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Thursday, May 25, 2023

PEDANTIC AND DIDACTIC OR JUST BORING—SUCH IS THE CASE WITH THE MODERN MASS

 I watched the Introductory Rite of the Mass that Cardinal Zuppi celebrated for Italian bishops at St.Peter’s Basilica. BORING!

Instead of using the words in the Roman Missal to introduce the Penitential Act, the good Cardinal decided to become didactic as most priests and bishops do, and give a mini-homily and teaching. It was delivered in a boring style setting the tone for the Modern Mass which is more often than not, lacking in transcendence, beauty and mysticism. 

Am I being pedantic in pointing this out?

And of course the good Cardinal delivers his prayers while surveying the congregation before him indicating that his style of prayer is didactic too in that he is speaking to the congregation in prayer to make sure they are watching him pray and teach them what the prayer is suppose to teach those who are supposedly listening. Am I being pedantic in pointing this out.

And then we have a bishop in Australia with concelebrants wearing a necklace of snickers bars, not my favorite candy, I prefer mounds or joys or baby Ruth’s to those, but I am sure there was a didactic message being proclaimed by the erudite bishop. Am I being pedantic in pointing this out? 

At the risk of being both didactic and pedantic simultaneously, these sorts of didactic things don’t happen in the modern celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. What is it about the Modern Vernacular Mass that encourages the kind of ugly didaticness that I highlight above in the most pedantic way possible?

11 comments:

gsk said...

A few weeks ago, my ICKSP priest made a passing remark about Cardinal Roche in his homily (reasonably apt, a bit snarky). It roiled me for weeks, one for being out of character, but primarily for being out of place in Holy Mass. We all knew what he meant, but it wasn’t the place. Those hours (!) on a Sunday morning are for the glory of God, not to make personal digs, even though the man had been sorely tried.

TJM said...

What a maroon, a sad, pathetic little man.

Meanwhile Father McDonald, this will ruin Santita's and The Roche's day:

"Notre-Dame de Chrétienté, the association that organizes a large pilgrimage to Chartres every year at Pentecost, has recorded a participation rate in 2023 that has never been equaled in the past. No less than 16,000 pilgrims are preparing to travel from Paris to Chartres on May 27, 28 and 29.

Neither the motu proprio Traditionis custodes, nor even the rescript published on February 21, 2023 restricting the use of the Tridentine rite to which Notre-Dame de Chrétienté is attached, are holding back the faithful. On the contrary, pilgrims walking from Notre-Dame de Paris to Notre-Dame de Chartes at Pentecost 2023 have never been so numerous."

The average age of the participants is 20.5 years old

This is the future. The goofy snickers bishop in the picture will sooon be just a bad memory

rcg said...

Maybe he can juggle baseballs at the Dodgers game during the 7th inning stretch.

rcg said...

Forgot to add that I LOVE Snickers bars. Experienced the Fried Mars and fried Snickers bar in Aberdeen. That Aussie Bishop may be preparing for the boiling oil his mockery of Holy Mass will earn him.

Paul said...

What I have never understand, for almost 50 years, with such pathetically silly priests is :

Do they have NO idea that the vast majority of Catholic teenagers and young people are never impressed by such pathetic nonsense and mostly just laugh at such nonsense.
Are they completely unaware that that is the truth, the reality?!

Paul said...

RCG,

At 1.28pm - you are probably very right!

And very cleverly put!!

TJM said...

gsk,

Considering what The Roche has done (evil and petty) you should cut your priest some slack

Paul said...

I am pretty sure this clown is a Kiwi, from Auckland, New Zealand; not Australia.

Eccles on his blog is reporting that Uncle Arthur, Cardinal Roach, is delighted with these new vestments and has ordered a dozen Snickers necklaces!

ByzRus said...

Regarding the Penitential Act, many choose to do something not asked of them "make it more meaningful" per their interpretation of the word.

Regarding Bishop Snicker-Daddy, he looks like a goof and is probably a goof. Again, what real man would don a necklace of one of my favorite chocolate bars hopefully not to then give them out to "lucky" recipients with body heat meltage? Someone should have offered him an amice or one of those lazy velcro-tab albs or the amice dickie option. Also, western priests do not wear pectoral crosses over top of chasubles. If our little boy here can't vest properly and wears his food, the likelihood of an irritatingly pedestrian liturgy skyrockets IMHO.

The aforementioned just turns people off. The awkward and boring ad-libbing, Bishop Snicker-Daddy's antics, Clown Masses, other antics spotlighted here and elsewhere on the www, no amount of bringing the secular to the spiritual, as suggested by Fr. MJK in another posting won't likely amount to a hill of beans in terms of the conversions effected by the apostles themselves. If given the choice, I'd prefer what they were selling.

Fr. Michael J. Kavanaugh said...

Byz - Really? You think my post elsewhere is somehow an endorsement of wearing a Snickers necklace? Or a suggestion that THIS is what I mean when I talk about the Sacred/Secular interface? Really?

To ease your concerns, I think the Snickers necklace is silly. Further, it has nothing to do with the Sacred/Secular interface.

ByzRus said...

Fr. MJK,

That is not what I'm suggesting at all.

My point: One can try to engage people as you suggested in your response to another post. However, that type of engagement will not bear fruit if it has to compete with antics like that of Bishop Snickers.