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Monday, December 9, 2019

WHY I CAME AROUND TO THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM BUT WITH SOME HOPES THAT A LIVING EF MASS WILL ORGANICALLY DEVELOP

Many thanks to Mary Clark Rechtiene for these photos except those marked by an X;


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While I love a well celebrated Ordinary Form Mass and very much love the vernacular Mass, I have come to the conclusion that it places too much emphasis on the priest, his talents and looks and personality and tempts him to mold the Mass into his own image. And the vernacular divides parishes rather than unites them.

I also feel that the Latin Rite Mass should unite  Catholics and specifically Catholics in their own parish into a common language. Today parishes are rent into division over language. We find parishes and parish priests pushed to the brink of craziness trying to please all the language groups in their parish with Masses taylored to their language. This is in addition to trying to please everyone with a particular style of music they like and dividing parishes into various special interests groups, young, old and in between.

The Liturgy today is used as a tool to divide the Church rather than unite the Church especially on the parochial level.

I love the EF Mass because at this Mass I feel not like a conductor, not like an actor, not like a facilitator of lay ministries during the Mass, but rather I feel like a priest in the cultic sense. Isn't that the high calling of a priest? To celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? Preach the Word? Celebrate the other Sacraments and as a pastors to call the laity to do their apostolates in the world, in the public square? Helping the poor and caring for migrants and being open to welcoming sinners and calling them to repentance and conversion.

What would I like to see in the organic development of the EF Mass is to look at what the Council Fathers requested and in a very conservative sense. A little bit more vernacular, especially for the Scritpure Readings. A little bit more simplicity especially as it regards the Pontifical Solemn Masses, Solemn Sung Masses. And a way to encourage actual participation apart from the contemplative aspect, vocally.

What I find totally unacceptable is the animus that so many clerics have toward the EF that borders on a psychological rigidity especially given the outrageous abuses that take place regularly wth the OF Mass.

So there you have it.

12 comments:

Joseph Johnson said...

Father,
I think you meant to refer to outrageous abuses with the OF Mass . .!

TJM said...

Father McDonald

For the umpteenth time, thank you for celebrating the EF

I think we need to be careful about the term organically. I and most of us who attend the EF certainly would not be opposed to new feast days and new propers implementing those feasts. What I, and I suspect many others, would vehemently oppose, and what I think is the inherent weakness in the OF, is the myriad of "options" found in the OF. By having so many options, it only feeds the notion that the Mass is something that can be monkeyed with by whomever the celebrant is. What most of us find so marvelous about the EF, is its predictability and the fact the celebrant really has no latitude in how it is celebrated.

Anonymous said...

Bee here:

One of the ladies in our sewing guild at St. John Cantius was recounting an incident from her childhood. Her parents applied to be sponsors for a Laotian family during the North Vietnamese military operations in Laos in the mid 1960's. The Laotian family was a Catholic family of 10 living in a refugee camp where conditions were not ideal. Her dad owned an apartment building and had an apartment that could house the family and her family could help them adjust to the U.S.

When the family came they spoke not one word of English, nor did anyone in her family speak any language they could understand. So most communication was though hand signals and demonstration. But then they went to Mass and she told us of how her mother and the mom of the Laotian family knelt next to each other, praying in Latin. And they wept together for joy, because this they understood, and felt akin to each other.

The use of the vernacular was intended to bring Catholic people closer together, but actually separated the different ethnics groups. I know even in my own experience I felt great joy to see people of different ethnic groups together at a Latin Mass, knowing we all were united in our prayer. And I have heard others recount that when Mass was in Latin, that no matter where they went in the world they would feel at home at Mass.

God bless.
Bee

TJM said...

Bee,'

That is why St. John XXIII said "Latin is the language which joins the Church of today." Only left-wing loonies reject that.

Merry Christmas!

Horace said...

Islam and Judaism both have a sacred language that is preserved for worship. No one is criticizing them for preserving their patrimony. Yet if you appreciate the TLM or just the Latin language, there are actually some people who will criticize you as bigoted, chauvinistic, backward or rigid. Rigid? As usual, the hypocrites accuse their opponents of the very faults they practice themselves!

I will never forget how, a few years ago, I attended Mass at a small chapel and, at the end of Mass, they opened it up for people to make announcements or recognize birthdays, etc. (another kitschy flaw of the OF) and I announced that there would be a Traditional Latin Mass later that week and any Catholic interested in learning about their heritage should consider attending. The priest, normally a mild-mannered man, jumped up and "warned" everyone that this Mass was non-inclusive, had no lay participation and no place for women. I was furious, but tried to be calmly as I politely confronted the priest about it a few days later. He actually apologized!

The reaction of so many priests to this Mass--the negative reactions of denial, criticism and accusation as well as their rabid refusals to offer it and their almost anaphylactic abhorrence for the Mass that formed most of our Saints and served us so well for centuries. I am convinced it is diabolical and shows a grave disorder of thinking and orientation.

Marc said...

I really like your pictures, Father! Nice to see that altar used for its purpose rather than a glorified flower stand.

I am confused by the candle situation -- why are there so many lit?

Una Voce of Atlanta said...

Father very nice to see you wear the biretta while you preach. On behalf of Una Voce thank you for all you do for tradition

Anonymous said...

Islam and Judaism both use the vernacular language in their worship, some almost exclusively. In most Reform synagogues, Hebrew is used for the reading from the Torah, but the rest of the service, with fairly rare exceptions, in in the vernacular tongue.

The reaction of the priest may have been to your misuse of the term Traditional when you made your announcement. The OF Mass at which you announced the coming liturgy in Latin was also a Traditional Mass, every bit as Traditional as the so-called TLM.

I hope you also apologized for misappropriating the term.

TJM said...

Horace,

They may be ordained but they are false priests - hating your religious patrimony is like hating your mother. Your priest is extremely shallow and I would never walk in that Church again as long as that priest is there. I would also write to his bishop explaining why no more $ are coming in. Even a dim bulb bishop should get that message.

The Egyptian said...

this Mass was non-inclusive, had no lay participation and no place for women

his were not the best choice of words however the fact that this mass is celebrated by the Priest and the Priest alone is one reason I like it when I can make it to one. No processions in and out of the sanctuary, lay people preening to do "their part". Just quiet reverent mass, done to the rubrics and the laity doing their part in the pews praying along with the priest and adding their own prayers to his in adoration

Anonymous said...

A beautiful cathedral---wish we in 30305 (Atlanta's Buckhead section) could trade ours for yours---ours is small (seats probably less than 700), gray, dark and with tight pews. However, ours in Atlanta is squeezed in on a relatively small plot of land so probably would not fit! Like also the gold vestments, which I hardly ever see in use today. In fact when growing up, I usually associated gold vestments with the Christmas Eve Eucharist at our local Episcopal cathedral, which was televised right before the Vatican Mass.

John Nolan said...

Apart from a number of supernumerary servers, the photographs are a good indication of the 'noble simplicity' which characterizes the Roman Rite, seen here in its normative form.

For the priest celebrant it is less onerous than a Missa Cantata since he is not required to sing the Epistle and Gospel.

Fr McDonald might tell us how he thinks it could be simplified further, or how the people can participate other than by singing the parts applicable to them (which would include all the responses, the Asperges chant and the Kyriale when it is not done in polyphony).

Not to mention the Creed, which is usually sung in plainchant.

The trouble with hankering after 1964 (as I suspect Fr Allan does) is that it was never intended to be permanent, it introduced changes which fatally undermined the Roman Rite, and it led inexorably to 1967 and 1969.

Singing the Epistle and Gospel in the vernacular might seem sensible, but there are different vernacular versions even in the English-speaking world, and there is no reason why people should be permanently excluded from the Vulgate. The lessons are in any case repeated in the vernacular before the sermon.