The blog that is a mere shadow of its former self, which means it is now invisible, Praytell, posted a video lecture by Rita Ferrone given in a New York City parish. You can watch it here!
I didn’t watch the whole thing because it was so boring. Why it was held in the church building is beyond me as the entire group could have fit in a small classroom. And the group were people my age and older with one or two younger people. The majority were women, no men.
The progressive ideology concerning the Liturgy once attracted the young in the 1960’s and 70’s. But it isn’t attracting the young today. It still attracts those from the 60’s and 70’s, people my age nostalgic for the 1960’s and 70’s. (A disclaimer, I despise that period of time, but I am in the minority as it concerns those my age.)
I know from first hand experience that in 2007 when I held education sessions prior to implementing Summorum Pontificum at St. Joseph Church in Macon, that I had up to 100 or so young people, meaning those in their 20’s and 30’s attending the sessions with a smattering of those my age at that time.
I know from those who attended the EF Masses, as they were called backed then, that they were awestruck by the beauty of the Mass. I had boys in high school on the football team who had attended an EF Mass without knowing anything about it or attending not knowing it was an EF Mass come up to me afterward and say, “Father that was awesome!”
We know from anecdotal evidence that it is the young who have gravitated toward the EF Mass and do so not out of nostalgia but out of a desire for reverence, transcendence, clear rules and good spiritual and moral direction.
Can I give our bishops and priests, especially more traditional priests angry about Pope Francis canceling the liberalism of Pope Benedict as it concerns the liberal celebration of the TLM, some advice?
1. Reenchant the Modern Mass with reverence. Allow churches to be restored or built with a traditional sanctuary layout and an altar at least three steps higher than anything else as in pre-Vatican II times and with the potential for Mass facing the people or ad orientem—at this juncture we need both/and not either/or!
2. Restore altar railings and make sure new churches have them to allow distribution of Holy Communion either standing or kneeling at the full length of the railing. (Again, at this juncture in time, kneeling or standing, on the tongue or scrupulously the proper way in the hand to receive holy Communion, should be allowed, not either/or but both/and.
3. Recover Gregorian chant either in Latin or the vernacular (not either/or but both/and) and be scrupulous about the theology, doctrine and ethos of modern music that should never replace the official chants of the Mass. Make sure the Gregorian Chant is as close to polyphony as possible not simply on one note as in plain chant. Chant today needs energy and complexity.
4. Require the Roman Canon for Sundays. To keep the Mass short, tell priests and deacons not to preach any longer than 7 minutes and no shorter than two minutes. Eliminate the General Intercessions as these are way too long, too ideological and too preachy and moralistic! The Roman Canon has all the intercessions needed for the Mass—for the church, the laity, the world and the living and the dead!
5. Emphasize silence in the nave of the Church before and after Mass. Encourage conversation in the narthex, outside or at a facility near the church for coffee, refreshments and conversation if not a full-blown pot luck dinner.
Use the Roman Missal, as is, and say or sing the black and observe the red!
22 comments:
And use a variety of traditional vestments (including Roman), use burse and chalice veil, Communion patens, and clergy wear the biretta at appropriate times in the liturgy (as in the TLM).
These people are so incredibly stale.
As I said when you posted this comment quite a while back, I suspect the same "Father that was awesome!” if he attended a Luke Bryan concert, an Atlanta Falcons Football game, or if he successfully completed a tandem parachute jump.
I have never had a teenage football player come up to me after the modern Mass and tell me it was awesome. Never!
About the use of Gregorian chant and Latin - follow the directions laid out in
MUSICAM SACRAM of 1967. The first of the implementing documents issued after the council and generally ignored ever since.
"I have never had a teenage football player come up to me after the modern Mass and tell me it was awesome. Never!"
That is part of my point. You see, in every "modern Mass" something awesome DOES happen.
AWESOME: In every Mass is Jesus Christ, who offers to His heavenly Father, through the ministry of His ordained priest, His body and blood which were sacrificed on the cross. It is the same sacrifice that was offered on Calvary.
AWESOME: The faithful receive His Sacred Body and Precious Blood. This reception of the Holy Eucharist effects communion between the individual and God and among the individual members of the Body of Christ.
If a teenage football player, or the captain of the high school curling team, or the president of the high school literary society does not recognize how awesome these things are, I would suggest the problem is not the language used, the style of vestments, the direction the priest is facing, how high the hem of the chasuble is lifted, the use of the Roman Canon, etc.
The problem is the inadequate catechesis and formation.
Fr. MJK and I part company regarding his reflections.
No doubt, the miracle of the eucharist is made manifest at each and every mass, regardless of form.
No doubt, those mentioned will recognize the aforementioned miracle, however, it seems an increasing number are indifferent, it's just the wafer handed out when they are forced to go at Christmas and Easter.
The Church has had +50 years of catechesis and formation about things that were previously just understood and accepted full stop (yes, there were exceptions, but no where near the current scale). It seems clear to me, at least, that something is amiss.
The miracle aside, the NO liturgy is, to me, grating with awkward choreography, sloppiness, trite and sentimental hymns, goofy/unnecessary screens flashing things, melodramatic this and that like a show. Eastern liturgy is seamless, we're not coddled, most seem to have a firm grasp of fundamentals, or are willing to put the work into learning those fundamentals and beyond that, our priests continually teach without social/justice ideological distractions and I suppose I am just used to that. True, we mostly have the homily after the gospel, however, it can also be at the end which I actually like.
I've spent a lifetime listening to defense of the modern missal, how rich, awesome it is. There's always this political VII overtone that is so pervasive, most Romans are completely desensitized to it. Spend some time reading Orthodox blogs/FB pages and you'll see the difference. Believers have questions about the liturgy, but, such discussions are completely free of associated ideology because it's just not there. It's learning scripture, church fathers, liturgy, a marvelous and wonderful treasure chest that's somehow open to us in its purest form.
Manufacturers typically stop producing a product no one likes. Otherwise, similar to a lot full of cars no one wants, the Church has buildings galore that it seems no one wants anymore. New Coke was a flop. It was Coke like, looked like it, from what I remember it tasted similar, but something was missing. Bringing back Classic Coke solved the problem.
Believe what you want about the NO, people continue to vote with their feet. As for inadequate catechesis, I just think that's nonsense at this juncture, or everyone who was and is in charge of ensuring people are properly formed failed miserably due to an olympic level of incompetence. Putting the eucharistic miracle aside, you cannot force people to love something many clearly do not. Like myself, they might without question love the eucharist but just cannot stand how the Roman Church gets to the point of the consecration.
We. Will. Never. Agree.
And, that's ok.
ByzRus,
It takes an Eastern Rite Catholic to make the points a priest should know. The good news is priests like him will soon be just a bad memory.
Take care
TJM
Increasingly, I am convinced ideology was intentionally set to compete against the divine and neither came in first. The lunacy of what's gone on in RC parishes, scandal leading things off, is just emblematic of people gone wild. So then, some are left breathless when some priests add some candles and wear lace. I've been to NO parishes that were like creepy VII social clubs, everyone has a little full participation job that has nothing to do with Christ. At least now, there are few fuzzy-haired nuns to make smarmy grins of approval as their young charges demonstrate their VII buy in.
There's an Orthodox FB page that I follow where a steady stream of RC's who are converting seek information. I don't judge them, I just wonder how possibly they will survive the challenging rigors of Orthodoxy as they have been so undisciplined for so long. Be assured, the RC and its leader are a total laughingstock there. It's eye-opening.
It's great that a young man, especially one who may have fit the "cool jock" type (as I recall, they frequently were too cool to be amazed at anything), thinks the Latin Mass is awesome. Guess what--young men who think Luke Bryan concerts and NFL games are awesome will go to more concerts and football games. If they go to a Mass that was awesome, self-evidently awesome in a way that goes right to their heart and soul, they might even want to go to Mass again. As opposed to one whose awesomeness is so obscured by liturgists' pet theories and rationalistic excess that you need umpteen hours of catechesis and formation just to form the intellectual basis to think it's awesome--teenage boys and young men simply thrive in the modern-day classroom, after all.
God forbid young men be swept up in the aura of mystery found in the Latin Mass--something that leaves them wanting to come back for more!
God will bless us with the passage of time, at least on this point, if not more.
Nick
It's great that a young man, especially one who may have fit the "cool jock" type (as I recall, they frequently were too cool to be amazed at anything), thinks the Latin Mass is awesome. Guess what--young men who think Luke Bryan concerts and NFL games are awesome will go to more concerts and football games. If they go to a Mass that was awesome, self-evidently awesome in a way that goes right to their heart and soul, they might even want to go to Mass again. As opposed to one whose awesomeness is so obscured by liturgists' pet theories and rationalistic excess that you need umpteen hours of catechesis and formation just to form the intellectual basis to think it's awesome--teenage boys and young men simply thrive in the modern-day classroom, after all.
God forbid young men be swept up in the aura of mystery found in the Latin Mass--something that leaves them wanting to come back for more!
God will bless us with the passage of time, at least on this point, if not more.
Nick
Byz - We will also part ways on your assumption about "...things that were previously just understood and accepted..."
Some find "Everything was better in the past" a comforting thought. When asked what "Make America Great Again" enthusiasts are asked, "When was America great?" they come up with wide ranging notions, ignoring the wonderful realities of segregation across the board pre-1965. Or they refer to our nation's founding when women (and many men) could not vote and slaves were everywhere. They are nostalgic for Never-Never Land.
I don't know, and I don't think you know, either, that, even with the exceptions you mention, there was ever such a time. You ASSUME that it was so, but I've seen no evidence. People say the old mass made for more faithful Catholics. Well, how many of the church-going Catholics who jumped ship with Henry VIII and Elizabeth I went to the old mass? All of them. Same is true of those who followed Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. How many church-going Catholics who owned slaves in the USA, including the Jesuits of Georgetown, went to the old mass? All of them. And how many of the German church-going Catholics who became Nazis or supported the Nazi regime went to the old mass? Again, every one of them.
It's easy to be comfortable in a denomination that does not emphasize social justice, so don't plan on swimming the Tiber until you take the demands of social justice out of the Gospel. If a Catholic priest is NOT speaking out social justice - feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, clothing the naked, freeing the prisoner, etc., then he's not doing what Jesus told us to do.
I'm sure that if a Catholic priest compared those attracted to the old Mass to segregationists or misogynists, he would realize he's not doing what Jesus told us to do.
Nick
Fr. MJK,
I think we need to decouple society from the divine. Let's come back to this.
No, everything was not better in the secular past, except for cars, soda fountains, music and clothes. True, in secular society, particularly the one in which we reside, there was great inequity, we currently are grappling with how best to address those many shortcomings.
Regarding liturgy, I'm including the Byzantine Churches in the following, our understanding is no different.
"Orthodox Christians hold to both Tradition and the Scriptures, as both are seen as coming from the Holy Spirit. Some object to idea of Tradition being on the same level as the Scriptures, but Paul twice specifically calls Christians to follow the Traditions of the church."
"By its theological richness, spiritual significance, and variety, the worship of the Orthodox church represents one of the most significant factors in the church's continuity and identity."
In other words, ours is an ancient faith that emphasizes continuity all the way back to the apostles. It wasn't and isn't broken, no need to refine it relative to current trend, whim, the like. There's nothing for us to be nostalgic about as it hasn't changed. It was, is and ever will be. We're completely free from any nostalgic yearnings. We do not mix the divine with the secular. We are truly counter-cultural.
Regarding social justice: "It is impossible for the Church truly to follow Christ or to make him present to the world if it fails to place this absolute concern for the poor and disadvantaged at the very center of its moral, religious, and spiritual life."
We aren't existing in some ignorant bubble for the sake of being comfortable. We see the world around us and we engage with it through good works, the same as your "denomination". In the end, we view "Christianity as the true faith, not a social political system". Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s (Matthew 22:21).
Byz - As always, there are Traditions, and then there are traditions. The former are unchanging, the latter can (and should) be changed as needed.
I don't think St. Paul had any notion of the "T" and "t" difference. The context of the passage from 2 Thess speaks to a false doctrine regarding the eschaton and not to the notion of Tradition/tradition in general. The concept of the importance of Tradition will be emphasized in the centuries to come.
The Divine and the secular, the sacred and the profane, are always mixed inasmuch as we are humans living on the secular side of the tombstone. You might choose to see no admixture, yet it is unavoidable, even in liturgy/Divine worship. Our liturgical practices - yours and mine - have human origins, incorporate human creations (music, vesture, architecture, language, etc), and have evolved over time.
We will disagree again - no surprise I suppose - on your use of "Render Unto Caesar" quote in support of your view on decoupling. The Lord was not offering us a teaching on taxation, obedience to secular law, or any other topic. He was using a very clever device to reveal to his questioners, the Herodians and the Pharisees/Zealots, that their little trap wasn't going to work.
Fr K Orwell is lying once again but a priest who votes for a Party that worships abortion is hardly a reliable source for anything.
Under Henry VIII, Catholics who supported the Pope were killed,
Including the 70 year Countess of Salisbury who was like a second mother to Henry VIII. If Father K Orwell were threatened with death for opposing the TLM he would be chanting the praises of the TLM.
“Social Justice” is a term used and abused by Lefties to fleece the productive. I don’t see Obama or Biden or Pope Francis sacrificing personally to assist the people they claim to support. Their idea of “charity” is having the hoi polloi paying burdensome taxes. And Father Lefty can just naff off
Catholics understand that the Church's authoritative teaching on Social Justice, "...comprises a body of doctrine, which is articulated as the Church interprets events in the course of history, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, in the light of the whole of what has been revealed by Jesus Christ." CCC#2422
Based on the dignity of the human person, made in the image and likeness of God, Social Justice teaching is based on 1. the universal destination of goods, 2. the universal right to use the goods of the earth, and 3. the understanding that private property serves a purpose in the divine plan.
Hey Father K Orwell,
How does this track with "social justice?" This is what you will be voting for in the Fall.
"Donald Trump: I am proud of terminating Roe v. Wade
President Biden’s presidential campaign released a new attack ad on Sunday attempting to blame former President Donald Trump for the overturning of Roe v. Wade, as the Biden-Harris ticket seeks to make the abortion issue front and center."
Sounds like the Dems have gone full Satan
TJM - The only thing your post "tracks" with is that it gives you another bomb to throw, another spleen venting opportunity, rather than addressing the issues that have routinely ignored for the last 3 years.
Fr. ALLAN McDonald - One of your readers who, I think, never posts here, has completely misread my post of January 21 at 3:03. This reader has stated that I have compared people who like the Latin Mass to segregationists.
I have not.
I would encourage the reader to take a more careful look at that post. I will stand near my keyboard to reply if warranted.
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