s a letter of a successor of the Apostates,” the site claimed.

Yet Marangoni isn’t alone. This week, Bishop Corrado Pizziolo of Vittorio Veneto, also in northern Italy, is set to publish guidelines on the implementation of Amoris Laetitia, allowing divorced and remarried Catholics without an annulment to receive the sacraments on a case-by-case basis.

Veteran Italian Vatican-watcher Francesco Grana described the decision by Marangoni and Pizziolo as “important initiatives that mark a change in mentality, especially within the Italian Church” and are a sign “that the processes strongly desired and initiated by Bergoglio are beginning to bear fruit.”

Read the rest at CRUX by pressing title of article below:

Italian bishops face blowback for opening to divorced/remarried Catholics

POOR NATIONAL CHISMATIC REPORTER (NCR) DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO HANDLE AGING BABY BOOMERS, MOSTLY WOMEN, WHO ARE PROGRESSIVE, RACIST HETERODOX BIGOTS WHO ARE XENOPHOBIC ABOUT THEIR AFRICAN (NIGERIAN) ORTHODOX PASTOR

The humanity of it all, their very black pastor in this all white aging baby boomer parish replaced earthenware cups with gold chalices!

Here's the best part of the Catholic Chismatic article:

The pastor has been hailed as a hero by traditionalist groups...who see in him a crusader against what they describe as hypocritical Catholics who don't follow the church's rubrics. They have accused his critics of racism. Regular references in the traditionalist Catholic media refer to the protesters as gray-haired refugees from a long-gone post-Vatican II era, boomers who have lost their way amid the liberal notions that permeate Portland life.

St. Francis has become a Rorschach test for traditionalists on social media, projecting what they don't like about many modern American parishes. A writer for Crisis Magazineseethed that the involvement of women protesters was an attack on spiritual masculinity.

Read the rest there:

At St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Portlanbd, unity is elusive

DON'T BECOME A PRIEST AND DON'T WATCH THIS VIDEO! OKAY WATCH THE VIDEO AND BECOME A PRIEST IF YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES!

That’s the blunt message Franciscan friar Casey Cole offers in the video below — and it is excellent.

Take and watch. And then, stop by his web page and blog. This kid is sharp.

MY MEMORY WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE TIME IN WHICH CATHOLICS APPROACHED THE ALTAR RAILING PRIOR TO VATICAN II

My memory about when the congregation began to approach the altar railing is right!!!!! As soon as the priest said his "Dominus non sum dignus" and began to recieve Holy Commuion, communicants immediately began to approach the altar railing and kneel at it. The choir came downstairs and in hopes of getting to the railing first but normally they were still in the aisle and then the priest after receiving his Holy Communion would turn to the congregation with the congregation's host over the ciborium and declare "Ecce Agnus Dei" at which point anyone standing in the aisle would fall to their knees on the hard floor.

Unfortunately at today's EF Masses that I celebrate, I have to wait for people to approach the altar railing after I distribute Holy Communion to the altar boys/men in front of me. That is so wrong and against pre-Vatican II custom in this country!

Here is proof of what I experienced and recall correctly in this pre-Vatican II photo where the priest has just turned to the congregation for the "Ecce Agnus Dei". Please note the communicants already at the railing and kneeling:

I am struck also by all the men at this Mass for what is called a "corporate" Communion. Does anyone recall what that was, corporate Communion. But it is clear that more men were involved in men's organizations in the Church prior to Vatican II and loved the regimentation and demanded reverence of kneeling for Holy Communion and wearing their Sunday best to Mass!

I think the pre-Vatican II customs at Mass appealed to men and kept them engaged in the Mass and leaders in their Catholic families. Today, not so much! More men are disengaged and leave the religious upbringing of their children to their mothers. 

DON'T BLAME CATHOLICS, ACTIVE OR NOT, OR EVEN NON CATHOLICS FOR NOT BELIEVING WHAT THE CHURCH BELIEVES ABOUT THE MOST HOLY EUCHARIST, BLAME VATICAN II'S NEEDLESS CHANGES TO CATHOLIC PRACTICES OF DEVOTION AND WHAT CONSTITUTES REVERENCE, AWE AND WONDER NOT TO MENTION MYSTICISM ESPECIALLY IN THE RECEPTION OF HOLY COMMUNION

Do Catholics believe in transubstantiation (aka, Real Presence) or not? A recent survey says very few do. But was there a problem with the survey? Yes and no.

We should expect that Catholics who seldom if ever attend Mass would have a very shallow understanding of what the Church believes about the Mass in general and the reception of Holy Communion in particular.

As for believing Catholics who attend Mass regularly, maybe every Sunday, there would be a variety of answers to what the Mass is and Holy Communion is. Most, I would suspect, believe in the Real Presence, but maybe would not articulate well what transubstantiation means. The more popular term is "Real Presence" because it is less philosophical and more practical.  I don't think we should condemn Catholics who lack a good articulation of transubtantiation because they believe in the Real Presence and take seriously what it means to recieve Holy Communion worthily and understand genuflecting before the tabernacle, if they can find it, and being horrified at the desecration of the Sacred Host stolen or used in a sacrilegious way.

What would help practicing Catholics, lapsed Catholics and non Catholics know and understand what the Church believes about the Mass in general and Holy Communion in particular.

Before I repeat my list which I have bloviated about before, let me say this. Catholic of my generation and older who are "cusp" Catholics were instilled with a since of reverence and awe in the Sacred Actions of what is now called the EF Mass. Even non Catholics who attended Catholic Mass prior to Vatican II had a sense of the awe and reverence of the Mass and Holy Communion in particular.

After Vatican II, faithful Pre-Vatican II formed Catholics still held orthodox beliefs even though the sloppiness, irreverence and silliness they experienced in the reformed and deformed rites were and are quite common in the post-Vatican II reformed Mass.

Catholics only formed in a deformed experience of the OF Mass are clueless about awe and wonder, mysticism and mystery as well as what actually constitutes reverence for the Mass itself and Holy Communion specifically.

These are the things that can help restore orthodox belief or understanding not only to practical CAtholics who are unfortunately a minority in the church but more importantly to the majority of lapsed Catholics who attended once or twice a year. Also for non Catholics attending sometimes would experience the profound awe and reverence of the Mass and evangelize them:

1. The Benedictine Atlar arrangement and ad orientem for the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
2. KNEELING for Holy Communion which should be #1 and receiving on the tongue
3. The use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion only in case of need
4. Insisting on the formality of the Mass through proper choreography, dress of those in any liturgical role, i.e. Alb or cassock/surplice and proper maintenance of altar linens and other accoutrements.

If these things are present, even an atheist would have to admit after attending a Catholic Mass that the Church takes seriously the reverence due the Mass and Holy Communion.

This is a good article to read:

As data shows most Catholics don’t accept transubstantiation, new book seeks to help

• Charles C. Camosy
  Nov 25, 2019
  CRUX CONTRIBUTOR

PARENTING THEN AND NOW

When I went to St. Joseph Church in Macon, I heard a new term applied to some parents. They were called "helicopter" parents constantly hovering over their children to watch what they are doing and intervening in every affair of the child at school and usually not to support the school and its administration of their child but the child's complaints about the school. It is another term for micro-management or what some call control freaks.

This is how I was brought up.

My generation of kids were free range kids. We went outside to play and wandered far from home usually on our bicycles. We came back in time for lunch or dinner if that was required and certainly arrived home before dark.

I can remember as a 4 year old getting up early in the morning just after sunrise, before anyone else got up, dressing myself and going behind our apartment to my friends apartment's back door. He was my age. I would throw pebbles at his second floor bedroom window to wake him up. He'd come outside to me and I'd have to help him get his clothes on right and we took off! This was East Point, Georgia and Ft. McPherson, now a movie making capital of the world.

Of course my mom and his mom freaked out but it really wasn't any big deal to me. They may have notified a few moms in the complex to help find us but the police weren't called! BTW, my friend and I returned home on our own after going far off (I knew how to get back and I can still get around that part of Atlanta from a 4/5 year old's memory). We got home in time, of course, for breakfast!

If our school was in walking distance, we walked to school unaccompanied and back home to homes that had the front door or back door unlocked whether or not anyone was home!   In fact my mom would tell me she'd be downtown and would be home after I got home from school and simply come in the house by the backdoor that was unlocked!

Do kids today have the resources to be as independent as we kids were????? I know, I know, it's a different world and each kid now needs a secret service agent to protect him every where he goes which is usually only the back yard unless he has technology at his disposal which keeps him locked in his home. Or at least they have control freaking helicopter micro-managing parents.

POPE IN JAPAN, THAILAND HAD NICER VESTMENTS

A very good development in Pope Francis liturgies is that there is no longer the horrible interruption of the Mass with the local bishop greeting the pope after the Sign of the Cross and greeting. In the past pontificates, all sat including the pope for a lengthy welcome speech. At this Mass the pope uses mostly Latin! How novel! The inculturation of the Latin Rite Mass into Japanese Catholicism!

It seems that the Procession for the Mass jumped the gun as the congregation seems to be praying the Holy Rosary in Japanese. Praying the Rosary prior to Mass in St. Peter's Square is the norm at the Vatican.

Was the Pope impatient and demanded the procession begin during the recitation of the Holy Rosary?

At any rate, the Rosary is prayed until the Holy Father reaches the altar and then a verse or two of the "gathering hymn" is sung. It is interesting to me that vernacular hymns in any language all seem to have the same kind of sappy sound or is it just me?

WHEN DISTRIBUTING HOLY COMMUNION, WHICH CAUSES MORE GERMS AND VIRUSES TO BE SPREAD, TOUCHING A PERSON’S HAND WITH THE SAME HAND DISTRIBUTING THE HOST OR TOUCHING THE PERSON’S TONGUE?

I read somewhere that a priest complained that the laity were receiving Holy Communion on the tongue and this caused the priest’s fingers to get wet with the communicant’s saliva. He was so very concerned about spreading germs to other communicants. He avidly promotes, though, drinking from the common chalice. Hypocrisy? I digress, though.

This can happen, especially when receiving on the tongue when one is standing and not kneeling.

However, I could easily complain at Mass about those who receive in the hand (which I don’t complain about at Mass btw). Because when I place the Host on the person’s hand, I often touch the palm unwittingly. And when people grab the host there is fingers to fingers contact. Oh, the humanity of it all!

We all know that there are more germs of hands and door knobs and the like than in saliva, or at least that is what a pseudo/neo scientist I know repeats over and over again.

At the Cathedral’s EF Mass where everyone kneels to receive and all receive on the tongue, I seldom or ever touch their tongue or mouth or get saliva on my fingers. Why? First of all, the communicant is kneeling. Secondly the communicant tilts their head back a bit in order to receive and thirdly they don’t keep their tongue in their mouth or stick it out way to far and lick it back in before I retrieve my fingers.

I touch far more hands at the OF Mass and more tongues too because at the OF Mass people stand and I have to reach up a bit rather than down.

The older traditional way of receiving needs to be restored for the health of mankind, spiritual and physical.