A rant in defense of the Novus Ordo

[Brennan_Doherty]

I have to disagree. The Catholic Encyclopedia states:

• newadvent.org/cathen/09306a.htm

I would also recommend matt1618.freeyellow.com/palm.html.

I agree with you to a degree, as regards some of the prayers, but in the broader sense my original point stands.

Peace and God bless

Well, I certainly would agree that there has been organic development over the centuries. Yet in general it has been gradual and more along the lines of additions as with the Gallican influencing the Roman as your quote states.

To give the Roman rite over to a committee which then simply starts stripping and/or altering most of the prayers is not organic development. And a certain type of antiquarianism, where changes are made to try to go back to some unknown rite from antiquity, has been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei paragraphs 62-64. God bless.

 

[JReducation]

We must reconsider what is known about St. Pius V and his Dominican heritage. When he so diligently worked on the missal, breviary and catechism he was not only thinking like a pope, but also like a Dominican. This is very clear in his biographies.

He was very much in love with his Dominican heritage and he saw an opportunity to preach and evangelize by pulling the liturgy together and the catechism. At thet time there were still many issues surrounding the statements of Trent.

This holy friar wanted to bring these issues to a close. His statement about the liturgy, breviary and catechism being the norm in perpetuity addresses a very specific audience which he mentions. He never mentions his successors.

That would have been in conflict with his Dominican spirituality which has always held fast to the authority of the popes and obedience to the Holy See.

We must look not only at what Pius wrote, but also how he lived his life during his papacy. He never stopped living as a friar. His life would suggest that he would have no problem with any pope who authorized a revision of what he had set down.

If we look at the popes who came during and after Vatican II and their lives of fidelity to the Church and Tradition, they have all had one thing in common. They have made a clear distinction between Sacred Tradition that was handed down by Christ which they have no power to change, such as an all male priesthood and Catholic tradition which has been handed down by popes and councils, which the pope as the keeper of the keys and the sole authority to bind and unbind does have the authority to change.

John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI have all been great defenders of the papcy. It would be contrary to what they have stood for to blow off a previous pope. If they allowed any changes of what previous popes wrote and said, not only in regard to the liturgy, but on many other issues, it’s because they believed that their predecessors would have been comfortable with those changes and that they have the right to make them.

Now the Pope wants to draw our attention to other matters which he considers of greater importance and we should focus on them.

JR

 

[patrick457]

“For Thine is the Kingdom, the power and the Glory…” is a prayer that is in the Didache from the first century. However the words “is the Kingdom” to the best of my knowledge were added by Martin Luther. He was the first to use this prayer** as part of the Our Father in his mass**. It was also added to the Our Father in the King James Bible. It was never used in the Liturgy of the Church but was used by the Protestants. That is where that idea comes from.

Not really. As formerly stated, the words also appear in the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom even before the Protestants:

Greek: Oti sou estin ē basilea, kai ē dynamis, kai ē doxa, tou Patros kai tou Yiou kai tou Agiou Pneumatos, nyn kai aei kai eis tous aiōnas ton aiōnon.

English: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory; to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages.

 

[patrick457]

It simply is not the case that the Roman Rite did not resemble the TLM until the Middle Ages. I don’t think the Roman Rite ever resembled the OF unless one goes back so far there are no liturgical books available and then speculates.

I actually started a thread detailing the Roman Rite during the time of Ordo Romanus I (7th-8th centuries) and am now on the way to continuing it: The Mass as it was in the City of Rome.

 

[JReducation]

Not really. The words also appear in the Divine Liturgies of St. Basil and St. John Chrysostom even before the Protestants:

These words have been around in the Eastern Church forever. The Western Church had dropped them

Luther recovered them and later so did Catholics.

They were not dropped because there was anything wrong with them.

They were dropped because they did not fit the flow of the Tridentine mass.

In fact, they come from the psalms. They are repeated in many different forms in the psalter.

JR

 

[patrick457]

These words have been around in the Eastern Church forever. The Western Church had dropped them.

I agree; either it was dropped at an early date (if the West also used it) which explains its absence in early texts, or as an alternative theory, the doxology was unique to the Eastern Churches; the West never had them at all.

 

[SanJudas]

Don’t you think that now that the Holy Father has established that the EF and the OF can co-exist as two forms of the same rite is enough?

Do we really need to keep up this defense (for lack of a better word) of the EF?

JR

God save all here.

Yes, JR, (may I call you “JR”? I feel as if I know you, having argued with you on previous threads), I agree that these same threads that constantly “defend” the Tridentine Mass, sometimes to the detriment of the Pauline, can be tiresome. I agree that the recent motus proprio should be enough to allay the fears of the traditionalist crowd and quiet the objections of the moderns.

However…We need to acknowledge that there is a liberal, modernist faction within our Church that truly and sincerely would love to purge all “vestiges” of tradition from It. They would be overjoyed to receive the Eucharist sitting at a round table, symbolizing equality of celebrant with faithful, from a priest in baggy shorts, a Mahatma Ghandi T-shirt, and one earring, as he (or she) recites the words of consecration in gender-neutral language. It would send them into paroxysms of joy to hear our Holy Father renounce age-old Church teachings on homosexuality, abortion, and extramarital sex. This faction is not a product of my imagination–you can absorb their words of wisdom at any time on many other forums right here at CAF. You can find them on Senator Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council. You could hear them amply a few weeks ago critiquing the Pope’s visit to the US. This faction is especially beguiling since its creed apes the general liberalizing tendencies from which our entire culture is currently under assault.

This, JR, is why some of us get our hackles up when certain posters begin their equally tiresome attacks on things like use of Latin, altar rails, boy-only servers at Mass, etc. We know that these attacks are often the opening salvo in a barrage that will later include objections to and denigrations of basic Church teachings on other matters. Obviously, looking at the beliefs and practices of many European and American Catholics today, we can see that this faction has had some success.

So, if our opponents are tiresome in their attempts to destroy Church teachings and integrity, we must occasionally be equally tiresome in our defense of them. Most of the issues we bring up on this forum would never have needed to come up before the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s. (The Western one, not Mao’s.)

My pastor, who is celebrating this week his 50th year in the priesthood, commented once that if someone would have told him in 1958 that one day he would have to preach against the legalization of gay marriage, he would have sent them to have their head examined.

 

[Lazerlike42]

Well, I certainly would agree that there has been organic development over the centuries. Yet in general it has been gradual and more along the lines of additions as with the Gallican influencing the Roman as your quote states.

To give the Roman rite over to a committee which then simply starts stripping and/or altering most of the prayers is not organic development. And a certain type of antiquarianism, where changes are made to try to go back to some unknown rite from antiquity, has been condemned by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei paragraphs 62-64. God bless.

Oh I certainly don’t deny that there has been development. I simply deny the claims made by many that the Pian Missal is almost entirely identical to the Mass of Gregory or Gelasius.

I would disagree with you to a degree regarding what you say about organic development and comittees. After all, I am sure that Pius V’s missal was developed by a comittee of some kind.

I also disagree that organic development precludes removing things, or at least I deny this, if it is not in fact an argument you are making.

My general thinking about organic development and the Mass of Paul VI has to do with the unique place that the 20th century holds in all of history. The Church and Her Liturgy have always developed in a way parallel to the culture and the world in general. The Church never compromised with culture, and in the best of times She actually drove culture. However, she has never rejected culture altogether - only what has been found in it that is contrary to the faith. This development was very gradual and slow. It would come in a change in practice here and another there, a council every one to two hundred years, and so on. However in the 50 years before Vatican II, the world changed more than it had in the 500, or perhaps even 1,000, before that. My belief is that Vatican II and the Liturgical reforms following Vatican II are in some way a manifestation of the Church adjusting to the culture - not compromising (and perhaps “adjusting” is the wrong word; I simply mean to refer to what She has done relative to the culture and world over the centuries) - that had changed so rapidly. She had to find a way to reach a people that had undergone what was in past times centuries upon centuries’ worth of change.

I think that Vatican II and the Pauline Liturgy are a product of this. I also think it was guided by the Holy Spirit. Whether Vatican II had happened or not, we would still have the “microwave culture” that we have today, and I think that the vast, vast majority of people - all but the most devout of us - would have had a tremendous difficulty remaining attentive to the EF. In fact, this was beginning to happen as early as the 1940s and 50s. People simply were not paying attention to the Mass as they ought. I think that the Pauline Liturgy really and truly helped many to do so. Unfortunately, the Liturgy was so often abused and not celebrated as intended, but as this changes, we are more and more seeing the benefits of it.

I for one would love to say that it is the Mass, and that it ought not matter if people pay attention to it for that is their own fault. If they will not pay attention to it, we oughtn’t change it to encourage them to. This is almost always my line of thinking, and to a degree I believe it applies here as well. However, I also recognize that our God is a God who has is defined by removing the obstacles that we ourselves put in our own paths. He went to the degree of becoming incarnate to do this. I really do see the Second Vatican Council and the Pauline Liturgy as an extension of the Incarnation inspired by the Holy Spirit that, just as Christ became man to reach His people, so did Christ deign to come to His people in the 20th century in a way in which more of us could be reached even through the walls we ourselves have erected.

Perhaps now that He has done so, and many of us have begun to return to Him, He has restored the EF of the Mass for those who, renewed in their faith, are ready to devote themselves to Him in such a way so as to attend the EF with the focus and devotion that the dignity of the Holy Mass demands.

Peace and God bless,

Shane

 

[Jeanette_L]

God save all here.

We need to acknowledge that there is a liberal, modernist faction within our Church that truly and sincerely would love to purge all “vestiges” of tradition from It. They would be overjoyed to receive the Eucharist sitting at a round table, symbolizing equality of celebrant with faithful, from a priest in baggy shorts, a Mahatma Ghandi T-shirt, and one earring, as he (or she) recites the words of consecration in gender-neutral language. It would send them into paroxysms of joy to hear our Holy Father renounce age-old Church teachings on homosexuality, abortion, and extramarital sex. This faction is not a product of my imagination–you can absorb their words of wisdom at any time on many other forums right here at CAF. You can find them on Senator Obama’s Catholic National Advisory Council. You could hear them amply a few weeks ago critiquing the Pope’s visit to the US. This faction is especially beguiling since its creed apes the general liberalizing tendencies from which our entire culture is currently under assault.

This, JR, is why some of us get our hackles up when certain posters begin their equally tiresome attacks on things like use of Latin, altar rails, boy-only servers at Mass, etc. We know that these attacks are often the opening salvo in a barrage that will later include objections to and denigrations of basic Church teachings on other matters. Obviously, looking at the beliefs and practices of many European and American Catholics today, we can see that this faction has had some success.

So, if our opponents are tiresome in their attempts to destroy Church teachings and integrity, we must occasionally be equally tiresome in our defense of them. Most of the issues we bring up on this forum would never have needed to come up before the Cultural Revolution of the 1960’s. (The Western one, not Mao’s.)

Doesn’t this line of thinking lead to the conclusion that you don’t really have faith that the Church is indeed protected by the Holy Spirit from error? That she is so weak as to be influenced to her demise by all these voices calling to her. And yet she has never succumbed to them in all her history.

Sure, there may be factions here and there that influence people momentarily in this quarter or that. But the Church will never give in to these extremes on either side, it’s not in her nature, ontologically, to err in this way. She is the Mystical Body of Christ. She will never err in matters of faith and morals. And if we look to her and listen only to her, and not every voice that calls or beckons to us from either side, we shall never be led astray.

If we don’t believe this, truly, we are to be pitied for even belonging to her at all.

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

Oh I certainly don’t deny that there has been development. I simply deny the claims made by many that the Pian Missal is almost entirely identical to the Mass of Gregory or Gelasius.

I would disagree with you to a degree regarding what you say about organic development and comittees. After all, I am sure that Pius V’s missal was developed by a comittee of some kind.

I also disagree that organic development precludes removing things, or at least I deny this, if it is not in fact an argument you are making.

My general thinking about organic development and the Mass of Paul VI has to do with the unique place that the 20th century holds in all of history. The Church and Her Liturgy have always developed in a way parallel to the culture and the world in general. The Church never compromised with culture, and in the best of times She actually drove culture. However, she has never rejected culture altogether - only what has been found in it that is contrary to the faith. This development was very gradual and slow. It would come in a change in practice here and another there, a council every one to two hundred years, and so on. However in the 50 years before Vatican II, the world changed more than it had in the 500, or perhaps even 1,000, before that. My belief is that Vatican II and the Liturgical reforms following Vatican II are in some way a manifestation of the Church adjusting to the culture - not compromising (and perhaps “adjusting” is the wrong word; I simply mean to refer to what She has done relative to the culture and world over the centuries) - that had changed so rapidly. She had to find a way to reach a people that had undergone what was in past times centuries upon centuries’ worth of change.

I think that Vatican II and the Pauline Liturgy are a product of this. I also think it was guided by the Holy Spirit. Whether Vatican II had happened or not, we would still have the “microwave culture” that we have today, and I think that the vast, vast majority of people - all but the most devout of us - would have had a tremendous difficulty remaining attentive to the EF. In fact, this was beginning to happen as early as the 1940s and 50s. People simply were not paying attention to the Mass as they ought. I think that the Pauline Liturgy really and truly helped many to do so. Unfortunately, the Liturgy was so often abused and not celebrated as intended, but as this changes, we are more and more seeing the benefits of it.

I for one would love to say that it is the Mass, and that it ought not matter if people pay attention to it for that is their own fault. If they will not pay attention to it, we oughtn’t change it to encourage them to. This is almost always my line of thinking, and to a degree I believe it applies here as well. However, I also recognize that our God is a God who has is defined by removing the obstacles that we ourselves put in our own paths. He went to the degree of becoming incarnate to do this. I really do see the Second Vatican Council and the Pauline Liturgy as an extension of the Incarnation inspired by the Holy Spirit that, just as Christ became man to reach His people, so did Christ deign to come to His people in the 20th century in a way in which more of us could be reached even through the walls we ourselves have erected.

Perhaps now that He has done so, and many of us have begun to return to Him, He has restored the EF of the Mass for those who, renewed in their faith, are ready to devote themselves to Him in such a way so as to attend the EF with the focus and devotion that the dignity of the Holy Mass demands.

Peace and God bless,

Shane

I agree with your assessment that the liturgy developed slowly and gradually over the centuries. Pius V really only codified the liturgy, he didn’t develop an entirely new rite via committee as happened after Vatican II.

I would recommend reading my signature line link, The Case for the Latin Mass by von Hildebrand.

I do believe that the NO is valid. However, there is absolutely no guarantee that Archbishop Bugnini’s committee was being guided by the Holy Spirit when they were reworking the liturgy, or that Pope Paul VI was necessarily wise in his decision to promulgate it. It was a prudential decision. It’s ironic if, supposedly, fewer people were paying attention to the Mass in the 40’s and 50’s and the New Mass was designed to help people pay attention that far fewer people attend Mass nowadays than in the 40’s and 50’s. And I don’t know of any evidence that those in the 40’s and 50’s were paying any more or less attention than in the past.
I do agree that Pope Paul VI wanted to have the Mass in more of a “street” language which he thought modern people liked. I think this was a colossal error.

I also have to wonder about the wisdom of attempting to adapt the Mass to a culture as completely superficial as ours. As von Hildebrand stated succinctly in the article I mentioned:

“Do we better meet Christ by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our workaday world?”

latin-mass-society.org/dietrich.htm

 

[Auntie_M]

JR, I have not heard this as much as the slanders against Pius XII during the Halocaust and afterwards.

Also you didn’t mention anything about the alleged Masonic influence surrounding the high offices in the Vatican during the Vatican II period. I’ve heard more than one Trad calling that bothersome.

As for the Traditionlist and the “alledged Masonic” influence. Do they not realize that Cardinal Achille Lienart, was one of the leading LIBERAL voices at Vatican II. This being the SAME Cardinal Lienart who ordained Lefebure.

Cardinal Lienart is listed on the Vatican’s list as being a masonic member.

 

[ethelzguy]

“Do we better meet Christ by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our workaday world?”

Perhaps a call for us happy, content Catholics to pray for those who find so much anger and frustration in our Faith

 

[Auntie_M]

To my dear Brennan Doherty

You are consistly adding your SSPX website referral on “The Case for the Latin Mass” by Von Hildebrand. If the SSPX approved writings is all you read, I can understand why you are so defiantly against the NO.

Please expand your readings, both FOR and against. You may learn something. The Latin masses are “pretty” and maybe to some “more religious”. but the truth is …

Jesus did not have all this, nor did the early church fathers have all this “prettiness”, but they (somehow ) managed to convert a heck of alot of people and those same people helped to “keep” this faith alive…

It isn’t the “Outer covering”. If you go with the expectation of being in one with God, you will be… But if you go to mass with the intention of finding fault, then you will do that also.

As I heard one SSPX priest say, and I quote… “We have the Vatican on the run, that is what we want, isn’t it? We will have our Latin Mass!” end quote.

Does this sound like a priest that is carrying on the work of Jesus or maybe even trying to tear it down???Either way, this kind of priest is a detriment to both rites…

 

[Jeanette_L]

To my dear Brennan Doherty

You are consistly adding your SSPX website referral on “The Case for the Latin Mass” by Von Hildebrand. If the SSPX approved writings is all you read, I can understand why you are so defiantly against the NO.

Please expand your readings, both FOR and against. You may learn something. The Latin masses are “pretty” and maybe to some “more religious”. but the truth is …

Jesus did not have all this, nor did the early church fathers have all this “prettiness”, but they (somehow ) managed to convert a heck of alot of people and those same people helped to “keep” this faith alive…

It isn’t the “Outer covering”. If you go with the expectation of being in one with God, you will be… But if you go to mass with the intention of finding fault, then you will do that also.

As I heard one SSPX priest say, and I quote… “We have the Vatican on the run, that is what we want, isn’t it? We will have our Latin Mass!” end quote.

Does this sound like a priest that is carrying on the work of Jesus or maybe even trying to tear it down???Either way, this kind of priest is a detriment to both rites…

Great post Auntie M.

Beautifully and simply stated. Whether it is easily absorbed is only known to God.

 

[Our_Refuge]

…
Now I have bolded the particular prayers which I believe could be understood problematically. The non-bolded ones would fit perfectly into a build-up. They sound like the priest is telling God all the reasons he is offering the Sacrifice, and asking God to accept it, and then at the end of these prayers, it is offered.

**But these Offertory prayers are really problematic for me. **
Peace and God bless!

Do you see the removal of the words “Mystery of Faith” from the words of Consecration as “problematic”? These words were given to the Apostles by Christ. They refer to the changing of bread an wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in the New Mass they have taken on a new meaning, a protestant meaning, that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That certainly is no mystery of faith. Is that ‘problematic’?

 

[JReducation]

God save all here.

Yes, JR, (may I call you “JR”? I feel as if I know you, having argued with you on previous threads), I agree that these same threads that constantly “defend” the Tridentine Mass, sometimes to the detriment of the Pauline, can be tiresome. I agree that the recent motus proprio should be enough to allay the fears of the traditionalist crowd and quiet the objections of the moderns.

Of course you may call me JR, all of my friends do. I cut your post, because I wouldn’t have enough space to fit my replay, no disrespect intended. CAF doesn’t leave you much space. That may be a good thing.

I’ve read what you wrote and I understand your concerns. Maybe the reason that we’re not on the same page is that I have yet to arrive at the level of holiness where you may be, where you can be vigilant of all these things and preserve your inner peace and contemplative spirit.

I’m not there. I’m still working on the simple stuff.

1. Acquiring the spirit of stability of St. Benedict
2. The love of silence of St. Bernard of Clairvaux
3. Embracing the cross as our Holy Father St. Francis
4. Struggling to reach contemplative prayer according to the model of St. Teresa
5. Practicing charity with the joy and generosity of St. Vincent de Paul
6. Acquiring a love for the Eucharist as St. Pascal Baylon
7. Loving the Church with her strengths and weaknesses as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton
8. Being a child of the Church as St. Louise de Marillac
9. Embracing celibacy and purity as St. Maximilian Kolbe
10. Preaching without condemning as St. Dominic
11. Understanding the mysteries of faith through the heart as St. Bonaventure
12. Taking care of the poor to whom I minister as Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
13. Showing mercy toward all people as St. Faustina
14. Loving and caring for the infidels as Bl. Damien de Veuster
15. Developing a deeper understanding of the Church as John Paul II

As you can see, I have a long way to go and many things on my plate. Doing battle with the demons who assault the Church is not a possibility for many of us who have not achieved a certain level of virtue.

However, I do believe that through my struggle to live the virtuous life, I will be able to be an Instrument of Peace and offer my own journey up to God for the Church. Our holy father Francis said that we should preach always, when absolutely necessary, use words. St. Benedict said “Don’t try to be holy. Just focus on doing what is virtuous. Archbishop Sheen once said that we can work bring people together on their knees, even if we can’t bring them to the Church.

The only thing that I can offer is my life of prayer, my ministry to the poor, my love and care for my autistic son, my daily work, the Eucharist that I receive daily, the Liturgy of the Hours, my rosary, my silent prayer of each day.

I can only speak for me. At this point in my life, this is where I’m at. I don’t have the energy or the resources to fight off heresies while my own spiritual life is under construction.

JR

 

[Lazerlike42]

Do you see the removal of the words “Mystery of Faith” from the words of Consecration as “problematic”? These words were given to the Apostles by Christ. They refer to the changing of bread an wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, yet in the New Mass they have taken on a new meaning, a protestant meaning, that Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. That certainly is no mystery of faith. Is that ‘problematic’?

Fr. Cipriano Vagaggini, a very orthodox priest, critiqued the Tridentine Mass before the Pauline Missal was promulgated. In it, he pointed out things which he thought were in need of reform. This was one of them. I will quote from Matt1618’s very powerful article on the Canon of the Pian rite of Mass. A quotation of Fr. Vagaggini’s words begin the quotation will provide now:

1. Deficiencies in the Institution narrative

…

b) The insertion of the phrase mysterium fidei in the midst of the words said over the chalice. This has no parallel in any other liturgy, and within the Roman rite iteself has its origin in uncertain and its meaning debatable. However, it is obvious that in its present form at least the insertion mysterium fidei serves to break up and interrupt the words of institution. This phrase is not biblical, nor is it clear. [6]

S.J. Joseph J. Jungmann, the great Historian and Liturgical Scholar, more than 50 years ago, notes in his book, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development , vol. 2, of its unclearness:

Regarding the meaning of the words ‘mysterium fidei’, there is absolutely no agreement. A distant parallel is to be found in the ‘Apostolic Constitution,’ where our Lord is made to say at the consecration of the bread: “This is the mystery of the New Testament, take of it, eat, it is My Body. Just as here the mysterium is referred to the bread in the form of a predicate, so in the canon of our Mass it is referred to the chalice in the form of an apposition. … Mysterium Fidei is an independent expansion, superadded to the whole self-sufficient complex that precedes.

What is meant by the words mysterium fidei? Christian antiquity would not have referred them so much to the obscurity of what is here hidden from the senses, but accessible (in part) only to (subjective) faith. Rather it would have taken them as a reference to the grace-laden sacramentum in which the entire objective faith, the whole divine order of salvation is comprised… The chalice of the New Testament is the life-giving symbol of truth, the sanctuary of our belief. How or when or why this insertion was made, or what external event occasioned it, cannot readily be ascertained. [7]
The Tridentine Mass puts the ‘Mystery of Faith’ into the very words of Our Lord!!! However, a look at all 4 renditions of the biblical accounts (Matthew, Mark, Luke and Paul in 1 Corinthians 11) does not have Jesus saying it. The early Liturgies of the Church give no account of this being a part of the Consecration. How in the world some people can be so upset about a translation (‘for all’ supposedly being horrid, ‘you are adding words that Jesus did not say’ instead of ‘for many’), but decry the Church for removing something that Jesus never said, I think makes no sense at all. In fact it is not even removed from the canons, and all four canons have the mysterium fidei in them, but appropriately, after the consecration. And the mystery of faith is the whole faith, which is ‘Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again’, or a specific biblical quotation ‘When we eat this bread and drink this …’ from Paul in 1 Cor. 11:26, just as Paul notes after the consecration.

Peace and God bless

 

[Auntie_M]

To JeanetteL

Thank you, you’re very kind.

To OurRefuge: I never knew that “Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again” was Protestant???
I was a Protestant for most of my 58 years. I only converted 6 years ago. I NEVER heard that phrase EVER…I guess I was sleeping during the times that was being said, huh?

And last but certainly not least…JR
I love reading your post, you have such insight. That previous one was absolutely the best!!!
I too, would love to be that religious… (As you can see from my post to Our Refuge, I DO have a sarcastic habit, please pray that I change that… )

 

[JReducation]

To JeanetteL

Thank you, you’re very kind.

To OurRefuge: I never knew that “Christ has died, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again” was Protestant???
I was a Protestant for most of my 58 years. I only converted 6 years ago. I NEVER heard that phrase EVER…I guess I was sleeping during the times that was being said, huh?

And last but certainly not least…JR
I love reading your post, you have such insight. That previous one was absolutely the best!!!
I too, would love to be that religious… (As you can see from my post to Our Refuge, I DO have a sarcastic habit, please pray that I change that… )

Auntie I promise that I will pray for you and ask that you pray for me.

I’m not so sure that I’m THAT religious. I know that my plate is full and my spiritual life is under construction. I don’t have much time left. My wife died many years ago and left me alone to raise two children. My youngest has autism. He is very high functioning and really needs little assistance now, unlike when his mother died. He was four. Now he’s 19.

That being said, after raising my children by myself, it’s time to work on preparing my soul to meet my Beloved, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and to give an accounting of what I have done and what I have failed to do.

Many years ago I joined the Franciscan family as a Lay Missionary of Charity. I have tried my best to live the vows and the rule of St. Francis in accordance with the Church and within the confines of being a single parent. Sometimes religious life, ministry and parenting are tough to juggle. So I submit to as many prayers as you can send my way and I humbly thank you.

JR

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

To my dear Brennan Doherty

You are consistly adding your SSPX website referral on “The Case for the Latin Mass” by Von Hildebrand. If the SSPX approved writings is all you read, I can understand why you are so defiantly against the NO.

Please expand your readings, both FOR and against. You may learn something. The Latin masses are “pretty” and maybe to some “more religious”. but the truth is …

Jesus did not have all this, nor did the early church fathers have all this “prettiness”, but they (somehow ) managed to convert a heck of alot of people and those same people helped to “keep” this faith alive…

It isn’t the “Outer covering”. If you go with the expectation of being in one with God, you will be… But if you go to mass with the intention of finding fault, then you will do that also.

As I heard one SSPX priest say, and I quote… “We have the Vatican on the run, that is what we want, isn’t it? We will have our Latin Mass!” end quote.

Does this sound like a priest that is carrying on the work of Jesus or maybe even trying to tear it down???Either way, this kind of priest is a detriment to both rites…

I don’t know where you got the idea that the von Hildebrand link is from an SSPX website. It’s not. It’s from the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales. Von Hildebrand of course was not a member of the SSPX. Pope Pius XII called him a “20th Century Doctor of the Church.”

Hence I very rarely read any of the SSPX writings on anything. The writers on liturgy I refer people to are not members of the SSPX.

I don’t know how you have discerned my reading list, either. I have read writings for the NO.

Nor do I know how you know what the liturgy was like in time of the early Church, especially since we don’t have any liturgical books from then.

And yes, of course the TLM has helped enabled countless conversions over the centuries. But then, beauty does attract.

I actually don’t go to Mass with the intention of finding fault (have you read the von Hildebrand article, by the way?) I attend the NO just about all the time since there is no TLM readily available in my area.

God bless.