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Sunday, January 3, 2010

HOW SWEET IT WAS!

As mentioned in an earlier blog, I celebrated the Extraordinary Form of the Nuptial Mass yesterday for now married, Mr. and Mrs. David (Stephanie Howe) Bushey. Here are some of my reflections on this form of the wedding and Nuptial Mass.

There were a good number of young people there from Christendom College. Apart from the EF of the Mass, they have a very traditional reverence and piety. Many in attendance were familiar with the EF Mass and participated in an active verbal way with the sung and spoken Latin responses. This was marvelous.

But getting back to the traditional reverence and piety of the congregation; this is what I remember growing up as a Catholic in the pre-Vatican II Church. Even as a very young child, let's say before I even turned five, I can remember the hushed reverence of the congregation and how pious people were after they received Holy Communion. I can remember people returning from Holy Communion, kneeling with their face buried in their hands. As a child I thought they were upset, but my parents reassured me they were just grateful to Jesus and His divine mercy.

Reverence, reverence, reverence marked this form of the celebration of the Mass including the Nuptial liturgies. This is in marked contrast with so many of our OF forms of nuptials where there is a giddiness and a total ignorance of what our form of prayer and reverence are all about. If all of our wedding liturgies were as reverent as the one yesterday, I think most priests would begin to favor once again the celebration of weddings over funerals. At least today, for funerals, people seem to be in a more reverent mood and hunger for spiritual meaning in the face of death, but not so much for weddings!

There was no room in the EF Nuptials for the congregation to acknowledge the bride and groom with applause or cat calls. And there is no place for the bride and groom to kiss. So often in the OF form of Nuptials as soon as the bride and groom kiss, there is loud applause and yes,(and I have experienced this many times) cat calls from the congregation. At the recession in OF nuptials, there is not only loud and sustained applause, but a hooting, guttural groaning and the like that you might see and hear on the "Tonight Show." It's down right silly and stupid but because of the loss of the sense of the sacred that is what our nuptials in the OF liturgies have disintegrated into.

The EF form of the Nuptials was so serious, so prayerful and so solemn everyone knew that applause and guttural groaning in this form was totally out of place. The sense of the sacred was too profound and solemn to add anything profane to the Liturgy. I understand now, more than ever, why older people (most of whom are now dead) use to tell me when I was first ordained how much they missed the reverent silence and the sense of the sacred they experienced prior to the reforms of the Liturgy. I didn't really understand their lament until recently and they were right to lament. We have lost the sense of the sacred in our reform liturgies and I'm more and more convinced it is the reform and dumbing down of ritual and sacred actions that has contributed to it. The way you pray is the way your believe and if you pray with a flawed translation of the vernacular, rubrics that are not followed or worse yet spontaneously made up and a giddiness about things sacred, it only follows that the profane will be incorporated into the liturgy and people will lose all respect for that which is sacred thinking their giddy silliness and entertainment form of participation will adequately replace true spirituality and reverence.

While I do love the Latin and think our Catholic people are smart enough to actively participate in this language, even verbally, I do appreciate the vernacular also and see accurate translations of the Latin to be a blessing for the Church. I still contend though, if the form of the Mass and the other sacraments had simply been left alone and good, accurate translations of the rubrics and texts of these sacraments been accomplished without changing the order, gestures or bodily postures of these Sacraments, true renewal and an increase of devotion and reverence would have remained with us and just maybe, (I'm not clairvoyant) we would have maintained the high level of active participation in our Church and at Sunday Mass.

By high level of active participation, I mean almost 90% of Catholics attending Mass on Sunday as was the case prior to the Second Vatican Council. Today, we consider it a blessing if we have at least 20% attending. This is truly shocking and it should be sobering to those who think the renewal of the last 45 years has actually been renewal. Why go to Mass if one does not believe what the Church believes about the Mass, if our celebrations betray that belief through banalities, entertainment forms of participation, and downright profane activities in the church and her celebrations? Why should the nearly 70% who absent themselves from Sunday Mass and active participation take seriously what we do if the outward signs of what we do, do not inspire or lead to true worship, reverence and spirituality--that sense of the sacred that was so characteristic of Catholic parishes of a by-gone era?

Let's get with it and continue the reform of the reform. Pope Benedict knows what he is doing and we need to support him. Perhaps in another 45 years the liturgical landscape will have improved and the absence of Catholic people in our pews and the loss of the sense of the sacred will have all been truly reformed.

Your thoughts?

19 comments:

Gene said...

Wonderful article, Father. Form and ritual mean something. Details mean something. They become an outer reflection of an inner condition. I believe we need to re-incorporate the older forms into our thinking and practice. A well-known psychologist once said, "It is easier to act your way into a new way of thinking than it is to think your way into a new way of acting." The younger generations, by experiencing the sacred in immediate small ways and by practicing the reverence that is integral to the EF, will gradually come to "get it."

Anonymous said...

It took over a generation to get to the dismal point we are today. So, indeed, it may take another 45 years for the pendulum to swing back to where it needs to be.

Pope Benedict XVI certainly has my support, which continues to grow. He is so 'right on the money' regarding most everything he has done and continues to do.
Often we wish he would move more quickly or shout more loudly, but it seems he is often exercising prudent restraint and wise judgment as to the timing, content, and method of delivery of his messages.
While his predecessor was a 'hard act to follow', this pope has exceeded expectations and long since put to rest doubts that existed at the beginning of his papacy. Not to imply that we should place expectations upon a pontiff, but simply to say that he is so right for the moment.

So, inch by inch we must continue to move forward, and the reform of the reform will undoubtedly succeed.

This current loss of reverence permeates and penetrates all aspects of Catholicsm and far beyond, not merely postures at Mass and decreased attendance at Mass. Perhaps we should refer to it as Holy Mass, not simply Mass. If Holy Mass were normalspeak, might that help reorient our minds and the minds of those who hear it?

Also, I whole heartedly believe, that as reverence returns within Cathoicism, it will follow then that reverence will also return to the secular. Then societies will be changed and the improvements gained by the civil movements of the 1960's and 1970's will be housed in the respect and reverence for God that existed prior.
The resulting marriage of the best of the new with the best of the old will affect all societies, all locations, and all peoples of all beliefs. I do look forward to the world my grandchildren will experience!

So, did the now Mr. and Mrs. David Bushey realize that their EF Nuptial Mass would have a part in changing the world?

Oh and Father, with all this indulging in sweets, is it time for your dental check-up? :)

Anonymous said...

Oh Father, you have Bugnini spinning is his grave again! How many of us wish our Wedding Mass could have in the EF.

-Brian said...

Pastor, It is really good to see how pleased you were with this. I was not there, but I was affected to gladness by your description of its goodness!

I enjoyed pinanv525's quote about action & change...and it reminded me of your constant exhortation to practice the devotions; e.g. Rosary prayer, Stations..., and especially the Angelus. I agree, this will shine light on the sacred so many are blinded to.

Anonymous said...

Way to go, Father!

In addition to the great things that you have articulated, I have also discovered that there is a greater sense of modesty at the Traditional Latin Mass in the EF.

My guess is that this Traditional bride did not adorn a strapless gown.

On the other hand, a strapless wedding gown seems to be the norm at the New Mass nuptials. Strapless gowns and spaghetti straps are NEVER in good taste for Church.

REGINA DÉCOR CARMELI

Pater Ignotus said...

When I was a small child, over 40 years ago, my mother and I would travel by Greyhound bus to visit my sister and her family in another state. We dressed for the trip in what might have been called "Sunday-go-to-meeting" clothes.

In those days men wore "dress" clothes if they had to appear in court, women wore stockings when their legs were visible in public, and children spoke only when spoken to. All of this has changed and today people dress and behave casually in almost all situations, a lamentable reality I agree.

Nostalgic Catholics often try to blame the changes in the mass for the changes in behaviour of the people attending mass. I suggest this is an example of the logical fallacy "Post hoc egro propter hoc." "After this, therefore because (on account of) this." The liturgy was reformed, people's behaviour at mass changed, therefore the change in behaviour is caused by the reforms in the liturgy. I see no evidence that there is a causal relationship between the two.

Peoples' behaviour in EVERYTHING changed, beginning in the late 50's and early 60's, before the changes in the liturgy were introduced. Sociologists have written thousands of books analysing this shift - some of them make sense.

You assert, Fr. McDonald, that, "We have lost the sense of the sacred in our reform liturgies and I am more and more convined that it is the reform and the dumbing down of ritual and sacred actions that has contributed to it." I suggest that the mass is as sacred as it ever was, that liturgy has not been "dumbed down," unless you are saying that people who are not conversant in Latin are dumb, and that the changes in the mass cannot be made the scapegoat for the sea change in behaviour that has marked our society as a whole.

It is simply not reasonable to see human behaviour in church as somehow independent of human behaviour in general. The attempt to "fix" peoples' behaviour in Church by using an older form of liturgy is an exercise in futility. We are creatures of our culture. Substantial change can come only when the culture, as a whole, shifts.

You can try to establish a "liturgical utopia" where everything inside the walls of the church are copasetic according to the standards of the 1940's. Men will wear ties, women will all be in dresses and chapel veils, children will be seen but not heard. But, as we know too well, all attempts at bringing about a utopia have failed.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

To Pater Ignotus, from Southern Orders: I don't know how one person can be so consistently wrong in either reading what was written, misinterpreting it or just being arrogant. I doubt that you have celebrated a beautifully crafted Extraordinary Form Liturgy, either Low, High or Solemn High. The built in reverence of the priest's actions as well as choreographed altar server's movements and the people's participation is unmistakable. And yes, the experiences I have had thus far over two years has shown that how you pray is how you believe.
I never said that the Ordinary Form of the Mass is invalid, not sacred or irreverent. But it's reverence has been modified by the mistaken notion that "noble simplicity" meant casting aside nearly 1000 years of liturgical history and developing a Mass by committee rather than organically. These are Cardinal Ratzinger's words and he is not dumb. His hope as is mine is that the EF will have a gravitational effect on the OF that was a committee project and that the OF's lavish use of Scripture and encouragement of active verbal engagement as well as singing be as assest to the EF.

The reverence of the EF Nuptial Mass I celebrated was brought about by the believing congregation that had been formed by the Church's prayer in both the EF and OF ways of Mass. They were not a throw back to another era, but what it can be today if only we appreciate what we do at Mass and that we are God's creatures in the presence of the Creator.
To say that the way we pray won't effect human behavior is almost heretical. Certainly it has, does and will.If we pray in a casual, lack luster way, our attitude about God will be casual and lack luster and so will our relationships with one another.
The nearly 100 people in attendance at the EF High Mass this afternoon for the Most Holy Name of Jesus looked just like any other Mass congregation we have, a mixture of dress, and a huge number of young people and others from the world of academia. I think you insult them by saying they want to live in the 1940's. No they want to bring the Kingdom of God to the 2010's, not in some Utopian way, but by promoting reverence in worship and reverence for creation. There was nothing Utopian about the Nuptial Mass and the Mass today, just as with every well celebrated Mass, either OF or EF, Christ was present and those attuned to this presence experienced sanctifying Grace to help them continue to disciples of the Lord proud to be Catholic and inspired by His divine majesty.

Pater Ignotus said...

Your emotions, I think, are getting the better of you, Fr. McDonald, because you are not reading what I post.

1. I never suggested that you suggested that the OF was invalid.
Either mass is "valid" but that is not at issue.

2. You did say that the OF contributes to irreverent cat-calls, hooting, gutteral groaning, inasmuch as the OF does not have the "sacredness" of the EF. If you don't think you did, read your post again.

3. I am not "almost heretical" because I never said or suggested that how we pray does not affect how we believe. It does.

If you will re-read my last post, after a day or two of calming down, you will see that I suggested that the irreverence that is found in church is part and parcel of a general "irreverence" in our culture and not, as you suggest, the result of the liturgical reforms of the early 60's.

Anonymous said...

Pater wrote:
”Nostalgic Catholics often try to blame the changes in the mass for the changes in behaviour of the people attending mass.”

With respect, I think it is a bit unfair to label us as “nostalgic” Catholics. We are not clinging to the past. Tradition is irreformable.


Pater wrote:
" I suggest that the mass is as sacred as it ever was, that liturgy has not been "dumbed down”.

Here is a skosh of diminishing the sacredness. The Traditional Mass starts right off with the Confiteor, quote “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.” The whole atmosphere of the traditional Mass is that Christ died for our sins and saved us. What is he saving us from? Hell! Our posture at the Traditional Mass expresses fear, reverential fear of the Lord. There are eleven genuflections in the TLM. There are three in the Novus Ordo. In the New Mass, the most significant genuflections are left out at the consecration. In the Traditional Mass, when the priest bows over the altar and says the words of the Consecration-what does he do? He genuflects immediately, recognizing the Divinity present at the altar. In the New Mass they don’t do that. They say the words, then they elevate, and then genuflect.

Pater wrote:
”It is simply not reasonable to see human behaviour in church as somehow independent of human behaviour in general. The attempt to "fix" peoples' behaviour in Church by using an older form of liturgy is an exercise in futility. We are creatures of our culture. Substantial change can come only when the culture, as a whole, shifts.”

Pope Pius XII said that, "To say that 'modesty is a matter of custom' is just as wrong as to say that 'honesty is a matter of custom'." There are absolutes.

****I applaud Father McDonald for celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass in the EF. He is obeying Pope Benedict XVI, who has requested that a TLM be offered at every parish, regardless if it is requested, or not.

REGINA DECOR CARMELI,ORA PRO NOBIS!

Gene said...

Fr. Ignotus needs an antagonist. He behaves this way on other forums, as well. He is, perhaps, best ignored. One rarely wins a braying contest with a jackass.

Anonymous said...

In a very relevant and personal way, I know that the TLM is celebrated in a more reverant atmosphere. I also have a better appreciation for the OF, because I "get it" now. I found your parish, father, because our pastor ranted in his bulletin that he would never offer the TLM. The lackluster liturgy, and his apparent disobedience to the wishes of the Holy Father, made me curious. From that curiosity came knowledge, then discovery; and then as if God wished it we found the TLM starting at St. Joseph. We tried to go back to the local parish, and attend only the TLM at St. Joseph, but the stark comparison of the 2 congregations reverance was intolerable. Thank you, father, for your guidance and your part in gathering this tiny part of your flock closer to Christ.

My children have a better Catholic identity than I had even as an adult. Watering down the faith created my generation of cafeteria catholics. We need a reform of the abuses of the reform, and a return to a better example of our true faith and identity.

How I wish my marriage could have begun with the traditional Mass. Maybe I wouldn't have been so disconnected from the Church for so long.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

On further reflection inspired by Peter, I have had many people who infrequently attend our EF Mass say that its outer form and the participation of the people is more reverent. It is built in and leaves nothing to the imagination,creativity, skills and improvisations of the priest let alone his particular form of piety or reverence. All these are hideen by the EF rubrics and postures. In the OF Mass the actual but unintended practice has been priests and yes congregations who allow or foist their particular piety onto the Mass. The greatest culprit I'd the priest whose facial exptressions or lack thereof, their gestures, their improvisations, become the criteria by which a liturgy is judged either good or bad. And yes at weddings there is a greater opportunity for irreverence when the congregation can applaud, shot or otherwise react inappropriately to a bridal kiss, glance or introduction by the priest. I average about 25 weddings a year for the past 30 years and I can attest to the general breakfown in our culture's etiquette, that is now displayed in the church, especially at weddinfs and our reformed Liturgy that allows for unanticipated congregational outbursts. This simply can't happen in the EF because there are no lead-in that could possibly allow to happen.

Dymphna said...

Beautiful. I wish I could've had a traditional nuptial Mass but that was back in the 80s. People were still singing music from Godspell at Mass.

TJM said...

Father MacDonald is to be congratulated for his liberalness in affording Catholics an opportunity to participate in the EF and come to appreciate it. I agree that Pater Ignotus is a delusional individual with whom rational discussion is pointless. Tom

TJM said...

Father McDonald, apologies for the mispelling of your name! Tom

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, Father. I also agree with the plan to restore Latin to the liturgy. When I was in Italy last year, our tour/pilgrimage group celebrated Mass with a group from Poland. At the time, I thought it would have been nice if there were a common language used(hmm, let me think: Latin, perhaps?...)so we all could have understood everything instead of doing half in Polish, half in English and all of us lost at least half the time. The use of Latin not only promotes unity with the rest of today's Catholic world but with Catholics throughout history reaching back to the Apostles. Increased reverence can only be a good thing for the faithful. The world is all too happy to separate us from reverence and humble obedience to the Lord; I believe it is the task of the Church to lead us to more of both. God bless you and all your efforts on our behalf.

Conquistadora said...

For purposes of clarification, I am the bride in question.

I wanted a traditional Mass specifically because it was steeped in a reverence I never enjoyed growing up with the Novus Ordo. It was not a question of validity so much as dignity. So, thank you, Fr. MacDonald! It was everything I hoped it would be.

Anonymous said...

Father, you are spot on in your thoughts. As a product of the NO (born 69) I fell away from the Church and its' "reforms" of the 70's and 80's because of its' misguided attempt to catch me. They bored me and appeared silly in their attempts. Felt banners and carpet everywhere was a stark contrast to what my parents and Grandparents knew and spoke of as Mass. They all fell away. I am back, as a direct result of Pope Benedict XVI and an interest in something I never knew. The Tridentine Mass. I have learned more about the Catholic Faith during my journey into the EF then I ever learned growing up in the NO Church. Perhaps not the NO itself, but the way it was celebrated on Long Island in the 70's and 80's. Some things contradictions and others outright lies at best confused me and at worst drove me from the Faith. I Thank the Holy Father for what he has opened up to us, and it may have just saved a soul, mine. Keep going Father, you are on the right track.

Anonymous said...

Father, you are spot on in your thoughts. As a product of the NO (born 69) I fell away from the Church and its' "reforms" of the 70's and 80's because of its' misguided attempt to catch me. They bored me and appeared silly in their attempts. Felt banners and carpet everywhere was a stark contrast to what my parents and Grandparents knew and spoke of as Mass. They all fell away. I am back, as a direct result of Pope Benedict XVI and an interest in something I never knew. The Tridentine Mass. I have learned more about the Catholic Faith during my journey into the EF then I ever learned growing up in the NO Church. Perhaps not the NO itself, but the way it was celebrated on Long Island in the 70's and 80's. Some things contradictions and others outright lies at best confused me and at worst drove me from the Faith. I Thank the Holy Father for what he has opened up to us, and it may have just saved a soul, mine. Keep going Father, you are on the right track.