I posted below some letters to the editor from the NCR concerning Fr. Thomas Reese's article on returning the Church's worship to what Vatican II wanted (its spirit of course) and banning the EF Mass which to him is anti-spirit of Vatican II.
One letter writer wrote that Nativity Parish in Lutherville/Timonium, Maryland gets liturgical renewal right! All liturgies should model themselves after them!!!!
Fortunately for us who are pre-Vatican II, they posted some of their Masses on line from their exciting webpage.
This is non-denominational catholicism mega-church approach to being church. It is so meaningful!
It takes a while to get to the Mass with the various blah, blah, blah introductions and a really, really, really serious series of gathering songs, but the music tells it all! WOW!
This reminds me of something Cardinal Ratzinger said many years ago, that in the reformed Mass, it can be as different as different can be not only in Masses in the same parish, but in different parishes. One wonders if this parish isn't a breakaway parish trying to hard to compete with the non-denominational approach to church and music and ministry. Can't we all just be Catholics?
27 comments:
To me, dear Catholic reactionaries, a Mass is not complete without the presence of relevant contemporary music, with liturgical dancing as the full icing on the cake !!
God bless,
Billy Clutterbuck.
I think this is why Father Reese and his fellow travelers are terrified:
A recent report published by the International Federation Una Voce analyzes data from a worldwide survey of dioceses. This was an online poll that reached out to the laity with questions about the churches within their diocese which offered Mass in the Extraordinary Form (EF). What is interesting about their methodology is that it was able to take anecdotal evidence and turn it into something that is statistically meaningful.
Professor Joseph Shaw, who helped organize the survey, highlights the striking findings regarding the demographics of traditional churches:
The percentage of dioceses where EF congregations are identified as predominantly old is in no region greater than 11.1%; the percentage where young people, young people and families, or families, is identified as predominant is 72% in North America…
Sounds like tradition is for the young
I wonder how many priests in the Archdiocese of Baltimore would want to follow this pastor and what will happen when there is a change of pastors. Bet your bottom dollar that this parish revolves around this priests, his charisms, his leadership, his way of doing things. This is his baby and God forbid someone else step in and does anything differently that this priest and the cult of a church he has created.
You got your post headings mixed up, this is definitely "The Fruits of Vatican Two"
They have reduced the mass to a small part of the worship, no longer the apex and reason to be there. something that is tolerated to enjoy the "show"
It's all about US and ME, god is in the background but not adored or worshiped
It is a concert/performance masked as a Mass. they brag how many people they get. But what kind of actual spiritual and liturgical formation are they receiving? It is a new rite hardly envisioned by the fathers of Vatican II or more importantly by Jesus!
At least in large Protestant circus/performance, happy-clappy, concert worship events with an ego maniac leader/pastor (that I’ve attended occasionally with my wife) ....at least most who attend will leave having had rammed home to them some core truths common to all Christians, for example: the divinity of Christ and or the resurrection as a true, literal, historical event; death, judgement, heaven and hell etc.
I wonder : when millions of lay, western Catholics in our era who, largely through no fault of their own, have experienced nothing better than this type of liturgy and worship....when they face final judgement, will God be more merciful to them?
It is all about marketing, and entertainment sells.
At least they THINK it does, while ignoring the collapse of the evangelical non-denominational megachurches based on that model.
The services may appear packed, but those are mainly church shopping newcomers looking for something to make them feel good, and where that type place with meticulously programmed entertainment swiftly gets stale, and they move on to the next latest thing.
They are NOT keeping people, and know the market is finite and shrinking swiftly and numbers are waaay down.
That "catholic" church is fighting for a share in a market which is in utter collapse.
To be brutally honest, the lack of spiritual formation/direction is lacking in the majority of churches, including Catholic and including traditional.
Folk are not looking to be taught, but led, led by someone who walks the walk and not only talks the talk, someone who actually lives what they preach, in holy humility and simplicity, and is capable of passing on what they know from personal experience.
There is very little formation in youth or seminary on holiness, while much on doctrine, law, and admin skills.
Churches led by business managers, whether an entertainment galore megachurch, or parish with beautiful traditional rite and school, are bound to collapse when nobody there can point anyone unerringly in how to know God.
And that finding God is always left only to chance and the rare individual who searches enough on own to find the spiritual riches contained within the Church, even in the most traditional of parishes. Always group activities galore, whether rosaries, adoration, dinners, but very little to zero instruction.
Ferraris are sitting there, but unfortunately nobody knows how to drive.
Anon1035....I should leave that up to God.
To be sure, we need more contemplative rites and folk taught how to contemplate and what that is by ministers striving themselves for true holiness,
But, to be sure, also, people cannot say "through no fault of own", as those riches are out there explaining all, and simply taking more digging and effort than in times past.
Again, I will leave God to make those calls.
It surely is no help when those Catholics who DO bother to read, content themselves only with incredibly detailed knowledge of assorted popular visionaries and prophecies, and/or content themselves with only rote unfelt pious exercises, and/or become enthralled in the politics of religion and become firebrand "activists" for left or right.
One thing often overlooked is that lack of true guidance. The collapse after Vatican II was under way before Vatican II due to churches led by functionaries rather than those striving for holiness.
This emptiness is why the innovators were able to gain so many adherants, as the churches of the times were not meeting the spiritual needs no matter how grand the rites.
It was dead, and people wanted to feel alive, feel something, anything, and so threw themselves wholeheartedly into all the various activities, whether peace activism, liturgical renewal including copying successful at the time protestant models and doctrines, search of the chimera of world unity outside the experience of the living God, social services, etc etc.
And it still collapsed, minus that one neccessary thing.
As will any resurgent traditionalism, minus that one neccessary thing. We have been here before.
Your Fake Name,
A lot of your comments are on point but you are painting with too broad a brush. I had excellent nuns and priests who taught me the Catholic faith prior to the Council and many of them were holy and charitable people. Obviously there were bad actors who brought us to where we are today. I was at Mass this morning singing the Missa de Angelis taught to me by the nuns in the early 1960s. My pastor is 32 years old, wears a cassock, says the EF and has done a marvelous job growing the parish during a pandemic. He preaches a marvelous, orthodox sermon. Things will slowly but surely correct themselves when the present leadership goes to their “reward.”
Kinda reminds me of the wonderful spirituality of coast to coast diocese youth "retreats" where they are forced to attend such marvelous "services" relentlessly in between "break-out sessions".
So deeply spiritual, yes, indeed.
Pierre, absolutely a broad brush for a very large picture. A more detailed painting would show the minority of holy people keeping the wheels on. But, they are a minority. They were then, and even smaller minority today.
And, Pierre, my point was that the true crisis in one which is spiritual, and lack of interior spiritual life, lack of folk being taught how to get in touch with God.
No amount of social work, or orthodox sermonizing can take the place of a life daily ordered to God in love.
We lack that to highest degree across the board, across various rites in the liturgy wars. I am the first to admit the older form CAN be a far more spiritual experience, but only if taught to be.
(your fake name HERE),
Social work is not the primary role of the Church but orthodox sermonizing which should aid in establishing an interior spiritual life is the role of the Church. I see signs of hope with the younger clergy. My pastor strikes me as holy with an interior spiritual life. He has done wonders with our little parish. It is actually a Catholic Church again.
Pierre, very glad to hear that, and may God continue to bless your parish and priest. Orthodox sermons can lead to a deeper spiritual union with God, no doubt, if ordered to such. And leaders striving for holiness giving those sermons.
But there are too many jetsetting corpulent gourmands claiming to hold high the standard of orthodoxy while living far better than their flocks, without a care in the world as for retirement, housing, health, dental, etc.. Ditto for their progressive counterparts or even double ditto when other vices considered.
They are out of touch with flocks and out of touch with true holiness. And it will take holiness to lead us out of this mess. Striving for holiness leaders, and striving for holiness flocks. BOTH are required.
(your fake name HERE),
For decades I have referred to them as the "steak and eggs" bishops! Cheers!
"Social work is not the primary role of the Church..."
Oh?
Corporal Works of Mercy: Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Shelter the Homeless, Visit the Sick, Visit the Prisoners, Bury the Dead, Give ALms to the Poor.
These are not add-ons or extras.
"The doing of works of mercy is not merely a matter of exalted counsel; there is as well a strict precept imposed both by the natural and the positive Divine law enjoining their performance. That the natural law enjoins works of mercy is based upon the principle that we are to do to others as we would have them do to us.
The Divine command is set forth in the most stringent terms by Christ, and the failure to comply with it is visited with the supreme penalty of eternal damnation (Matthew 25:41): "Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, in everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in; naked, and you covered me not; sick and in prison, and you did not visit me", etc."
And if you are tempted to say "Saving Souls Comes First," don't waste your breath. The works of mercy are 100% as much the work of the Church.
Even President Eisenhower, a somewhat Presbyterian type, knew that the Works of Mercy were essential.
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." (1953)
[From the Chance for Peace address delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16, 1953. (Regarded as one of the finest speeches of Eisenhower's presidency.)]
No, although laudable, the corporal works of mercy is not the primary role of the Church, but the salvation of souls.
Keep in mind, though, that for Catholics, faith and good works are necessary for salvation, unlike Luther who said faith alone and Scripture alone. Thus the Corporal and Spiritual works of Mercy are necessary for salvation.
Father McDonald,
The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, are a means to salvation, not a primary purpose of the Church which is the salvation of souls.
The Church's mission indeed is to save souls. The whole point of the popes, bishops, priests, deacons and religious is to teach God's plan to save souls in Jesus Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit. The Church teaching which is intrinsically tied to the salvation of souls is that you must have the orthodoxy in Faith and orthopraxis in good works. Faith and Good works are necessary for the salvation of souls. For Holy Mother Church not to teach that the corporal and spiritual works of Mercy are for the salvation of souls as well as the right Faith, she would not be following Jesus' prescription for the salvation of souls and eventually our bodies.
There is no faith, which is salvific, without works.
"Do you want proof, you ignoramus, that faith without works is useless?" James 2:20
To "believe" the teachings of the Church, to "believe" that Jesus is Savior and Lord obliges the Christian to works of mercy, spiritual and corporal.
Faith is not an assent to doctrine. It is a life lived in imitation of Christ and according to Christ's commands.
"We confess together that good works—a Christian life lived in faith, hope and
love—follow justification and are its fruits. When the justified live in Christ and act in
the grace they receive, they bring forth, in biblical terms, good fruit. Since Christians
struggle against sin their entire lives, this consequence of justification is also for
them an obligation they must fulfill. Thus both Jesus and the apostolic Scriptures
admonish Christians to bring forth the works of love."
For centuries the liturgy managed to evolve without any need for regulation. There was cross-fertilization between different traditions (what we know as Gregorian chant is a fusion of Roman and Gallican elements). By the end of the Middle Ages there were many different Uses of the Roman Rite, but each was stabilized in its own region. Apart from anything else, manuscript liturgical books were not easily replaced. The similarities of the different Uses far outweighed their differences, and the Canon of the Mass was regarded as too sacred to be tampered with.
Even the Tridentine reform exempted every rite with a provenance of a mere 200 years. Things started to go wrong in the 20th century, thanks to a Liturgical Movement which put ideology before scholarship and authoritarian popes (Pius X, Pius XII, Paul VI) who genuinely believed that they could alter the liturgy at will. Ratzinger belatedly came to realize that this was erroneous, and as pope did not mandate anything to do with the liturgy, since excessive regulation was the problem in the first place.
What next? Well, have a completely 'hands off' approach. If people want wacky LA-style 'liturgies' then let them go ahead. If parishes want to celebrate the pre-1955 order for Holy Week, fair enough. If the inhabitants of Bongola (formerly Bongoland) want a liturgy which incorporates their tribal customs, what's wrong with that? A bishop has the responsibility to ensure that nothing heretical is going on in his diocese, but that is all.
Whoever heads the CDWDS, be he conservative or progressive, knows that the directives of his dicastery will be ignored. Its predecessor, the SCR dates only from 1588. In the Internet age people can pick and choose a worship style that suits them.
Then see how things shake down in the next few hundred years.
The counter church will suppress the Tridentine mass.
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