One of the things that makes me angry about Neo-traditionalists is their disdain for a properly celebrated Modern Vernacular Mass. There is a disdain for it even when in Latin, ad orientem and kneeling for Holy Communion. They think the Modern Mass isn't the true Mass!
I have heard of these "neo-trads" walking out of the Mass as I describe it above when they thought it was going to be the Ancient Latin Mass.
It is this kind of rigid and heretical behavior that has created caution and concern with the pope and bishops in union with him and other priests like myself.
Let's just say, that a true Catholic, if we wish to use the category of true and false, knows that the Mass in what ever form, East to West, the most ancient to the most modern and all the rites known to the Holy Roman Church, re-presents in an unbloody/glorious way the One Sacrifice of Christ and Jesus Christ, crucified and Risen is completely present in His glorified Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.
I find that the Catholic laity who seem to be the more likely to become radicalized about the so-called True Mass are converts to the Faith, Protestant at heart, congregational and always seeking the perfect Church and liturgy. Sadly, I have known some of my converts to move toward schismatic communions like the Eastern Orthodox or sedevacantists because they believe that the Roman Catholic Church has erred or at least the pope and bishops in union with him have erred and there is no true pope. Sad, no?
But there are others who prefer what the Ancient Latin Mass offers who know that it can also be found in its Modern Form in Latin or the vernacular. What is that?
1. Predictability-- you know what you are going to get at the Ancient Latin Mass, but not so much at the Modern Mass. Having regular celebrations of the Modern Mass in Latin or the vernacular or a hybrid but only saying or chanting the propers and nothing that appears "modern" in terms of music, could solve the problem of the unpredictability of the the Modern Mass.
2. Priestly ego and personality which overwhelms the modern Mass and becomes a source of distraction and irritation. The way to solve this is for the priest to join the congregation in facing the same direction (ad orientem) and for the priest to say and do only what the black and red say to do. It's that simple.
3. The perceived sense of the loss of reverence in the Modern Mass which seems to be institutionalized. Yes, this is a great problem and there are so many options and styles of celebrating the Mass and often so-called inculturation is the irritation to many traditionalists and leads to an erosion of reverence. Traditional Catholic reverence is pious and restrained, dignified and understated, quite sober. The biggest area that leads to exuberance or spiritual exhibitionism is happy clappy songs and bodily gestures not known to traditional Catholicism.
But apart from that, the manner in which Holy Communion is offered and received in the Modern Mass does nothing to promote authentic belief in the Real Presence.
The remedy for that is to kneel for Holy Communion. I have found that in our little chapel for daily Mass, where communicants kneel at the altar railing, even if they receive in the hand, it is far more reverent and less rushed than the communion line, even if communicants receive on the hand at the railing.
Let's stop being arrogant and elitist about the Ancient Latin Mass and let's work to make the Modern Mass in Latin or the vernacular as reverent and dignified as many people perceive the Ancient Latin Mass to be. Let's provide Gregorian Chant, ad orientem and kneeling for the Modern Mass!
21 comments:
Father McDonald,
Nicely done. I have no problem with the OF as celebrated at places like St. John Cantius and the Brompton Oratory. We have a lot of stubborn bishops and priests who would rather the Church fail they adjusting their attitudes due to either sloth or arrogance or both
Whenever you slam “Trads” i get worked up thinking i have to respond because you are talking about ME, right? So this morning when I read your latest affrontery I was reminded by the ashes on my forehead to relax, stress is released when I am less full of myself.
My more calm and rational self does not think that I am violating my Lenten goal for at least a little more humility to point out that if the priest leads the congregation and parish to a loving humility the NO will look a lot like the VO out of respect for Our Lord. Everyone else deserves a beatdown.
But, RCG, the neo-traditionalists I speak of are the ones who have gotten to Pope Francis and others advising him in this country and elsewhere. The pope has said that these neo-traditionalists think the EF Mass is the true Mass and the Ordinary Form or the Mass after Vatican II isn't the true Mass or the true Church.
I've been warning about this mentality for years and that the antipathy that traditionalists spewed about Pope Francis was like shooting themselves in the foot and showed they were no better than the progressives who constantly badmouthed Pope Benedict.
Both extremes appear to be cut from the same cloth.
If only, if only, if only, the traditionalists kept their mouths shut, supported the pope and showed they were quite unlike the progressives who denigrated Pope Benedict, I can't help but think we'd be in a better place today.
Father McDonald,
I would like to think so, but PF is not a nice man and has almost a visceral hatred of the EF and those that prefer it. Of course he is strictly hands off and sooooooo understanding of the St. Sabina types. I think he is his own worst enemy
"...bodily gestures not known to traditional Catholicism."
Depends on whose "traditional Catholicism" you're basing this on.
Now, if by "traditional Catholicism" you mean European white people Catholicism whose "traditional" music was chanty, whose vesture was silky and brocady and lineny, and whose demeanor was determined by where one stood in the caste system at the time (a. aristocracy or b. clergy or c. serf or vassal), and by a particular notion of what and what did not constitute beauty, then you may have a point.
On the other hand.....
What does that have to do with it? Traditional is traditional and in terms of the Catholic Mass, traditional is older than 50 years ago regardless of where the tradition originated. The Beatitudes originated in the culture of the Israel as well as the 10 Commandments. Are these alien to Africa and native peoples of the various continents? I recommend you take a logic's course as it appears you haven't.
The Beatitudes and the Ten Commandments are Divine Revelation, good Fr. ALLAN McDonald, so of course they are pan-cultural.
Chant, castes systems, fabric, and architecture are not part of Revelation, so....
And if you think being more than 50 years old makes something traditional and, therefore, what we should be doing today, get your choir to start using Corsican chant in place of or along with Gregorian. Or not, since that traditional music from the 17th and 18th centuries was suppressed. So much for the traditional having staying power.
And I suggest you take a basic grammr course and discover the difference between logics and logic's. (And you probably wanted to say logic in the first place.)
Father K,
You always come to argue and offer little. John Nolan was right about you - you are a berk
Father K,
Lastly, I have seen John Nolan doing a masterful take down of your grammatical errors. People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.
I agree with you, Father about what needs to be done with the post-conciliar Mass. The Mass needs to be re-regulated as to its rubrics and details, just as it was (and is) regulated in the 1962 Missal. If we are Roman Rite Catholics then our liturgy should carry through the characteristics and externals of the classical Roman Rite. This goes a long way to ensure a more uniform way of celebrating the Mass and its ethos and externals. People have a right to expect a dependable uniform style and way of praying (celebrating)the Mass that reinforces the way we believe.
A lot of the problem today is not just a lack of uniformity but also the bald-faced statements by people like Massimo Faggioli (who, along with Andrea Grillo and Austin Iverleigh are perceived to have a lot of influence on the Church, despite the fact that they are laymen) who say things like the older form of Mass no longer being Catholic or no longer representing what we believe. They take the "lex orandi, lex credenda" maxim and turn it around on traditionalists saying that only the new Mass is Catholic and that we, somehow, no longer believe as we once did. I see that as undercutting the Church's legitimacy and Truth claim. Our Faith is "always and everywhere" not we used to believe one way in the past and now we believe something different.
Massimo ("Beans") Faggioli actually had the temerity to say Pope Benedict did not understand his own talk on viewing Vatican II through a hermenuetic of continuity rather than rupture. So a lefty is saying Pope Benedict who attended the Council as a peritus is not as smart as Beans. Another lefty loon who should be ignored.
Perhaps we TLM lovers need to repent of our caste privilege. You know, Novus Ordo Lives Matter and all such silliness. Let's burn down MORE gothic cathedrals...yes...ugh.
The only thing more pathetic than watching old people trying to be hip is watching the guardians of any religion or culture managing its decline because of their own self-hatred.
Jerome Merwick,
I predict that in 50 years the Novus Ordo Church will be history, a bad memory. As Gertrude Stein said there is “no there, there!”
TJM,
I am neither a prophet nor a psychic (thank God) but if what you predict comes to pass, I would not be surprised. What we're doing now and what Francis is INSISTING we are ONLY allowed to do now is a proven failure. Protestantism is a proven failure. The entire notion that the TLM must be suppressed is built on the faulty premise that the faith has evolved and that "old way" of worship doesn't fit in with the "new way" we are supposed to think. Nowhere else in Church history do we have a committee comprised of people who reject Catholic teaching literally contriving a new form of worship. That is not organic development--it's not even sensible, for that matter. And the leader of the effort's questionable background (I mean Bugnini, of course) is still ignored and we move forward with his flawed plan anyway? Yes Pope Paul, the smoke of Satan HAS entered the sanctuary and I think we need to take responsibility for our assistance.
If what you predict happens, it is going to take a divine intervention, something miraculous or cataclysmic (or both) to re-ground the Church and bring our age of self-hating silliness and historical ignorance to an end, once and for all. And here is where some readers are going to dismiss me as a "tin foil hat type", but here goes.
I am sick of hearing about how we are in the "end times". Nothing seems to indicated Armageddon is around the corner, but I DO believe we are nearing the end of an age. The world is spinning out of control with evil and the indicators of (gasp) Catholic Prophecy point to a change coming.
Venerable Bartholomew Holzhauser spoke of Seven Ages of the Catholic Church and spoke of an age (the fifth age) in which shame, scandal and weakness almost overcome the Church--a fairly accurate description of our Church since the Reformation. This age will come to an end with the election of a Holy Pope who will restore the Church and Holy Monarch who will support him. What that means in modern terms, only God knows. Is anyone obliged to believe this? Of course not. But the previous four ages he spoke of were pretty accurate.
Our Lady of Fatima predicted that the Consecration of Russia would take place, albeit LATE and it would be followed by a period of peace. If we are having a period of peace, it would seem that our liturgical civil wars would be over and that would NOT be the end of the world.
The seers of Garabandal predicted a warning and a miracle after a Synod.
Marie Julie Jahenny predicted a horrible chastisement known as the Three Days of Darkness, in which only a remnant of believers will survive and the enemies of God will be destroyed. How could such a thing happen? A nuclear war? A supervolcanic eruption? A meteor strike? Some other divine act?
And Marie is not the only one. At last count, I have found at least 11 other "venerables", "blesseds", visionaries and saints who have also predicted the three days of darkness, including Padre Pio (who also, btw, said that the Third Secret of Fatima was apostasy overtaking the Church from the very top--and it's right there in front of us. And almost all of these visionaries include a warning that seems to be some sort of "illumination of conscience" in which we will see the state of our souls as God does.
Again, no one is obliged to believe any of this. But all signs point to a change coming, because what we're doing now--as secular citizens, as Catholics, as humanity--cannot last. We have authored our own destruction and only God can save us. I believe He loves us enough to do it.
Father why was the Novus Ordo mass needed back in 1969/1970? We can go back and forth all day, but what was wrong with the Mass of the Ages?
The Alta Venditta is well along on its journey to their Masonic Dream.
V, the liturgical movement of the early 1900's led very conservative and tradition Pope Pius XII to make some adjustments to the Holy Week liturgies and other liturgies of the Church and allowed some vernacular for nuptials and baptisms.
What Sacrosanctum Concilium asked and what Pope Paul VI gave us seem to be worlds apart and thus what Pope Benedict recommended, and bless His Holiness' heart, was a reform in continuity of the 1970 Missal.
I believe the 1965 Roman Missal with some minor changes could have fit what Vatican II actually desired. As I have stated before, most Catholics in 1965 and 66 loved that Missal and like the vernacular for the changing parts of the Mass, but loved the Latin Canon prayed in a low voice.
Things got out of control not only with those who designed the new Missal, but worse yet and truly the scandal, which what was done to that missal by so many bishops and priest in the 1970's to include what was done to our patrimony of Gregorian Chant and Polyphony as well as the Latin language of the Mass reduced to nothing in the majority of parishes now throughout the word. Anti-Vatican II to say the least.
"The entire notion that the TLM must be suppressed is built on the faulty premise that the faith has evolved and that "old way" of worship doesn't fit in with the "new way" we are supposed to think."
Nope. No one every suggested that, "...faith has evolved and that "old way" of worship doesn't fit in with the "new way" we are supposed to think." This is simply an untrue statement.
Regarding the "End Times." We have been in the End Times since the death and Incarnation, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Carl Olson writes: "In fact, the "last days" refers not only to the "end of time," but to the last two thousand years. Scripture teaches that the
Incarnation ushered in "the last days." According to Hebrews 1:1-2, "God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world."
And, ""The last days" or "the end times," properly understood, refers to the time of the New Covenant, the gathering together of God's people in the Church, which is "on earth,
the seed and the beginning of the kingdom" (CCC 567, 669; Lumen Gentium)."
Father K,
You are the last person who should be commenting on the Faith because:
1) you vote for a party that believes abortion is healthcare
2) children should be able to choose their own gender and gay marriage is normative
3) rioting and looting is “mostly peaceful protest
4) your political leaders become wealthy by peddling their influence (living in mansions on the seashore in violation of the Global Warming Religion)
Maybe you should check into a monastery to recover your soul
I see the false prophet needs to have the last word
When I am accused of being a "false prophet" because I present the Church's teaching in a comment on the Faith, then I know I am doing the right thing.
"Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
LOL - you present Church teachings that suit you and ignore the key ones through your voting record.
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