As I was looking for Mass photos on the internet, I saw a photo of an EF Mass at St. Joseph Church I celebrated several years ago. I clicked the link and the blogger, a young person who goes to the EF Mass, described what it meant to him. By the way, he uses many photos taken by my friend and parishioner Dr. Buck Melton who charted my life in photos at St. Joseph Church in Macon.
You can read the entire testimony here but below is a soundbite:
With the exception of a handful of wackos on the Internet, most of us who attend the Latin Mass are actually pretty decent people, if only by God’s grace. We are not liturgical idolaters, nor are we blind to the needs of our marginalized brothers and sisters. We do not hate community — we actually embrace it. After every Latin Mass I have been to in the past 6 months, there has been a coffee hour & social following. One parish I know of cooks meals every week for the homeless and economically disadvantaged. Another parish has mission trips to Appalachia, one of the poorest areas in the United States. Is this the work of individualistic, narcissistic haters of the marginalized? I don’t think so.
Then this morning I received this email from Dr. Felix Maher who is the MC for the Cathedral's EF Mass (which I celebrated yesterday):
Fr Allan,
I was at a neighbors dinner party tonight: the discussion in kitchen about the Latin Mass and how much it strengthens their faith and their life. They are all under 30.
My Comment: Maybe the EF Mass is the wave of the future! They say if you hear babies crying at Mass, your parish has a future. That's certainly true of the Cathedral's EF Mass!
Finally, after yesterday's EF Mass, a young man of about 22 years old came up to me and asked for a personal blessing. He is being prepared to become a Catholic. He was Baptist. A friend of his would invite him to an EF Mass at an FSSP parish in Ocala, Florida. He fell in love with the Mass which enhanced his already personal relationship with the Lord he cultivated at a Southern Baptist from northern Mississippi where there are few Catholics. He's a college student interning at Savannah's Gulf Stream Jet plant. He is an impressive young want-to-be Catholic who loves the EF Mass.
About Those Young, “Rigid”, Traditional Catholics
More and more, Millennial Catholics are flocking en masse to traditional practices and devotions, to the horror of many. But is such fear necessary?
You can read the entire testimony here but below is a soundbite:
With the exception of a handful of wackos on the Internet, most of us who attend the Latin Mass are actually pretty decent people, if only by God’s grace. We are not liturgical idolaters, nor are we blind to the needs of our marginalized brothers and sisters. We do not hate community — we actually embrace it. After every Latin Mass I have been to in the past 6 months, there has been a coffee hour & social following. One parish I know of cooks meals every week for the homeless and economically disadvantaged. Another parish has mission trips to Appalachia, one of the poorest areas in the United States. Is this the work of individualistic, narcissistic haters of the marginalized? I don’t think so.
Then this morning I received this email from Dr. Felix Maher who is the MC for the Cathedral's EF Mass (which I celebrated yesterday):
Fr Allan,
I was at a neighbors dinner party tonight: the discussion in kitchen about the Latin Mass and how much it strengthens their faith and their life. They are all under 30.
My Comment: Maybe the EF Mass is the wave of the future! They say if you hear babies crying at Mass, your parish has a future. That's certainly true of the Cathedral's EF Mass!
Finally, after yesterday's EF Mass, a young man of about 22 years old came up to me and asked for a personal blessing. He is being prepared to become a Catholic. He was Baptist. A friend of his would invite him to an EF Mass at an FSSP parish in Ocala, Florida. He fell in love with the Mass which enhanced his already personal relationship with the Lord he cultivated at a Southern Baptist from northern Mississippi where there are few Catholics. He's a college student interning at Savannah's Gulf Stream Jet plant. He is an impressive young want-to-be Catholic who loves the EF Mass.
5 comments:
ALL TRUE.
Having experienced a regular EF community that traced its pedigree back to the "indult" days of JPII, I still fondly remember the authentic friendliness of the people who stuck around after Mass and how easily community was formed without some parish program to impose it upon us. I remember a few other things too: YOUNG families with lots of children, young single people learning the patrimony their parishes denied them and the edification of sharing our faith in a way that just doesn't exist in Novus Ordo parishes.
All of this "reform of the reform" stuff sounds good on paper and I know the average parish priest scoffs at the idea of a return to the EF permanently, but the false structure we have constructed with the Novus Ordo Church cannot and will not sustain itself. Its fruits are apparent and the inevitable poor leadership that this environment breeds has now reached the pinnacle of ecclesial power.
The Novus Ordo Church is on the verge of collapse. The coming decimation and persecutions that our liberalized, secularist society is marching towards will be the final straw. When that happens, the Traditionalist Catholics will be waiting in the wings, ready to restore all things in Christ.
My take on Novus Ordo vs Tridentine Mass is that both can be wonderful if done from the heart by the priest, and true original intent and ruberics observed in the Novus Ordo.
HOWEVER, and no shot at Father McDonald, the fact is most Masses are said in a manner of the living dead, or so theatrically pronounced as to be saccharine, both obviously phony...
And Novus Ordo Masses normally all about noise and motion, and no chance ever to place self in the presence of God, which is the entire point of attending.
If I must attend a bad Mass, and most are, then give me the Tridentine where at least I can spend some time with God while there, even if the priest drones mindlessly....there is at least the quiet and peace required for recollection of self, and bring back to mind that I am there for a purpose, to join myself to God by offering of self along with the offering of his Son.
As for babies crying, it is a pet peeve of mine in either Mass...I adore children, get along famously with them, and know their parents are blessed...
but Mass is for worship, and the children are not worshipping, and same as when I am siezed by a coughing or sneezing fit during a Mass, and remove myself to not disturb others trying to put themselves in the presence of God, so should be parents considerate of worshippers and them remove disruptive children, and them not doing so shows a true lack of basic charity to others, ...
especially since many of the parents are really not paying attention to the Mass themselves, but there because only of obligation, and swapping toys in a bag for Junior, breaking out rustling baggies of munchies for Junior, loudly saying SSSHHHHHH 10 times per minute to Junior, and watching Junior play drummer with hymnals in racks or shoe heels on pews, and simply sitting there as Junior screams out his lungs...house of worship? hardly...
This is made far worse today by the young adults raising herds as they know good Catholics MUST do, generally dressed as Pentecostals with value added mantillas, and having zero parenting skills or discipline, and the entire bunch of children without any self control, running in aisles and running riot in general.
To me it shows Catholics just as focused only meeting obligations, them there only as aesthetes, with zero spiritual catechesis, which is what is killing off churches today, and which mindless attendance in old Tridentine Masses led to the liturgical revolt of the Novus Ordo, except those liturgists missed entire what was the actual problem....
neither camp today seems to actually pay much attention to God, the Novus Ordo folk all about having protestant feelgoodism, while Tridentine folk all about page flipping and kneeling/bowing when required and "our Mass is prettier".
There is a nearby Benedictine abby with sung Tridentine, taken over by such "trads", and there is no peace there what with all the screaming children, plus the adults have taken a shine to copying every single move the choir monks make, whether standing, sitting, bowing, kneeling, whether they have a clue of the symbolism to the monks, or not, PLUS the page flipping where nobody is paying a bit of attention to the sacrifice at all...and far more thundering up/down/up/down than any Novus Ordo Mass...I cannot see the Mass, cannot hear the Mass, cannot pray during Mass, and I quit going since I might as well not even be there at all, anyhow....
It is NOT about one rite being better, but about how the rite celebrated, and about the spiritual aspirations of celebrant and congregation...BOTH can be amazingly effective in destroying spiritual aspiration when folk really put their minds to it.
The thing about participation: what other gathering has everyone in attendance babbling and distracted by nonsequitur music yet calls that participation. Isn’t paying attention the highest for of participation?
My my my Bob, underwear in a bunch today,
how I would love to see big noisy families rather than mom and dad and the spoiled pc one of each
Having lost a son at the age of 3 in a farm accident that i caused, all i can say is shame on you, now go somewhere quiet and let us that enjoy and love the sounds of kids, loud and all to rejoice in another generation and in the harried parents that are willing to bring them up
PS I agree some need to leave church, however, I remember as I carried our screaming oldest daughter out of church 35 years ago she said out loud, "please don't spank me Daddy" Kids say the damnedest things
At first I found myself agreeing with Bob, but that has to be one of the most misanthropic diatribes I've ever forced myself to read. With no rancor, I must ask, how does one presume to know the hearts and minds of all the people he has dismissed for various bad motives?
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