A few years back I offered spiritual counseling to a tortured soul. At the time, she was my age and suffering from severe clinical depression. She came to me for spiritual counseling to help her cope with her sense of abandonment by God.
She had gone to Catholic school and recalled the Latin Mass. She said that it was simply beautiful, the Latin language, she wearing a veil, kneeling for Holy Communion and the paten under her chin as she received.
Then she said, that Mass brought me such consolation, it was so beautiful and reverent. I didn't understand the Latin but the beauty was that of God.
Faith seeking understanding is important but understanding isn't as important as experiencing the beauty of God in ritual that is itself beautiful, reverent and mystical, other worldly if you will.
That was the genius of the Mass prior to Vatican II--it touched hearts even if minds could not always comprehend. Maybe that is why over 90% of Catholics, the good, the bad and the ugly, attended Mass back then compared to the comprehensible but less beautiful revised Mass.
What do you think?
10 comments:
True
Yes, no RC NO Mass I’ve attended since 1965 “changes” equals what I experienced then—and no RC priest locally over the past 45+ years has cared about that despite so many people/souls lost...
I do have to say that the Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy that I am now attending comes very close... very devout, ad orientem (meaning focused on the Lord God and not me/us).
Active participation is about the faithful understanding the goings on at Mass. You cannot participate without first understanding. It is about glorifying man's Reason, a product of the Enlightenment, which the Modernists took up last century. The Novus Ordo Mass is about the faithful understanding the goings on, so they can be priests of the believers at Mass.
I hate to say this, but it seems to me that there is an irreverence for tradition going all the way to the TOP!
Reason was glorified long before the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment just brought it out of the closet, so to speak.
Scientists who used and, maybe, glorified in their reason, before the Enlightenment include Rob't Boyle, Galileo, Copernicus, and Pythagoras among others.
"Reason is a whore, and can be made to lie in any bed." Martin Luther
Bee here:
I remember many years ago a very liberal lay guy I knew who was on staff at a Catholic Church told a story about how his then four year old was awestruck at the paintings on the walls and ceilings of the church, and the statues, asking a million questions about angels, and Jesus, and Mary, and who this saint was and what they did, and this guy was astounded at the realization that the paintings and statues in the church acted as a kind of catechism.
I just sort of shook my head. Some people have the common sense educated right out of them.
God bless.
Bee
Yes, but reason is in the service of faith, and cannot be put above God - indeed it is a gift of God. That is surely Victor's point, which Anonymous-the-troll chooses to ignore.
Beauty will heal the world...Yet in so many situations, the beauty is yanked out right from under them.....There is a certain minimalist mentality within some....
"That is surely Victor's point, which Anonymous-the-troll chooses to ignore."
I thought reading into other peoples' comments wasn't allowed here.
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