Daily Worship in the Latin Church

[Phillip_Rolfes]

Yes, I strongly believe that. Today, it seems as though there is Mass, and that’s it at many parishes. To make this worse, the liturgical reforms following the council rolled most of the sacraments and other rites into the Mass, so that they are usually, if not often celebrated within the Mass (For example, baptism, confirmation, anointing of the sick, etc…). This seems to have made this effect even worse.

I honestly like the fact that the celebration of the other Sacraments can now be done either within or outside of the context of the Mass for a couple of reasons. First, it highlights the connection of all the Sacraments to the Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the Sacramental-Liturgical life of the Church. Secondly, it highlights the “public/corporate” nature of every one of the Sacraments. Baptism, weddings, ordinations, even anointings are not private celebrations intended for friends and close family, but are celebrations of the entire Church.

 

[Bran_Stark]

As a Protestant who is not permitted to communicate at a Catholic Mass, I really wish you could do a better job of publicly celebrating the Divine Office. In theory every priest is already going to be paying the Hours daily in private, so saying the clergy don’t have time isn’t really an excuse. It shouldn’t be too hard to have a simple recitation of Matins and/or Lauds before the main Mass every morning, and Vespers at least on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Sadly the common practice of anticipated Masses on Saturday evening kind of ruins the time slot for it.

 

[corsair]

Our local “parish cluster” of six small churches, scattered over many miles, has only two priests and one retired priest to assist on weekends. Of the six only one has resident priests. There is a daily Mass somewhere in the cluster except on Fridays and Tuesdays.

One parish has a first Friday Mass and another has a first Saturday Mass. There is Adoration at one church or another on all days except Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Bells are rung only prior to Mass.

No Angelus or organized Rosaries are said anywhere.

The churches are about 20 miles apart.

Now having said all the above; we tend to drive the 120 miles more than we can afford to the Seattle FSSP parish that really celebrates most of the traditions mention on this thread.

That parish is “alive” and growing. The local parishes are “getting by”.

 

[robertericleech]

What, you didn’t like hearing “Go Tell it on the Mountain” chimed every hour through the Nativity season? followed up with the loop of “Amazing Grace”?

Haha…ugh, sometimes they’d do this weird thing where they’d slow down and go all off key…it was dreadful.

 

[superamazingman]

As a Protestant who is not permitted to communicate at a Catholic Mass, I really wish you could do a better job of publicly celebrating the Divine Office. In theory every priest is already going to be paying the Hours daily in private, so saying the clergy don’t have time isn’t really an excuse. It shouldn’t be too hard to have a simple recitation of Matins and/or Lauds before the main Mass every morning, and Vespers at least on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Sadly the common practice of anticipated Masses on Saturday evening kind of ruins the time slot for it.

Yes! That is what the church wants. Obviously, it’s not going to work for every parish, but how hard is it, at least for some priests, to walk over from the rectory once or twice a day, and spend 5 minutes putting on a cope, and celebrating it publicly? It makes such a difference, especially when it’s sung.

 

[jwinch2]

This thread is somewhat of an offshoot from a thread in the “Non-Catholic Religions” sub-forum entitled Examining Orthodox Theology. In that thread one poster suggested that the liturgical life of the Eastern Churches is potentially lacking because of a general lack of celebration of daily Mass/Divine Liturgy (there are reasons for this lack which we can discuss later). In response another poster said the following (I’ll put it in bold because I’m too stupid to figure out how to do quotes):

“As noted earlier, access to daily Divine Liturgy would vary depending on the congregation itself of a parish. Besides, there is more to daily spiritual life than Mass. To tell you the truth, I find Roman Catholicism here in North America very lacking for lack of any religious activity besides Mass. No wonder priests have been experimenting left and right with the Masses here. When you go to a parish all you can do is Mass. I appreciate our Liturgical services especially during Holy Week, with all the different prayer services and processions.”

So the question for discussion in this thread is: Do you think there is a connection between liturgical experimentation/abuse and the lack of a broader liturgical life in the Roman Church outside of Mass?

Very interesting question. I’m not sure one can make such a statement regarding cause and affect. That someone is proposing a correlation is a pretty interesting starting point in itself.

I would absolutely love to see the average Roman Catholic parish incorporate more in terms of Liturgical Prayer in addition to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. Many parishes do Benediction along with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, but that is about it in my experience.

I would love to see regular offerings of the Divine Office on the part of the parish, at least a few times per week. During this year’s Holy Week, I was disappointed that our parish did not have Tenebrae, but I very much appreciated going to Stations of the Cross throughout Lent.

Peace,

 

[robertericleech]

I would love to see regular offerings of the Divine Office on the part of the parish, at least a few times per week. During this year’s Holy Week, I was disappointed that our parish did not have Tenebrae, but I very much appreciated going to Stations of the Cross throughout Lent.

If a group of parishioners wanted to start a group to say the LOTH in church, what’s stopping them? You don’t need a priest or deacon present to pray the LOTH together, just a daily chapel that’s open, or someone with a key to the church.

 

[jwinch2]

If a group of parishioners wanted to start a group to say the LOTH in church, what’s stopping them? You don’t need a priest or deacon present to pray the LOTH together, just a daily chapel that’s open, or someone with a key to the church.

That’s true, and at my previous parish it was done with a deacon starting it, but mostly laity doing it on a weekly basis. Typically, things are likely to see greater attendance if a priest or deacon is running the show. In addition, the premise of the thread was on priestly function and liturgical life as a preventative for experimentation during the Mass. As such, it would make sense to include the priest if that was part of the goal.

If not, then you are quite correct. I have been considering asking the Pastor of our parish for permission to start something but haven’t done it yet.

 

[robertericleech]

That’s true, and at my previous parish it was done with a deacon starting it, but mostly laity doing it on a weekly basis. Typically, things are likely to see greater attendance if a priest or deacon is running the show. In addition, the premise of the thread was on priestly function and liturgical life as a preventative for experimentation during the Mass. As such, it would make sense to include the priest if that was part of the goal.

If not, then you are quite correct. I have been considering asking the Pastor of our parish for permission to start something but haven’t done it yet.

Yes, I think most pastors would be very open to groups of parishioners who asked to meet to hold devotions in church. I’m sure in most cases if there is an interest shown, the priest or deacons would be happy to try to accomodate it.

We have a daily chapel that’s open from 7am-8pm. In churches where they unfortunately have to lock up during the day it’s obviously going to be a little harder.

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Very interesting question. I’m not sure one can make such a statement regarding cause and affect. That someone is proposing a correlation is a pretty interesting starting point in itself.

I was just thinking about this question again, reflecting on the many positive comments received from Catholic faithful who have experienced Eastern Christian tradition. It may be that those who have felt enriched by the experience, yet are soundly wedded to their own tradition, are in some way seeking a deeper liturgical experience in their own Rite.

The Divine Office in many ways provides an opportunity for deeper reflection on the saints and/or feast commemorated. We may get the big picture from daily Mass, but not the complete picture. Perhaps as in Byzantine tradition and as a first step, certain sections of the Divine Office could be taken on major feasts and solemnities, as people who are not deeply exposed to the Divine Office can often grasp the extended message and lessons provided in the complete cycle of daily worship.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

I was just thinking about this question again, reflecting on the many positive comments received from Catholic faithful who have experienced Eastern Christian tradition. It may be that those who have felt enriched by the experience, yet are soundly wedded to their own tradition, are in some way seeking a deeper liturgical experience in their own Rite.

The Divine Office in many ways provides an opportunity for deeper reflection on the saints and/or feast commemorated. We may get the big picture from daily Mass, but not the complete picture. Perhaps as in Byzantine tradition and as a first step, certain sections of the Divine Office could be taken on major feasts and solemnities, as people who are not deeply exposed to the Divine Office can often grasp the extended message and lessons provided in the complete cycle of daily worship.

As I mentioned earlier, the Magisterium of the Church has been encouraging a public celebration of the LotH/Divine Office at least since Vatican II. The CCC mentions that at bare minimum public Sunday Vespers ought to be celebrated.

That being said, however, I didn’t realize the importance of the Divine Office, particularly for getting “the complete picture” of the Mass and the Church’s liturgical life until I started regularly attending a Byzantine/Melkite parish. I’ve heard a lot of people complain about the current form of the Mass because of its simplification that has, supposedly, introduced a weak catechesis. My solution, start praying the LotH along with regular attendance at Mass (daily of possible) and a prayerful reading of the Scriptural cycle according to the feasts. I grew up doing that as a Roman Catholic, and have continued doing so as a Melkite. It seems to have been effective for my catechetical formation.

 

[Phillip_Rolfes]

If a group of parishioners wanted to start a group to say the LOTH in church, what’s stopping them? You don’t need a priest or deacon present to pray the LOTH together, just a daily chapel that’s open, or someone with a key to the church.

I agree. In the parish(es) that I grew up in, the public celebration of the LotH was all led by the laity as the priest was preparing for morning Mass. Similarly, when I was working in Domino’s Farms in Ann Arbor, MI. the chapel had Mass four times a day. Before both the morning and the evening Mass the LotH was celebrated, led again by the laity. I believe they also did noon prayer that was again led by the laity.

I think it’s sad that we have this mentality that the priests must do everything. With the shortage of priestly vocations it has become impossible for the priests to do everything, even if they have the desire to implement these changes that we lay folk would like to see. So in the end I believe it’s up to us. As you so aptly put it, if what want the public celebration of the LotH in our parishes, what’s stopping us? If it’s not interfering with the Mass schedule or anything like that, I would think the permission of the priest would hardly be necessary (especially considering the Vatican’s clear desire that the laity start celebrating the LotH both privately and, where possible, publicly). Plus I don’t think the majority of parish priests are going to object to their parishioners leading one another in the LotH; it’s not like anyone is giving a homily or catechetical teaching or anything like that. If money is a concern, it is not necessary that everyone have a copy of the four-volume set. The Shorter Christian Prayer suffices for the celebration of Morning and Evening Prayer. At the Dominican House of Studies here in D.C., they simply use the one-volume Christian Prayer for their entire cycle of the LotH.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Until the strong cultural aspect of Catholicism comes back in the US, parish life will continue to be in a perpetually precarious state.

I want to point out one more time just for the record how much the NCR types in the Church whine unceasingly about how much they love liturgical “inculturation,” yet it is clear that at least in the US, true and vibrant “cultural Catholicism” died somewhere in the 1965-1975 period.

I believe that as parishes started to do a more popular (in the classic sense of the word) liturgical style, that the reasons for having a strong para-liturgical and extra-liturgical cultural identity died. Before, the various cultures experienced and expressed their faith culturally in their popular devotions and pious expressions, not primarily in Mass. Then, since these things were essentially absorbed in style by the Mass, there really was no reason to have these para- and extra-liturgical devotions and pious expressions anymore.

I wonder if it might be true that the more liturgically “Romanitas” style parishes–think St. John Cantius in Chicago or St. Agnes in Minnesota and others like them–might also have the strongest and most vibrant extra-liturgical lives overall, whether they be devotions or Friday fish fries or Rosary groups.

I think we American Latins have come to rely far too much on the Mass. The Mass is, of course, the most important thing we can participate in. However, it is certainly not the only thing we can participate in, and I think to have a vibrant and active parish community there must be many other events like devotions, venerations of relics, processions, etc. I think our country and in our current time might truly be the most vanilla brand of Catholicism ever to have existed [Mexican immigrants excepted]; “inculturation” here is a great irony that has not worked. The reason? We have no culture anymore. Or at the very least, we have no culture worth bringing to the Church.

I think as we have become schizophrenic about “making” and “planning” the “best” parish–kind of like we do with our families and our jobs and our social events–we have killed part of the fun of Catholicism. Who cares if the church has too many statues? It’s not an art gallery to be “balanced.” Who cares if the people can’t understand that “Ave verum corpus” motet? The Mass is not expressive, it is impressive.

I think we have tried to engineer our parishes just as we try to engineer our lives, and in doing so we have crushed the “rawness” of it all and we are just left with something over planned and too vanilla.

The pre-Conciliar Church in this country was, ironically, far more eclectic and far more inculturated. When we took things a little too seriously and over-extended good intentions like we often do, we didn’t build on what we had. We treated it like an enterprise and ripped down and tried to start over. We have a long way to go. We can get there. =]

 

[ConstantineTG]

Even if it wasn’t the most positive of comments, perhaps I could be given credit for the quote?

And to defend my stance on it, I will use a Roman Catholic example rather than an Eastern one. So without further adeiu I present Roman Catholicism in the Philippines:

youtube.com/watch?v=h0yKFCRRz2I

youtube.com/watch?v=IE8tb3JkRTo

youtube.com/watch?v=IpNnDS_qo_A

youtube.com/watch?v=GK6FFy_3AZw

 

[airforcemom]

My church is small - for Daily Mass the max we have is about 15 - normally we average 10-12. We are lucky enough to have a retired priest who comes to say Mass when our priest takes his day off - he handles two church parishes. There is a group that stays on Wednesday for the Rosary following Mass - we have the Rosary every Sunday before Mass. We are a fairly active parish but it is the same people who lead/organize the activities and we are getting older – so far no one younger than 50 will do much and those in their 70s would like a break. We do have a church with Adoration 5 days a week within our civil parish - we attempted 24/7 but could not get enough Adorers so we had to cut back to 16/5. On Holy Days we are amazed at how few attend. Our new priest is Vietnamese and he is used to the whole community going to church and supporting all the activities - they had 3-400 people attend Daily Mass – big shock for him. I pray that one day people wake and start supporting the churches again.

 

[LatinCatholic1]

This past Lent, our parish had all kinds of things…group rosary, Stations, Benediction and all day Eucharistic adoration every Sunday after the last Mass…we even had the Forty Hours. And this is a large, modern looking, but very theologically orthodox parish. With, until recently, *one **priest *, one elderly weekend assistant and two permanent deacons serving a parish of 5000 families.

So it does exist, I guess it just depends on the interest of the parishioners.

Same with my parish

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Until the strong cultural aspect of Catholicism comes back in the US, parish life will continue to be in a perpetually precarious state.

Very good post overall, YTC

I fear that but for the next major wave of immigration (if there ever again culd be such a thing), the ship has already sailed.

My own Byzantine-Ruthenian Church is an example among the Eastern Catholic Churches here in the U.S. Some agrue that since we first dropped any formal mention of our heritage in the church name (going for generic “Byzantine” vs. say, “Ruthenian Greek Catholic” paralleling the UGCC), we have steadily attempted to shed our ethnic heritage in the hope of having a more “American” Eastern Catholic Church. I can’t say that I fully agree with the analysis and charge, but there is a lot of evidence. Yet, the numbers have steadily declined, so to the extent true, it did not help to even sustain this Church, let alone to build it up.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Very good post overall, YTC

I fear that but for the next major wave of immigration (if there ever again culd be such a thing), the ship has already sailed.

My own Byzantine-Ruthenian Church is an example among the Eastern Catholic Churches here in the U.S. Some agrue that since we first dropped any formal mention of our heritage in the church name (going for generic “Byzantine” vs. say, “Ruthenian Greek Catholic” paralleling the UGCC), we have steadily attempted to shed our ethnic heritage in the hope of having a more “American” Eastern Catholic Church. I can’t say that I fully agree with the analysis and charge, but there is a lot of evidence. Yet, the numbers have steadily declined, so to the extent true, it did not help to even sustain this Church, let alone to build it up.

There is very little, even of what we see positive in a secular sense–diligence, hard work–of American culture that is suitable or desirable for the Church in this country to absorb. This is because even if there are positive things, they connect to a larger whole that is informed not by God and religion, but by humanistic, secularist goals.

 

[ByzCathCantor]

There is very little, even of what we see positive in a secular sense–diligence, hard work–of American culture that is suitable or desirable for the Church in this country to absorb. This is because even if there are positive things, they connect to a larger whole that is informed not by God and religion, but by humanistic, secularist goals.

And indeed, even though times were different in the late 18th century, the Founding Fathers knew this would be the case. Hence the importance of freedom of religion. They allowed for there to be other societal structures to preserve societal norms and moral values, which also serve as a check and balance against potential government tyranny.

 

[curlycool89]

So the question for discussion in this thread is: Do you think there is a connection between liturgical experimentation/abuse and the lack of a broader liturgical life in the Roman Church outside of Mass?

That’s an interesting question, and I say the answer is yes.

It’s a problem of reductionism; we have reduced what it means to be a Catholic parish to just Mass, and so everyone feels that absolutely everything we do must be done during Mass whether it belongs there or not. Whenever we ask even on this forum “why don’t we do stuff outside of Mass” people look at that person as if they suddenly grew 2 heads.

Finally there could be non-liturgical but still devotional events taking place in parishes that are organized by the people themselves, not the priest and/or parish committee. One parish I attended some years ago had weekly “Praise and Worship” meetings in the parish hall. This was completely organized by motivated parishioners and was a wonderful way for members of the parish to gather in a more free-spirited non-liturgical setting in order to offer praise and thanks to God. Weekly rosary groups, or Divine Mercy groups are another possibility. Or heck, how about a weekly Bible study that focuses on the readings for the week, or at least the upcoming Sunday, and situating those readings in the wider liturgical context? This, I believe, is an area where folks could be creative and experiment without at the same time damaging the liturgical life of the Church.

All of these a great ideas.

I think we American Latins have come to rely far too much on the Mass. The Mass is, of course, the most important thing we can participate in. However, it is certainly not the only thing we can participate in, and I think to have a vibrant and active parish community there must be many other events like devotions, venerations of relics, processions, etc. I think our country and in our current time might truly be the most vanilla brand of Catholicism ever to have existed [Mexican immigrants excepted]; “inculturation” here is a great irony that has not worked. The reason? We have no culture anymore. Or at the very least, we have no culture worth bringing to the Church.

I think that’s a very insightful comment.

Our communities and parishes seem to be full of nothing but generic Catholics. The problem is that there has never been a “generic” Catholicism that is spiritually filling.

We don’t do other things because we’re afraid to be different. Then there are admittedly some factions in the Church who criticize people who do different devotionals or things that are slightly “different” (heck, we can’t even have a mature discussion on this very forum about extra-liturgical more charismatic devotions without playing “I’m more Catholic then you”).

We need to be mature people who accept that there will be differences between us while still professing that we are all Catholic. That’s where I ultimately see the trouble.