Does anyone else remember the transition from the TLM to the NO?

[paramedicgirl]

I was preparing for first holy communion in 1968. My dad took us out of the parish because it was planning a folk mass, and we attended a TLM chapel since the end of 1968. Our poor pastor from the old parish died in 1973, and was completely bewildered by the changes.

I don’t want to offend anyone or be polemical, but I’m praying for full liturgical restoration.

They had folk Masses in 1968?? Who presided, Bob Dylan? I guess that kinda goes with the Simon and Garfunkel mentality of the days. I always thought it was a more recent innovation, but I guess the liturgical destroyers were in full force even before the New Mass was promulgated.

 

[paramedicgirl]

They had folk Masses in 1968?? Who presided, Bob Dylan? I guess that kinda goes with the Simon and Garfunkel mentality of the days. I always thought it was a more recent innovation, but I guess the liturgical destroyers were in full force even before the New Mass was promulgated.

 

[lucybeebee]

They had folk Masses in 1968?? Who presided, Bob Dylan? I guess that kinda goes with the Simon and Garfunkel mentality of the days. I always thought it was a more recent innovation, but I guess the liturgical destroyers were in full force even before the New Mass was promulgated.

Yes. I’ve seen a 1968 yearbook from a Jesuit all boys high school in which there are photographs of the students participating in “folk masses” with guitars in force. Oddly enough, the priests are all in cassocks though.

 

[Brenda_V]

Yes. I’ve seen a 1968 yearbook from a Jesuit all boys high school in which there are photographs of the students participating in “folk masses” with guitars in force. Oddly enough, the priests are all in cassocks though.

Why is it odd that the Priests were all in cassocks and there was a folk Mass? You see that is what my first memory of the changes that occurred with the Mass. I made my First Communion when I was only 8 making that in the Spring of 1966. In the fall of 1966 I remember the Principal of our school getting on the loudspeaker at the end of the day and the whole school learning the “new folk songs” so at least we would be singing! We had mimeographed sheets with the words on them. I remember some of the adults being absolutely scandalized by these songs and the change from Latin to the Vernacular and others absolutely thrilled by it!

Then we moved to Turkey and I don’t remember anything specific about what changes occurred (like when we stopped kneeling at an altar rail but started lining up). There was way too much to see in Turkey about our faith that what was happening in the church was not much of a concern to me. I do remember our Chaplain giving short homilies so we could all get out and see where this history happened, like going to Ephesus and Miriam Anna (sorry don’t know the ‘offficial’ name, that is what the Turks called it and it is the last home of Mother Mary). Even at 11 and 12 I was impressed by being able to walk on the same stones that made the streets that St. Paul and the early Christians walked! We had Easter Sunday Mass at Ephesus - on the purported site of the Church of St. Paul. I got to see one of the oldest still standing Catholic Churches (no Catholics left to celebrate Mass in it though), I got to go to one of the oldest, still used Catholic Churches but did not get to hear Mass at it because the number of Catholics left were small so they had a roving Priest and it was not his time to be there when we were. So, you can see, any upheaval in style of Worship and how Mass was said would take a back seat for me at this time in my life.

I also got to travel to several European countries and hear Mass in other languages in the Vernacular and was able to follow along so the argument that having Mass in Latin made it Universal and thus you could hear mass anywhere in the world and follow along kind of a moot argument to me.

Brenda V.

 

[DebChris]

I also got to travel to several European countries and hear Mass in other languages in the Vernacular and was able to follow along so the argument that having Mass in Latin made it Universal and thus you could hear mass anywhere in the world and follow along kind of a moot argument to me.

Brenda V.

Thanks for posting this. I grew up as a military dependent. The first time I remember actually seeing a priest wear a cassock was this milleneum. I have however known Benedictine monks and Franciscan friars who wear their respective habits.

 

[maryalene]

I was actually just talking about this with my parents over the weekend. I’ve only ever known the Pauline Mass, but mom and dad are in their early 70s. They are both converts (14 and 20 I think) so maybe that changes their perspective. However, they don’t remember the changes being any big deal. Apparently, things were changed gradually enough in their area that the transition went smoothly.

My mom is a bit indifferent to the TLM now, but my dad has no desire to see it returned. He said that, at least in their area, a lot of priests said multiple Masses for stipends each day with just an altar server. He said that it was a bit of a money maker for priests, and he thinks the best thing that Vatican II did was to make it clear that the Mass is a communal prayer, not a private prayer.

Anyway, if you disagree with his opinion, he’s not here to defend it. But I thought it was relevant in light of this discussion.

 

[Petergee]

I was actually just talking about this with my parents over the weekend. I’ve only ever known the Pauline Mass, but mom and dad are in their early 70s. They are both converts (14 and 20 I think) so maybe that changes their perspective. However, they don’t remember the changes being any big deal. Apparently, things were changed gradually enough in their area that the transition went smoothly.

Yes. IMO the apparent perception by some that it was a sudden total revolution with no warning springs from either a consciously or subconsciously “revised” memory, or that they then went to Mass infrequently, or resulted from the fact that some priests refused to make any of the earlier changes, until finally in the early 1970s the pre-V2 Mass was virtually prohibited except under strict conditions, and then they began saying the “new” Mass overnight.

In fact the liturgical changes were a long time coming. Some of them may even have been introduced by Vatican I in the 1870s if it had not been forcibly cut short by the invasion and occupation of Rome by foreign troops. And in many places the vernacular was introduced into parts of the Mass many decades before V2. I have an old Irish friend who remembers the readings being proclaimed in English in the 1930s, in supposedly “conservative” Ireland.

 

[OutinChgoburbs]

I remember when the first changes of VII came about in 1965.

Prior to my chicken pox, our class was learning to behave ourselves using a 1962 missal, to prepare for First Communion.

After I returned from the chicken pox adventure (2 itchy weeks later), the signs on the Seven Sacraments were changed. “Matrimony” became “Marriage” and “Extreme Unction” became “Sacrament of the Sick”. “Confession” was “Penance”. The class was belting out “Et cum spiritu tuo” every time Sister said, “Dominus Vobiscum”. Then Sister would switch, and it’d be “The Lord Be With You” and “And With Thy Spirit”.

And Sister was extremely unhappy about the new missals! They already had the priest facing the people! And she was unhappy about the robes- we were all required to wear white robes over our First Communion finery (boys with dashing navy blue capes, girls with white capes).

But the FEL Hymnal was still a year or two off. There was no guitar music at our First Communion, and we sang “Jesus My Lord My God My All”.