Our lentified church and altar. I have to say that I love our new Benedictine altar arrangement that no longer has floor candles cluttering the floor around the altar. And it is so traditional.
"Oh, where are those beautiful candlesticks that some poor, hardworking families scrimped and saved for? How dare the modern day iconoclasts cast aside the blood, sweat, and tears of those faithful Catholics of past generations who gave what they could not aford to make the house of God truly resplendent?"
No, doesn't sound silly at all. And our floor candlesticks can be used to flank a casket for a Requiem or flank the tabernacle as they now do. Stewardship is a virtue.
Good heavens, Fr. K, is there anything you can possibly agree on or at least be NICE about with Fr. McDonald? You have no idea how petty your constant barbs make you look.
And TJM, please don't "support" me by posting some item about how Fr. K "thinks that he..." or "believes that he..." or "is a member of the Democratic Party, so he..." because that's just an extension of the same problem.
We can ALL disagree with each other--fine. But this constant nitpicking and "gotcha" stuff is getting very tiresome.
I am baffled why you would say such a thing since I had already made a gracious comment and never mentioned Father K in it. If I had your unsolicited advice to me might have been appropriate
Hear, hear. I have had enough of people claiming to know what I think and believe. Comment on what people actually write.
And BTW I did not refer to Fr K as a 'berk'. Most Americans are not familiar with Cockney rhyming slang and would not know that 'Berkshire hunt' rhymes with a Latin-derived four-letter word for the female pudenda, a common (if obscene) insult over here.
I applied that epithet to someone calling himself Anonymous or using a constantly changing pseudonym, who until recently infested this blog.
I have learnt a new word in North American usage, viz. 'snark' - someone who indulges in crude sarcasm but has no understanding of irony. That would accurately describe the commentator at 3:33 yesterday.
I apologize. You did in fact refer to a certain Anonymous person as a berk (you know who).
Snark is a popular term in the US and it does apply to the commentator at 3:33 yesterday. I am not a mental health professional, but I find his behavior disturbing. Unfortunately it brings out the worst in me and I should know better.
My apologies. I've just noticed that in so many posts that if I or anyone says anything in reference to Fr. K, it is immediately followed by your well-intentioned remarks reminding us that he is a Democrat or some other shortcoming, which, unfortunately, usually just feeds fuel to his fires. I actually appreciate your support, but much of the time I wish you wouldn't show it so readily.
In fact, maybe if I explain, I'll let TJM and many other people here know just how much I appreciate their support...
I often read Fr. Kavanaugh and others of his ilk casually dismissing my remarks and the remarks of other more traditionally-minded people who post here, informing us that we don't want to hear any other opinions or the old "this blog is just an echo-chamber" nonsense. That's rather like hearing the "mainstream" news media all ganging up on Fox News for presenting another perspective--as if Fox is a threat. Evidently blogs like this and Fox news ARE a threat, never mind that Traditionally-minded Catholics and Conservative media are OVERWHELMINGLY outnumbered by news media and blogs that enforce the zeitgeist of popular groupthink.
I have spent most of my life feeling isolated within the Church. I was the only one in my Catholic schools, not just my classes, but in my SCHOOL, who wasn't dazzled and converted by the New Mass and the introduction of guitars, which was followed by such innovations as student-designed liturgies, collages around the altar, Communion in the hand, liturgical dance and...Dear God, forgive us for our idiocy!
College was a time of great loneliness and frustration. I never gave up on the Church and kept attending Mass, kept going to the Sacraments and kept dying within as I watched the Church around me erect a new false edifice that had no foundation. It was incredibly depressing to meet other people who claimed to be Catholic, yet insisted that the old mortal sins were no longer sins at all or that everything had changed. It was rather like belonging to a club that had no rules. In fact, when it came to the college Catholics I met at the Newman Centers, the only rules that existed were "don't judge" and "support every new social justice cause" and a lot of very strange ideas suddenly became matters of "social justice".
This only began to change after 1988, when a decent pope who was powerless to reform a Church spun out of control at least gave Catholics a limited right to the older rite. It was ONLY then that I realized I wasn't the last Catholic left on earth. I don't mean to suggest that the more relaxed Catholics I meant were lesser Catholics, as much as I felt like I was the last one holding to the immutable teachings while the requirements of being "Catholic" was being re-defined every single day.
I have spent my whole life vastly outnumbered by modernists, embracers of every new thing, lapsed believers, uncatechized or poorly catechized Catholics--Catholics who couldn't remember (or were perhaps never even taught) the most basic points of their catechism, yet couldn't understand what I was so hung up about. The sense of aloneness has defined who I am.
I am not writing this because I feel sorry for myself. I am writing this because I suspect a number of readers share a similar story and it is incredibly denigrating to be dismissed as irrelevant members of a hopeless minority clinging to an echo chamber. The easygoing, intellectually superior Catholics who make such remarks have no idea how hurtful it is or what we have been through because of the likes of them.
Support is greatly appreciated. Yet we have to walk that tightrope of not falling into a bickering match with people who don't care anyway. Blogs like this don't exist for us to feed our vanity.
Thank you for your thoughtful explanation we share a very similar perspective on the Liturgy. Notwithstanding my dislike of most of the reforms because I am a trained organist and vocalist I gave over 40 years to music ministry in the parishes I belonged to over those years as a cantor, choir member, and organist. The late 1960s and 1970s were the worst of those years - barren if you will. Slowly more traditional music began to re-emerge, chant and some polyphony. However, I became more disenchanted with the typical Sunday OF experience and now typically attend the EF or Latin OF. I am at peace and I dare anyone call me rigid - would these critics give 40 years of service to the Latin liturgy as I did to the vernacular ones? Doubt it because they are the rigid ones
Jerome - I have never suggested that I don't want to hear your opinions. Please post them. But understand that they are 1) OPINIONS, 2) others may not share them, 3) other may share their opinions and these may differ significantly from yours.
I have never suggested that you are irrelevant because you hold opinions that I do not share. The only time I have made the echo chamber comment here is when I am told that no one wants to hear what I say (but, of course they keep reading what I post), or that I should go start my own blog. When everyone here or in any comments section shares the same opinions, then it becomes an echo chamber.
Catholic doctrine is well-established, although we do express it differently from time to time and from age to age. The "prophecies" of Fatima, Garabandal, etc., are not doctrine, and although they may be "worthy of belief," they are not part of the Apostolic Faith. If these things aid you in becoming more Christ-like, good!
There is very little, if anything, that is "immutable" in the rubrics for the celebration of the liturgy.
I have never felt isolated as a Catholic when the liturgy I am attending is celebrated in English, French, Vietnamese, German, Swahili (got that one when I was on sabbatical at CTU in Chicago), or Spanish. If there was grand music, as with the men and boys' choir at Westminster Cathedral in London, or if there was no music, I was not isolated. If the church was elaborately decorated like St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, or if it was Cistercian plain as it is at the chapel of the monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, I did not feel isolated. If there was a chatty old lady next to me who smelled of rose water and powder (pleasant I might add), or if there was a dour young man from the street in front of me who smelled of cigarettes and stale beer, I wasn't isolated.
If you were the only one in the entire school who felt a particular way, maybe, just maybe, the cause of the isolation is... you. I am sorry you feel isolated, but the remedy may well be in your hands.
14 comments:
"Oh, where are those beautiful candlesticks that some poor, hardworking families scrimped and saved for? How dare the modern day iconoclasts cast aside the blood, sweat, and tears of those faithful Catholics of past generations who gave what they could not aford to make the house of God truly resplendent?"
Sounds silly, doesn't it?
No, doesn't sound silly at all. And our floor candlesticks can be used to flank a casket for a Requiem or flank the tabernacle as they now do. Stewardship is a virtue.
Father McDonald,
It looks lovely and dignified.
Good heavens, Fr. K, is there anything you can possibly agree on or at least be NICE about with Fr. McDonald? You have no idea how petty your constant barbs make you look.
A man of the cloth? Unbelievable.
And TJM, please don't "support" me by posting some item about how Fr. K "thinks that he..." or "believes that he..." or "is a member of the Democratic Party, so he..." because that's just an extension of the same problem.
We can ALL disagree with each other--fine. But this constant nitpicking and "gotcha" stuff is getting very tiresome.
Jerome Merwick,
I don’t need unsolicited advice from you. Your snipe at me is so Fr K like
Jerome Merwick,
I am baffled why you would say such a thing since I had already made a gracious comment and never mentioned Father K in it. If I had your unsolicited advice to me might have been appropriate
Hear, hear. I have had enough of people claiming to know what I think and believe. Comment on what people actually write.
And BTW I did not refer to Fr K as a 'berk'. Most Americans are not familiar with Cockney rhyming slang and would not know that 'Berkshire hunt' rhymes with a Latin-derived four-letter word for the female pudenda, a common (if obscene) insult over here.
I applied that epithet to someone calling himself Anonymous or using a constantly changing pseudonym, who until recently infested this blog.
I have learnt a new word in North American usage, viz. 'snark' - someone who indulges in crude sarcasm but has no understanding of irony. That would accurately describe the commentator at 3:33 yesterday.
John Nolan,
I apologize. You did in fact refer to a certain Anonymous person as a berk (you know who).
Snark is a popular term in the US and it does apply to the commentator at 3:33 yesterday. I am not a mental health professional, but I find his behavior disturbing. Unfortunately it brings out the worst in me and I should know better.
This dynamic reminds me of the Spike and Chester cartoons. Anyone remember thes
https://c.tenor.com/Y0sRLVuU9dsAAAAM/shut-up-looney.gif
TJM:
My apologies. I've just noticed that in so many posts that if I or anyone says anything in reference to Fr. K, it is immediately followed by your well-intentioned remarks reminding us that he is a Democrat or some other shortcoming, which, unfortunately, usually just feeds fuel to his fires. I actually appreciate your support, but much of the time I wish you wouldn't show it so readily.
In fact, maybe if I explain, I'll let TJM and many other people here know just how much I appreciate their support...
I often read Fr. Kavanaugh and others of his ilk casually dismissing my remarks and the remarks of other more traditionally-minded people who post here, informing us that we don't want to hear any other opinions or the old "this blog is just an echo-chamber" nonsense. That's rather like hearing the "mainstream" news media all ganging up on Fox News for presenting another perspective--as if Fox is a threat. Evidently blogs like this and Fox news ARE a threat, never mind that Traditionally-minded Catholics and Conservative media are OVERWHELMINGLY outnumbered by news media and blogs that enforce the zeitgeist of popular groupthink.
I have spent most of my life feeling isolated within the Church. I was the only one in my Catholic schools, not just my classes, but in my SCHOOL, who wasn't dazzled and converted by the New Mass and the introduction of guitars, which was followed by such innovations as student-designed liturgies, collages around the altar, Communion in the hand, liturgical dance and...Dear God, forgive us for our idiocy!
College was a time of great loneliness and frustration. I never gave up on the Church and kept attending Mass, kept going to the Sacraments and kept dying within as I watched the Church around me erect a new false edifice that had no foundation. It was incredibly depressing to meet other people who claimed to be Catholic, yet insisted that the old mortal sins were no longer sins at all or that everything had changed. It was rather like belonging to a club that had no rules. In fact, when it came to the college Catholics I met at the Newman Centers, the only rules that existed were "don't judge" and "support every new social justice cause" and a lot of very strange ideas suddenly became matters of "social justice".
This only began to change after 1988, when a decent pope who was powerless to reform a Church spun out of control at least gave Catholics a limited right to the older rite. It was ONLY then that I realized I wasn't the last Catholic left on earth. I don't mean to suggest that the more relaxed Catholics I meant were lesser Catholics, as much as I felt like I was the last one holding to the immutable teachings while the requirements of being "Catholic" was being re-defined every single day.
I have spent my whole life vastly outnumbered by modernists, embracers of every new thing, lapsed believers, uncatechized or poorly catechized Catholics--Catholics who couldn't remember (or were perhaps never even taught) the most basic points of their catechism, yet couldn't understand what I was so hung up about. The sense of aloneness has defined who I am.
I am not writing this because I feel sorry for myself. I am writing this because I suspect a number of readers share a similar story and it is incredibly denigrating to be dismissed as irrelevant members of a hopeless minority clinging to an echo chamber. The easygoing, intellectually superior Catholics who make such remarks have no idea how hurtful it is or what we have been through because of the likes of them.
Support is greatly appreciated. Yet we have to walk that tightrope of not falling into a bickering match with people who don't care anyway. Blogs like this don't exist for us to feed our vanity.
Jerome Merwick,
Thank you for your thoughtful explanation we share a very similar perspective on the Liturgy. Notwithstanding my dislike of most of the reforms because I am a trained organist and vocalist I gave over 40 years to music ministry in the parishes I belonged to over those years as a cantor, choir member, and organist. The late 1960s and 1970s were the worst of those years - barren if you will. Slowly more traditional music began to re-emerge, chant and some polyphony. However, I became more disenchanted with the typical Sunday OF experience and now typically attend the EF or Latin OF. I am at peace and I dare anyone call me rigid - would these critics give 40 years of service to the Latin liturgy as I did to the vernacular ones? Doubt it because they are the rigid ones
Jerome - I have never suggested that I don't want to hear your opinions. Please post them. But understand that they are 1) OPINIONS, 2) others may not share them, 3) other may share their opinions and these may differ significantly from yours.
I have never suggested that you are irrelevant because you hold opinions that I do not share. The only time I have made the echo chamber comment here is when I am told that no one wants to hear what I say (but, of course they keep reading what I post), or that I should go start my own blog. When everyone here or in any comments section shares the same opinions, then it becomes an echo chamber.
Catholic doctrine is well-established, although we do express it differently from time to time and from age to age. The "prophecies" of Fatima, Garabandal, etc., are not doctrine, and although they may be "worthy of belief," they are not part of the Apostolic Faith. If these things aid you in becoming more Christ-like, good!
There is very little, if anything, that is "immutable" in the rubrics for the celebration of the liturgy.
I have never felt isolated as a Catholic when the liturgy I am attending is celebrated in English, French, Vietnamese, German, Swahili (got that one when I was on sabbatical at CTU in Chicago), or Spanish. If there was grand music, as with the men and boys' choir at Westminster Cathedral in London, or if there was no music, I was not isolated. If the church was elaborately decorated like St. Stephen's Basilica in Budapest, or if it was Cistercian plain as it is at the chapel of the monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, I did not feel isolated. If there was a chatty old lady next to me who smelled of rose water and powder (pleasant I might add), or if there was a dour young man from the street in front of me who smelled of cigarettes and stale beer, I wasn't isolated.
If you were the only one in the entire school who felt a particular way, maybe, just maybe, the cause of the isolation is... you. I am sorry you feel isolated, but the remedy may well be in your hands.
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