Indeed, tecvba, indeed. People can pray before Mass or examine their conscience in quiet before going to confession at my cathedral parish. Can’t do that at my local geographic parish. Our socialization is limited to coffee and donuts in the parish hall after Mass.
Socialization starts at my geographic parish before Mass; just after Mass starts “Reach out and introduce yourself to your neighbors”; and during the Sign of Peace (which goes on for an easy five minutes) in which everyone has a really nice time meeting and greeting and father makes the rounds down the main aisle to the back…all the while forgetting just Who is there present at the altar. It is not about us it is about Him.
I do not receive the Eucharist unworthily. My conscience was formed before Vatican II and I do have to guard against scrupulosity but my intent is never to receive Our Lord unworthily and no it is not being taught nor is frequent use of confession being encouraged. If I am not in a state of grace, I do not go to Communion.
When I was a teenager, there was a downtown church which had confessions all day long. Multiple confessors. Now, I can go to a local parish which has confessions on Wednesdays before the 6pm Mass if the priest shows. Far too many Wednesdays I’ve stood there in line with others and the priest did not show.
Proverbs 22: 6 says:
Train a boy in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not swerve from it.
Here I sit at 57. My conscience was formed by the priests, brothers, and sisters who taught me. I am nothing special. I am aware of several people who are my age on these forums and we are not doing anything special. We are simply doing what we were taught. I make no apologies. I believe Our Lord is present in the Eucharist, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. A consecrated host is the most precious object on the face of the Earth. I do not receive the Eucharist unworthily because I was taught to recieve the Eucharist unworthily is to drawn down condemnation on my head.
(I accompanied a Greek classmate to the Eastern Orthodox Easter Vigil Liturgy and did not know that the Orthodox have blessed bread but not consecrated bread so that all believers might receive. I was not in a state of grace and she insisted that I go up. I was completely and thoroughly panicked. This was in 1976. And, yes, I agonized and ,yes, I went to confession only to find that father was aware of Orthodox practices).
So, here I am forty + years later and I am still living the life I learned over 50 years ago. No, I do not go to our indult parish. I attend a parish which had less than 250 members in 1983. I know. Our envelopes are labled 203. It is a downtown cathedral parish and there aren’t that many people living downtown. It has grown and grown over the last 25 years because it offers a continuation of that which so many of us learned before Vatican II. The NO and the TLM are not mutually exclusive. It is entirely possible to have a reverent NO which meets every criteria that I grew up with.
I watch EWTN on occasion and two young priests from Peru conducted a NO Mass in Latin and English and it was simply sublime. I’ve also watched several of EWTN’s Solemn High Masses. I simply want reverence. That’s all. Reverence. It is not about us as community. It is about Him.
I was a history and anthropology major. The past calls to me. We can go on and on about what went on in the early church. I am of English, Irish, Scot, Breton, French, and German ancestry. None of my ancestors spoke Latin - of that I am quite certain. But I do know that any of my ancestors could have participated at Mass at any other of my ancestor’s church. The baby got thrown out with the bathwater after Vatican II. We abandoned our profound Catholic heritage. The Holy Father is trying to reclaim that heritage. I have never stopped living it.
We like what we like and I just have to believe that God is pleased with the smallest of steps we take toward Him in our frail human state.
our services would be more spiritual. I witness open talking during services all the time plus not to mention winking nodding and waving to friends all the time, I’ve even seen the previous priest at my parish do these things. When the rosary is being said before Sunday mass I always hear conversations and talking going on. It makes me sick. I personally sometimes get more out of going to a daily mass than a Sunday mass because the Daily mass goers are there for the mass and not to socialize.
