All That We Leave Behind

[PrairieMom]

What beautiful and touching replies on this thread.

May I make a suggestion to you young people? Stay in your parishes. Don’t leave for a “more reverent” Mass elsewhere like BrotherHRolf and many of us did. Stay in your parishes and FIGHT for your Catholic right to a reverent Mass. Don’t let abuses push you away. Don’t abandon Our Lord! He’s entitled to at least a few friends amid so many enemies. Console Him.

We should have put up more of a fight back in the sixties and seventies. But we really had not much of an idea about what was going on, nor were we well organized. And remember, no internet or EWTN back then!

Thank you for your kind words of encouragement and advice. It is tempting to flee when things are not as they should be. I have been very blessed that I came to this parish at the right time in my life: five or six years ago, I could not imagine myself in the place where I am now. When we moved to this community four years ago, I loathed the fact that it was such a conservative and traditional parish. How times have changed! I almost cried yesterday when I had to miss “my turn” to go to TLM (it’s offered generally once a month, my husband and I alternate who goes as it’s at a crummy time for our kids that overlaps with supper).

Can someone recommend some good reading on the traditional Catholism?

Thanks again everyone!

 

[ljubim]

What beautiful and touching replies on this thread.

May I make a suggestion to you young people? Stay in your parishes. Don’t leave for a “more reverent” Mass elsewhere like BrotherHRolf and many of us did. Stay in your parishes and FIGHT for your Catholic right to a reverent Mass. Don’t let abuses push you away. Don’t abandon Our Lord! He’s entitled to at least a few friends amid so many enemies. Console Him.

We should have put up more of a fight back in the sixties and seventies. But we really had not much of an idea about what was going on, nor were we well organized. And remember, no internet or EWTN back then!

You don’t know how difficult it is for me to do that. Of course I remain in my home parish, but sometimes we need a break. About a month ago, I looked up the closest Latin mass, which will run be about twenty dollars in gas money. So I think I will go once a month and remain in my current parish the rest of the time, mainly because of the price.

Believe me, if God had called me back to Him sooner I’d have fought for a Latin mass locally, but alas I’m leaving for college this summer! So I, being the only one who’d want one, cannot rock the boat and then instantly head out of town.

I’ve thought very hard about the same things you are saying, that perhaps I should seek out the more liberal parishes in the future and try to change them. But the problem is that with such a strong devotion to Our Lord in the Eucharist, I can only stand it for so long before I lose my mind. I understand the penance idea, but Mass is not supposed to be that way, it is supposed to be the greatest sign of God’s Divine Love for us. NOT something you run to the bathroom afterwards crying. Because to console Our Lord is such a difficult burden. Let me tell you, I have only been to one Latin Mass in my life, and it was the only Mass I’ve been in tears of joy over, and not the other way around. And God willing, this Sunday I will go to my second, alone since my mom “didn’t like” the one we went to for its “pomp,” even though it brought back happy memories from her early childhood.

In my particular circumstance, in college I will attend the Latin Mass on Sundays, not on weekdays because it is not offered at that time. But I will go to the closer church for daily mass, and I can only pray that the priest doesn’t hate tradition, but rather that it’s a good orthodox church.

But of course the moment I have children, they will know nothing but traditional Catholicism. No experiments. No modern innovations. Their Catholic life will be the same as that of my great-grandparents and all before them. I want to give them what I never had from the very beginning!

 

[brotherhrolf]

Children are indeed a valid consideration and one that entered into my mind when I decided to join the cathedral parish way back when. I wanted my kids to at least grow up with some of what their mother and I knew. Staying in that other parish years ago would have been an exercise in futility. In fact, the music director of that parish - a well-known classically trained musician (and his wife) joined the cathedral parish and choir a few years after me and sang with us for years until he passed away.

We cannot “fight” to restore all that we have lost in the last 45 years. As Father Z says, we must be patient - one brick at a time. I was watching a travel show on Europe tonight and they showed the cathedral in Milan, Italy. That cathedral actually had votive candles. My cathedral has none. Something else that has gone - the ability to light candles for the repose of the soul of…or for other prayer intentions.

Does anyone remember the Christophers’ TV program way back when? The opening was “It is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness”. One step at a time.

 

[thealtonroute]

Here’s one traditional Catholic church I’m fighting for:

mywebtimes.com/archives/ottawa/display.php?id=396843

Words can’t describe how disappointed and angry I am with what the local pastor and diocese are doing to our beloved churches. Absolutely appalling.

 

[Mattapoisett64]

Deleted the following feast days from the New Liturgical calendar:

• Saint Christopher
• Saint Valentine
• Saint Barbara

Suppressed minor (Cleric, Acolyte, Porter, Lector, Exorcist, Sub-deacon) orders in seminaries and created the lay order of permanent deacon.

Suppressed certain vestments in the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass (Maniple, Amice, Cincture).

Most priests discontinued the custom of wearing the biretta and the cassock.

Priests discontinued the promotion of certain sacramentals like the scapulars and the Chord of St. Joseph and the Chord of St. Philomena. Previously, it was customary to enroll children and adults in the brown scapular at First Communion.

Certain traditions like the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home fell into disuse.

Deacons - whether transitional or permanent - are clergy. Their ordination is canonically identical. Permanent deacons - whether married or single - are clergy, not “lay.” And the permanent diaconate was revived, not “created.” There were deacons before there were priests. The presbyterate was formed after there were bishops and deacons.

 

[giuseppeTO]

Deacons - whether transitional or permanent - are clergy. Their ordination is canonically identical. Permanent deacons - whether married or single - are clergy, not “lay.” And the permanent diaconate was revived, not “created.” There were deacons before there were priests. The presbyterate was formed after there were bishops and deacons.

You are absolutely correct … I should have said reinstituted the use of permanent deacons from the laity. I believe that when permanent deacons were previously common in the church, they were not taken from the married laity but were, rather, the place where a seminarian stopped his progress to the priesthood by his rector.

 

[littlequestion]

The best thing to do to familiarize yourself with the old Liturgy is to get hold of a 1962 Latin-English missal (new ones are $25 for a pocket edition: neumannpress.com ) and that can be used at the TLM as well as give you a weekly Catholic set of readings whether or not you attend a traditional Mass. Then if you seek out older missals in antique shops or online you will have a better chance to understand them, too, because the missal also explains what the priest is doing at each step and what the laity are supposed to do in response.

I am “para-VII”, having been in third grade at that time in a Franco-American parish pastored by a stubborn old cure who would not go quietly into that not-so-good night! And in parochial school the good French nuns told us all the stories of how the Nazis destroyed religion along with the Communists during WWII, referring us to our relatives and neighbors who survived it, drawing all the paralells we children needed to see without actually challenging the Pope LOL God bless them,every one!

I left the shell of the Church that was there after our dear Father’s retirement and returned only after attending my parents’ funeral which, because of a family friend who is a traditionalist, was as close as we could make it, and after a 40 year absence, I was overwhelmed with emotion to see that the old church had not been destroyed, but was fully intact with all of the art. (My family scattered after the destruction of the parishes in the 70’s when the fires were burning the ethnic neighborhoods and we knew it was more than just VII going on, but we return for funerals because our family are all buried in the parish cemetery) I decided to return to my Catholic roots and when I got home and found a new parish, it had a good traditional minority and within a few years I found another parish with a Latin Mass, where I now go.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Littlequestion:

May I ask you a question? Are you a Cajun?

 

[thomas_jd]

I have seen many changes transpire since I served at Holy Mass pre Novus Ordus. While change is slow , it appears that we are heading back in the right direction. I personally have left very little behind!!
Tomorrow morning I will serve Mass knelling on the altar steps, with a holy priest facing the altar,( high altar) back to the congregation during the authorized times.
I will serve at Benediction, at the proper time , I will pray The Litany for the Priests hourly followed by the Holy Rosary, again hourly. I will Adore OUR LORD present on the altar in a Monstrance, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. if I choose to stay.
Friday nite I have the opportunity to attend one of three monthly all nite vigils for Reparition, including Benediction and a Eucharistic Procession is included.I can attend 3/4 holy hours this month all within a hours drive. I am fortunate to live in a big city with many churches and priests.
All this is the results of a small group of the Laity’s efforts.DO NOT WAIT FOR OTHERS TO GO BACK TO THE BASICS. I post this not to pat myself on the back for doing what we are called to do by the Church. I am so fortunate to be able to these things and I know that one person can bring about great changes. What can two, three, four etc. enact?
We have so many devout priest than can and will help us if they are asked.It is far ,far from easy but the rewards are truly AWESOME.

 

[littlequestion]

Littlequestion:

May I ask you a question? Are you a Cajun?

Sorry it took so long to get back to you. I am New England French, which is closely related to Cajun, a little more Quebecois mixed in. The accents, in French, are more similar than our accents in English LOL

thomasjd, you are so right! I am very grateful to the people like you who revived the Latin Mass in our parish.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I saw French and Texas… and could only assume that you were Acadian - or at least one of the southern branch of Frenchmen down here. I am both Acadian and French. Part of my French family came here in 1768 in the expulsion from Canada and part of my French family came after the Napoleonic Wars.

 

[littlequestion]

I saw French and Texas… and could only assume that you were Acadian - or at least one of the southern branch of Frenchmen down here. I am both Acadian and French. Part of my French family came here in 1768 in the expulsion from Canada and part of my French family came after the Napoleonic Wars.

My ancestry is among the French coureurs-des-bois of the late 1600’s in what was then “New France” but is now Quebec, New Brunswick, and Maine, and my Memay brought her family down from northern New Hampshire to the textile mills. My grandfather was a steeplejack and worked on the steeple of our church, L’Eglise du Sacre-Coeur, and also helped build the school that was established in 1913, and which had several members of our family name in it until the very end when the Novus Ordo turned it into a prep school. My brother was the last to go through under the old system where anyone who was a member of the French parish could enroll and they still had the days divided in half between French and English. We learned religion, art and music in French and history, math, and science in English, somehow very appropriate! LOL

 

[brotherhrolf]

Cool. You were so close to Louisiana that I had to ask. There is a large French presence here as you might imagine.

 

[Onegin]

I am also a post-V2 baby who wonders now what might have been lost. As my understanding of the Eucharist has exploded since I returned to the Church a few years ago, I wonder if we lost an appreciation of the sacrament, of Our Lord’s presence has been lost. The parish to which I currently belong (where my son goes to school) has an adoration chapel, and the pastor demonstrates adoration and teaches his parishoners during his homilies. The parish at which I play the piano is more reverent in their music, but the attitudes toward the Eucharist seem far more lax.

But I can’t comment on whether or not everyone and every parish was “so much better” before V2. My parents were born in 1933, and married in 1958, but they both left the Church for decades after V2. My dad once told me he hated the changes made by V2, but clearly, even being taught and raised in those times did not impress upon him the importance of obedience to the magisterium or the importance of at least weekly mass attendance.

So I don’t have an answer to the OP’s question, but I do think what’s more important is not what we lost, but committing ourselves to living our faith today. Each of us must bring – in abundance – our time, talent, and treasure to our parishes, particularly the treasure of our faith and our love of Christ’s Church. If half the people I hear singing beautifully at mass would join the music ministry even a few times a year, we’d have a full choir singing each and every Sunday! (I’m rather affected by the quality, or lack thereof, of the music at mass )

Gertie

Thanks for your post! I was also born post-Vatican II but my sister grew up right in the midst of it. She was a very devout Catholic with a particular devotion to the Rosary but after Vatican II, the local priests started telling her she was “wasting her time” with all the prayers and ridiculing her for being “old-fashioned.” Over the years it took it’s toll and she left the Church. She is a nominal Baptist today, and I fear that she will not reconsider rejoining the Church until the vestiges of Vatican II are gone.

My parents, on the other hand, are very quiet. They say little about what happened and mostly seem to pretend that the TLM never existed. I wasn’t taught about it growing up. They attend a very reverent diocesan parish and the one time I invited them to a TLM across town they were very reluctant to attend. Mostly, they express mild annoyance that I don’t go to Mass with them on Saturday. To this day, I’m not sure how Vatican II affected them but it obviously affected my family and a lot of other families too. I’m not sure how many people converted because of the changes that occurred in the Church but I know that many left.

I post this because sometimes I think it is easier for people like us who grew up after this whole mess to comment on it from a distance. But for some people, what happened in the Church during the 1960’s was enough for some seriously devout Catholics - without the traditional resources we have today - to question their faith and, in many cases, to abandon it.

 

[brotherhrolf]

I post this because sometimes I think it is easier for people like us who grew up after this whole mess to comment on it from a distance. But for some people, what happened in the Church during the 1960’s was enough for some seriously devout Catholics - without the traditional resources we have today - to question their faith and, in many cases, to abandon it.

I was a teenager in the 60s and I saw my parents and my neighbors marginalized and forced to having to attend the Saturday afternoon vigil Mass because of what happened in the years after Vatican II. Many of our neighbors did indeed quit attending Mass.

I would probably not be an active Catholic had I not found my reverent cathedral parish in 1983. We have to drive 25 miles one way but it is a small price to pay.