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Friday, May 10, 2019

THESE OLD PEOPLE WHO LOVE THIS FORM OF THE MASS! WE'LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THEY DIE OUT!

This guy, a Superbowl bound NFL player, has his priorities in the right order. What he says at the end is Catholicism 101 but how many Catholics would say it?


6 comments:

Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

I find Fr. Shawn Tunink's comments about the ordinary form - "This [the EF] isn't something that somebody made up this weekend to see what songs would get people excited or can I preach a flashy message," to be unfortunate and, in many ways, dismissive.

The majority of the people I have known who help prepare liturgies do not make their choices based on what someone might find "exciting." The choices are made with careful attention to the connection between the texts of the music and the Scripture readings of the weekend. If Fr. Tunink has had the experience of folks who choose the exciting over the substantial, then he should look for someone with a better understanding of the purpose for and the process of preparing liturgies.

And while not all preachers are equally gifted, and while some few may go for the "flashy," I think most of us try to do what the Church asks us to do - to offer homilies that are mystical, that are Biblical, that are challenging to our patterns of behavior, that evoke in our hearers the awareness of the need for personal conversion, and that encourage people to take up their responsibility to be evangelists.

The nobility - shall I say the simple nobility - of the OF comes not from the Latin or the vernacular, not from the chant or the hymnody, not from the fabric used for the vestments or the style of church decoration, but from the ultimate act of nobility, Jesus' self-sacrifice for our salvation.

Fr. Allan J. McDonald said...

What I love about the Cathedral's EF Mass is precisely what Fr. Shawn Tunik describes. No one, not me, not the choir director or the liturgy committee tries to find hymns that fit into the Mass. They chant the Mass, the beautiful Introit from the Gradual, there isn't an additional processional hymn to be selected by whoever. The same for the offertory and communion. If, however, a motet is to be sung, one might be chosen at the offertory and communion.

TJM said...

Father McDonald,

What you described is noble simplicity, something the OF (options city) can never be.

Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

Yes, that's how the EF works - how it was designed to work - and for the EF that is functional. But the OF does not necessarily follow that pattern, which is how the OF works.

Are the motets chosen to be "exciting" or are celebrants in the EF inclined to get "flashy" in their homilies? I hope not.

TJM said...

OF - chasing people away for 50 years. LOL

Carol H. said...

My 27 year old son says that when he attends an OF Mass, he feels like he is back in Kindergarten. That is NOT the way to attract his generation.