This inspires wonder, awe and a personal faith in the Risen Lord, a personal relationship with our Lord:
So many Catholics today are formed in this caricature of the above photo, although not in this extreme but certainly approaching it and this casual, informal look at the Mass is far more common than what is pictured above and does nothing to keep Catholic engaged in the Church or even practicing Catholics:
At the Deacon’s Bench recently there was an article by a mother whose adult children no longer practice the Catholic Faith.
There were a variety of reasons, but the bottom line with all of them is that there was no personal faith in either God as taught by the Church or an acknowledgement of God’s love for them, as taught by the Catholic Church, or a Personal relationship enabled by God’s grace with Jesus, Mary or Joseph, let alone all the angels and saints. There was no commitment to God and the Church Jesus founded and no sense of obligation to God or the Catholic Faith guided by Jesus Christ since Pentecost.
No doubt, prior to the liturgical changes in the Church and an Uber flexibility in terms of respect for other Christian sects, non-Christian religions and atheism and agnosticism, there were some defections from the Catholic Church, usually revolving around mistreatment by clergy and religious and an Uber authoritarianism of the pre-Vatican II Church in our parishes and schools (a vicious clericalism on steroids).
But prior to Vatican II and liturgical changes, why were Catholics so committed to their Church, going to Mass at an almost more than 90% of the Catholic population and rarely leaving the Church Jesus founded?
Here are my top reasons for that phenomenal success:
1. Awe and Reverence in the Catholic Mass. My parish in Augusta was a barn of a church building, but the pre-Vatican II pastor took the Liturgy seriously as did most priests of that period and the pre-Vatican II arrangement of the sanctuary created a sense of awe and wonder similar to the photograph at the top, but certainly not as grand.
2. We truly believed that the Catholic Church was founded by Jesus Christ and in the areas of faith and morals was infallible in infallibly declared dogma and guided by the Holy Spirit in all other ways and that the gates of hell would not prevails against the Church.
3. The laity produced an abundance of lay children who as laity were open to becoming priests and religious. Remember, clergy and laity were first baptized laity. They are not from mars or angels created by God for the purpose of becoming priests and religious. They are laity who become clergy and religious. And as such, these laity turned clergy and religious created many, many charitable and educational institutions which have been diminished as so many laity today no longer want to become clergy and religious. How many Catholic schools, hospitals and charitable institutions no longer exist because there a not laity who become priests and religious?
As an aside, in the south and I presume elsewhere, the laity (some who became clergy and religious) were missionary disciples. In Augusta, we had a Catholic hospital staffed by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Corondelet. In its heyday, it had up to 25 nursing sisters. This hospital catered to all people with health issues and created good will in the Augusta toward the Catholic Church in general and many Protestants and non-believers also worked in that hospital closely with the sisters. This truly impacted the Church’s mission in Augusta. That hospital closed as a Catholic hospital several years ago and at the time with only one non-habited Sister working there. The same was truly of our Catholic schools in the metro area staffed by nuns galore. Many Protestants used these schools (and still do with the few that remain) and the sisters impacted them in a very positive way. Our all black parish in Augusta prior to Vatican II had a 12 year parochial school staffed by the Franciscan sisters and elderly blacks who did not become Catholic still list Immaculate Conception High School in their obituaries so important was it for them! That high school was merged into the “white” high school in the 60’s.
4. If you have a sense of awe and wonder in the Real Presence of the Risen Lord at Mass and in Holy Communion and the other Sacraments and that our personal God, Jesus founded the Catholic Church and His Real Presence in the Holy Spirit continues to this day and until the Risen Lord returns in the Flesh at the end of time, one is not going to leave the Catholic Church, but will pick up their cross and embrace all the commitments and obligations being a Catholic entails.
14 comments:
"There was no commitment to God and the Church Jesus founded and no sense of obligation to God or the Catholic Faith guided by Jesus Christ since Pentecost."
The sense of commitment to anything, not just to God and the Catholic faith, is what our western culture has been losing since the dawning of the Industrial Revolution. The social changes that came about as the result of the move from rural, agricultural existence to urban, industrial/business existence are on-going.
Pope Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, often called the first papal social encyclical, recognized the potential impacts of this monumental shift, and became, in a sense, the real predecessor Gaudium et Spes, and, to a lesser but still important degree, Lumen Gentium.
Not to mention you were told in no uncertain terms that if you didn't go to Mass you'd go to hell.
The Church stopped distinguishing itself from any other religion or belief. The rigors of previous years were released and the idea that everything was forgivable naturally led to the conclusion that everything is OK. Self loathing of European culture has led to confusion and loss of Faith. The leadership of the Church blames it on changes in society as beyond the power of God to resist, in an effort to avoid their responsibility to help survive it.
Fr. Kavanaugh,
LOL - then why was there a sudden collapse in the Faith following the Council? It should have happened long before since the Industrial Revolution was around over 200 years before the Council. I think the real reason is that the Church lost its nerve to teach the Faith. It wanted to be the "Church of Nice" rather than a Church of Faith.
Romulus Augustus here, well one reason there is no traditional Latin mass available for every parish in the country, the people are starving for the true faith. and tomorrow in the Roman catholic diocese of Dallas Texas the bishop will be having a mass in honor of George Floyd! A man who was a drug dealer, a drug user a common criminal is being honored at a Roman Catholic mass are you kidding me??? Well I’m not kidding, take a look at the diocesan website and you’ll see the mass tomorrow in the cathedral in Dallas Texas way to go bishop. You can see the whole story on Dr. Taylor Marshall‘s website on YouTube, this is out right heresy and against everything in the Roman Catholic faith.
Romulus, you got it VERY wrong. No, it is not "a mass in honor of George Floyd."
Try reading with comprehension.
From the Dallas website: "A Mass for healing to bring about peace and justice will be held on May 25, 2021 at 12 noon at the Cathedral Guadalupe in Dallas. Bishop Edward Burns will preside at the special Mass and will be joined by Auxiliary Bishop Greg Kelly. The event will begin at 11:45 a.m. with a candle lighting ceremony and the tolling of the cathedral bells.
The Mass is being held on the anniversary of the death of George Floyd one year ago. According to Bishop Burns, “The death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25, 2020 brought forth much pain and suffering in our country and serves as a reminder that all people are created in God’s image and it is important for us to uphold the dignity of every human life.”
The Mass for healing is hosted by the Diocese of Dallas Interracial Healing Task Force, which was created by Bishop Burns in October of 2020. The 16-person Task Force promotes healing in line with Church teaching and tradition. The group also works to ensure that the Diocese of Dallas and all of its entities uphold the dignity of all people from all races and ethnicities, as all reflect the image of God."
Nothing - NOTHING - heretical in this. Nothing.
The Catholic Church is just following the secular model of what American government is doing under the mantle of modern life: Managed decline.
And in order to "manage a decline" their has to be a willful cooperation from the top. Dare I say, there must even be a WILL to decline.
The rest of us underlings have to live with these fine decisions that were made for us by the "more competent".
Sometimes it is so hard to contain my resentment...
THERE
Tom Marcus,
The Catholic Church is tone deaf. I wonder if they will have a Mass of "peace and justice" to honor the memory of Charlie Johnson, a white male, engineering grad who was murdered outside of a Minneapolis, a Dem controlled City, the other night by cross fire from black gangs. I seriously doubt it, for the following reasons:
He was an educated and talented young man.
He was NOT a felon overdosed on Fentanyl and a dozen other things.
He was NOT shot by a cop.
No 27 million dollar settlement for his family.
So now the Catholic Church is in the pandering business.
Millions of Catholics over the centuries abandoned the (Latin) Church when the TLM was in place.
Following Vatican II, millions of Catholics who had grown up with the TLM abandoned the Church.
Conversely, millions, upon millions, upon millions of Catholics during that time remained attached to Jesus Christ/Holy Mother Church.
Were/are said folks "special?" They did not abandon the Church. Why?
The so-called "Vatican II/Novus Ordo Church" is horrific supposedly. However, the "Vatican II/Novus Ordo Church" in Africa, for example, is a booming holy success. Why?
We who participate on Father McDonald's blog are attached to Holy Mother Church. Why? Why have we not abandoned Holy Mother Church?
The Catholics next door have abandoned the Church...but we have not. Why? Are we special?
The True Faith is alive and well among Catholics who are in communion with holy Pope Francis.
But those who wish to find an excuse(s) to abandon the Church will do so.
Pax.
Mark Thomas.
Pope Saint Pius X, 1912 A.D:
"Therefore, when we love the Pope, there are no discussions regarding what he orders or demands, or up to what point obedience must go; and in what things he is to be obeyed...because whoever is holy cannot dissent from the Pope."
Mark Thomas,
Your meme is false and tiresome. The Novus Ordo has been an utter flop. 80 percent of American Catholics went to Sunday Mass prior to the Council when we had the Latin EF. Currently, about 10 percent attend the Sunday Novus Ordo. At this point you are being willfully contumacious
Yes, if we just went back to the Latin Mass, abortion would disappear, same-sex marriage would vanish, divorce would be unheard of, and the police would have little crime to investigate. I might even win the Alabama lottery...
More children and teenagers, especially in our “Covid-19 era” are attending the TLM. These young people are being formed by regular attendance in a way that is (how can I put it?) more likely to have them knowing and loving and wanting to serve God (and not dropping their Catholic faith, Catholic beliefs and practices etc within 12 months of completing high school as happens at a rate of well over 90% in a novus ordo environment...- ) and more likely to have as adults a more orthodox faith than those young people being “nourished” by the various, valid but inferior NO Masses.
One does not have to be a mental giant to guesstimate where future vocations will come from.
In our diocese, a number of priests, often in their 60s, who attended seminaries in the 1970s, are almost clinically depressed at the numbers of lay people in our diocese now attending the TLM and the numbers of young men in the seminary in our diocese developing a strong interest in the TLM; these more conservative, traditional young men at the seminary are labeled “the Taliban” or worse by some priests in their 60s and 70s, in our diocese. But it is likely such young laypeople and such young seminarians are our future.
Anonymous at 9:38 am,
I think one of those clinically depressed priests from that era posts here and it’s not Father McDonald
Post a Comment