N
NeelyAnn
Guest
**Barbarism Rising
The Black Hole Where Piety Used to Be**
Anthony Mazzone
REMNANT COLUMNIST, Pennsylvania
(Posted 12/15/09 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) It is mid-Lent sometime in the 1950’s. Deep within a large Eastern city early morning Mass is about to begin. The sanctuary bell rings and the priest enters with two altar boys. He places the sacred vessels on the altar and gets right down to business. There is no greeting of the people, never any eye contact. His movements are practiced, precise and quick. Those in the front pews can hear the whispered Latin phrases.
The congregation consists largely of elderly women dressed in black who continuously tell their beads. Scattered about are a few school children who try to follow along in their missals. Once in a while a huge workman enters. He kneels heavily, rolls up his sleeves, and remains absolutely still for the duration of Mass. Less often another fellow, better tailored, comes in. He favors lighting candles and stuffing money into the poor box but never stays for Mass.
Other scattered memories surface from around the same time: priests occasionally conversing in Latin, statues of saints carried in procession through the streets, every home having a crucifix on one of the walls and somewhere else a picture St Anthony. Once I was standing on some corner when the parish priest came hurrying by, black bag in hand. My friends and I weren’t accustomed to seeing Father outside of Church. We stared open-mouthed until a harsh whisper from a teenager startled us: “Inginocchiati, stronzo!” “Kneel down, idiot!”
Reciting the Angelus at noon, making the Sign of the Cross when passing a church, keeping silent between one and three on Good Friday, having Masses said for deceased family members, naming one’s children after favorite saints: such customs were innumerable and rather instinctual, little things that came naturally simply from being Catholic. They signified continuity and stability and among us constituted a kind of common patois. This is what our parents and grandparents did; it was what we should do in reverence of their memory.
I can admit that this is to some extent an idealized portrait of the past, and will acknowledge that there is little merit in merely following custom without understanding or devotion. We can all recognize and reprobate those elements of hypocrisy, or worse superstition, that often infected many of these customs. Nevertheless there is no question that, when well ordered, works of popular piety are indications of spiritual health and of a robust Catholic culture.
So it is disheartening to recognize that the time of universal Latin Masses in cold churches, of fervent street processions, of fidelity to long standing customs has long since passed. No longer do we dwell in a world that takes outward expressions of religious faith for granted. Instead, sincere displays of piety are increasingly unwelcome in public and tolerated only as vague invocations of the deity on national holidays or, at most, charming vestiges of ethnic culture. We are all to some extent intimidated, if not cowed. And what are the chances these days of a young man, hanging in front of the pool hall, taking anyone to task for not kneeling as a priest passes by carrying the Sanctissimum?
In fact the term has been so inverted that to call someone “pious” today is practically to insult him, to intimate that he is ipso facto a hypocrite, likely ignorant and intolerant also. This is truly an inversion, for Piety is one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Aquinas tells us that it is the gift “whereby, at the Holy Spirit’s instigation, we pay worship and duty to God as our Father.”[1] It corresponds to the Cardinal Virtue of Justice and along with Fortitude and Fear of the Lord, directs the will towards God.
But we are a modern people and in our hubris and luxury have emphatically rejected this gift. We do not prize it because it will make nobody any money, and is suitable only for duds and flunkies. Could anyone say that dutiful respect and docility of soul are admired today? Rather the stylish masses prefer to revel in gross confrontation and ugly “attitude.”
Lack of reverence toward the past, disrespect for what has been handed down, disdain for the virtue of humility, outright revulsion toward the compliant fulfillment of duties—simply a revolt from piety—is the acid bath of modernity.
We all experience the corrosive effects in our daily lives. The most noticeable symptom is that coarseness of language and rudeness of behavior are ubiquitous, and tolerated. Turn on the TV, listen to the radio and the crassness seems to get worse every day. Not even the most insular among us can escape the relentless onslaught of advertising: the primary outlet for creativity in our time. It is literally borne on the air, thrust into our faces, rammed into our ears. It aims not at enlightenment or elevation of mind but instead suborns the artistic talents for the purposes of manipulation. In the world of marketing value is not measured by intrinsic worth but by the possibility of profit; absolutely nothing is sacred or beyond exploitation. Advertising touches everything and trivializes everything it touches.
Continued here: remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2009-1215-mazzone.htm
The Black Hole Where Piety Used to Be**
Anthony Mazzone
REMNANT COLUMNIST, Pennsylvania
(Posted 12/15/09 www.RemnantNewspaper.com) It is mid-Lent sometime in the 1950’s. Deep within a large Eastern city early morning Mass is about to begin. The sanctuary bell rings and the priest enters with two altar boys. He places the sacred vessels on the altar and gets right down to business. There is no greeting of the people, never any eye contact. His movements are practiced, precise and quick. Those in the front pews can hear the whispered Latin phrases.
The congregation consists largely of elderly women dressed in black who continuously tell their beads. Scattered about are a few school children who try to follow along in their missals. Once in a while a huge workman enters. He kneels heavily, rolls up his sleeves, and remains absolutely still for the duration of Mass. Less often another fellow, better tailored, comes in. He favors lighting candles and stuffing money into the poor box but never stays for Mass.
Other scattered memories surface from around the same time: priests occasionally conversing in Latin, statues of saints carried in procession through the streets, every home having a crucifix on one of the walls and somewhere else a picture St Anthony. Once I was standing on some corner when the parish priest came hurrying by, black bag in hand. My friends and I weren’t accustomed to seeing Father outside of Church. We stared open-mouthed until a harsh whisper from a teenager startled us: “Inginocchiati, stronzo!” “Kneel down, idiot!”
Reciting the Angelus at noon, making the Sign of the Cross when passing a church, keeping silent between one and three on Good Friday, having Masses said for deceased family members, naming one’s children after favorite saints: such customs were innumerable and rather instinctual, little things that came naturally simply from being Catholic. They signified continuity and stability and among us constituted a kind of common patois. This is what our parents and grandparents did; it was what we should do in reverence of their memory.
I can admit that this is to some extent an idealized portrait of the past, and will acknowledge that there is little merit in merely following custom without understanding or devotion. We can all recognize and reprobate those elements of hypocrisy, or worse superstition, that often infected many of these customs. Nevertheless there is no question that, when well ordered, works of popular piety are indications of spiritual health and of a robust Catholic culture.
So it is disheartening to recognize that the time of universal Latin Masses in cold churches, of fervent street processions, of fidelity to long standing customs has long since passed. No longer do we dwell in a world that takes outward expressions of religious faith for granted. Instead, sincere displays of piety are increasingly unwelcome in public and tolerated only as vague invocations of the deity on national holidays or, at most, charming vestiges of ethnic culture. We are all to some extent intimidated, if not cowed. And what are the chances these days of a young man, hanging in front of the pool hall, taking anyone to task for not kneeling as a priest passes by carrying the Sanctissimum?
In fact the term has been so inverted that to call someone “pious” today is practically to insult him, to intimate that he is ipso facto a hypocrite, likely ignorant and intolerant also. This is truly an inversion, for Piety is one of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Aquinas tells us that it is the gift “whereby, at the Holy Spirit’s instigation, we pay worship and duty to God as our Father.”[1] It corresponds to the Cardinal Virtue of Justice and along with Fortitude and Fear of the Lord, directs the will towards God.
But we are a modern people and in our hubris and luxury have emphatically rejected this gift. We do not prize it because it will make nobody any money, and is suitable only for duds and flunkies. Could anyone say that dutiful respect and docility of soul are admired today? Rather the stylish masses prefer to revel in gross confrontation and ugly “attitude.”
Lack of reverence toward the past, disrespect for what has been handed down, disdain for the virtue of humility, outright revulsion toward the compliant fulfillment of duties—simply a revolt from piety—is the acid bath of modernity.
We all experience the corrosive effects in our daily lives. The most noticeable symptom is that coarseness of language and rudeness of behavior are ubiquitous, and tolerated. Turn on the TV, listen to the radio and the crassness seems to get worse every day. Not even the most insular among us can escape the relentless onslaught of advertising: the primary outlet for creativity in our time. It is literally borne on the air, thrust into our faces, rammed into our ears. It aims not at enlightenment or elevation of mind but instead suborns the artistic talents for the purposes of manipulation. In the world of marketing value is not measured by intrinsic worth but by the possibility of profit; absolutely nothing is sacred or beyond exploitation. Advertising touches everything and trivializes everything it touches.
Continued here: remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2009-1215-mazzone.htm
and thanks for posting this:thumbsup:
)
I’m just thinking ahead. This year, probably the last Christmas with my family, I started a Polish Christmas Eve tradition of 12 meatless dishes (12 apostles) and that was a lot of fun! Good suggestion with the older books too, I guess I’ll buy some cheap used ones off Amazon and the like.
Sometimes the horror of all that has happened just makes me cry, and I’ve had nightmares about, and can vividly imagine, the remnants of Eucharist that are being trampled all around our churches, and in the holy water, in the books, on peoples’ laundry, etc. So it’s definitely a very emotional thing for me.
