Does you love for the EF make you anti OF unintentionally?

  • Thread starter Thread starter jasonjessica09
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

jasonjessica09

Guest
I went to a Requiem Latin Mass yesterday for All Souls Day and it was beautiful and reverant as you might expect. The problem is that only 20+ people were there. This was a 5:30 pm Mass at a big parish.

I went to another parish about 10 miles away afterwards because they had Confession going on there. As it turns out they had a Novus Ordo Mass there at the same time which started at 6:30 I presume. It had 300-400 in attendance by my count. So fairly large. So that means the Catholics are coming out but just not to the EF.

I’m tired of Catholics not attending the Latin Mass. It seems like so many of them do not even give it consideration even when it is available. The congregation for the Latin Mass at my parish at 12:30 pm is always a fraction of the congregation that shows up for the 10:30 am OF

I’m 32 years old and for the first 30 years of my life, the Novus Ordo is all I ever knew existed. Once I discovered the EF early last year, I feel in love with it instantly and never went back. But I have sort of become anti-Novus Ordo in the process, which I know is not a good thing because Jesus is still present there. Although that might be the only thing that is keeping me from being such a lover of the EF that I end up becoming anti-OF. Still I know that misinterpretations of Vatican II especially when it comes to the NO Liturgy has caused many Catholics to fall out of Communion with the Church and the Pope of Rome. So knowing what I know now, I can’t help but be weary of the NO and how priests and laity act and behave.
 
I don’t go to the O.F. any more, if I can help it. I have a choice between a half-hour bus journey to an 6pm E.F. on a Sunday evening or a morning O.F. five minutes walk away.

The contrast couldn’t be starker in how these masses are said, how they came to be and their content.

The overall loss of the sense of the sacred is at the root of this and yet you’ll find people on these forums finding excuses for every little (and big) outrage at a supposed sacred rite.

**The attitude seems to be a legalistic one:

“If it’s not expressly forbidden, we can do it”.**
 
jasonjessica09 said:
I’m tired of Catholics not attending the Latin Mass. It seems like so many of them do not even give it consideration even when it is available. The congregation for the Latin Mass at my parish at 12:30 pm is always a fraction of the congregation that shows up for the 10:30 am OF
Click to expand...
My impression is that a lot of people don’t know about the EF or they are intimidated at the prospect of attending a mass in Latin.

I understand the intimidation. People can correct me, but it seems to me that after VII, a lot of people were taught that it was better for them to attend the EF because the people can finally understand what is being said and everyone can participate.

So it will take a lot of work to get people to even try out the EF.

I believe if we are to have two reverent and equal forms (EF and OF), we have to do a lot of marketing for the EF.

Otherwise, we will never know the real demand is for the EF.
 
It doesn’t make me anti-OF, but it does make me want to avoid the OF in general, because it is usually celebrated irreverently, or with abuses.

Of course, there are exceptions to this trend, such as my parish and another parish near me, so I have no problem going to the OF there.

But in general, such as when I am on vacation, I avoid the OF like the plague, because I know it will only cause frustration due to the irreverence and abuses that are found in most parishes.

On paper, I love both forms equally, but in reality, the average celebration of the EF is much more “trustworthy” than the average celebration of the OF (if that makes sense).
 
Last evening I drove 120 miles each way to a 7:30pm EF Requiem High Mass. The weather was horrible; driving rain and high winds. The Mass was SUPER and I would do it again.
Locally there was only a “plain vanilla” wednesday Mass.

No, I don’t consider myself “anti- OF”. I’m just VERY Pro EF. And this includes the Dominican Rite, which I attended for All Saints Day.
 
It’s good that you have noticed this tendency in yourself and are seeking to address it. 👍

I think that whenever one experiences any type of “conversion” experience, it is very easy to want to make the pendulum swing in the opposite direction as a form of self-correction. When one feels their eyes have been opened to a reality they were not previously privy to, it’s natural to become overly critical of the former ways of doing things.

Personally, I think it’s rather silly to pit the EF against the OF. It’s an unnecessary and harmful false dichotomy to create. Believe me, I am quite sensitive to liturgical abuse. Say the black, do the red is what I most want to see. But if the Pope himself is celebrating the OF, how can we possibly harbor ill feelings toward it? I just can’t imagine doing that. 🤷

I think it’s a mistake to assume that the falling away of faith for many Catholics is directly attributable to the change in the Missal. It is a very complex sociological thing that we cannot simply point to X as the primary culprit. The proliferation of technology and global communications, the rise of the “adult” industry, the sexual revolution, etc. – all these things are part of the cultural landscape of the past 50 years.

I think it’s natural to feel a sense of sorrow/anger when we look around and see so many lapsed Catholics. But blaming the OF is not the answer.
 
jasonjessica09 said:
I’m tired of Catholics not attending the Latin Mass. It seems like so many of them do not even give it consideration even when it is available. …

… So knowing what I know now, I can’t help but be weary of the NO and how priests and laity act and behave.
Click to expand...
Then maybe it’s the only Mass you should attend because attending the Latin Mass seems to be leading you into sin. Avoiding sin is more important than the external differences of any Mass.

As for this:

I’m tired of Catholics not attending the Latin Mass. It seems like so many of them do not even give it consideration even when it is available. …

I certainly would never go or consider going. My Parish offered Spanish Mass, also. Wouldn’t go to that, either. I don’t speak Latin or Spanish.
 
jasonjessica09 said:
The problem is that only 20+ people were there. This was a 5:30 pm Mass at a big parish.
Click to expand...
Must not have been promoted very well. The Nov 2 EF Requiem I attended last year drew an estimated 900 people. Sermon was in Spanish and English.
As it turns out they had a Novus Ordo Mass there at the same time which started at 6:30 I presume. It had 300-400 in attendance by my count.
Click to expand...
If it makes you feel any better, the number of English Masses is declining. Probably one of the reasons why they’re retranslating it.
 
jasonjessica09 said:
I’m 32 years old and for the first 30 years of my life, the Novus Ordo is all I ever knew existed. Once I discovered the EF early last year, I feel in love with it instantly and never went back. But I have sort of become anti-Novus Ordo in the process, which I know is not a good thing because Jesus is still present there. Although that might be the only thing that is keeping me from being such a lover of the EF that I end up becoming anti-OF.
Click to expand...
Jason, just because YOU have a preference, does not mean that others cannot also have a preference in the opposite direction. Both forms of the mass are allowed, and encouraged, just as are the Divine Liturgies in the Eastern Rites of the Church. I think we all go where we feel most fulfilled, but the common denominator is that in the end, we are all at a celebration where the Eucharist is, and we are filled by that.

Congradulations to you for finding your fulfillment in the EF of the mass in the Latin Rite of the Church. Please do not look down on the others of us who do not find the same fulfillment in other forms of the SAME celebration.
 
Look at the bright side, willya?

If 20-30 people went to the EF (I feel like I’m describing old fashioned TV channels), and 300 -400 people went to the OF, then that means that EF attendance is up to 10%.

And the majority of Catholics now probably don’t even remember when the EF was the only F.

That means, most of the growth is among folks who grew up with the N.O. - ie, Gen X, Y, and whatever comes after Y, and whatever we call folks too late to be Boomers and too old to be Xers.

If we assume that EF attendance was basically, what?, 0% percent in 2007, then after only four years, its gone up to 10%, that is a growth ofaround 2% per year.

Not too shabby.

That’s more people coming into the EF than left the OF per year in the 70s.

Heck, its a better growth rate than the economy! 🙂
 
Not unintentionally no. I believe the OF is a sub-standard liturgy (though I believe it is fully valid and licit as per Rome’s authority). It is simply lacking in general and does not dispose me correctly to worship God and receive him in the Most Holy Eucharist.

But c’mon… 300-400 people attending Mass is damn good.
 
If I had a EF parish five minutes away and the nearest OF parish forty five minutes away, I’d take the time to go to the OF parish.
 
If I am to be totally honest, and speaking just for myself, I would have to admit that when I attend the OF, I don’t feel like I’m at Mass. I hope I don’t get in trouble for that statement, and I’m certainly not going to elaborate on it. The OF is a valid Mass, so I am not denigrating it in any way. But I really, really love the Traditional Latin Mass. So, yes, I would have to say that my love for the EF does make me “unintentionally” OF. As Blessed John Henry Newman said:

“To me nothing is so consoling, so piercing, so thrilling, so overwhelming as the Mass, said as it is among us. I could attend Masses forever, and not be tired. It is not a mere form of words — it is a great action, the greatest action that can be on earth. He becomes present on the altar in flesh and blood, before whom the angels bow and devils tremble.”

And there was no Novus Ordo Mass during his time. 😉
 
jasonjessica09 said:
I’m tired of Catholics not attending the Latin Mass. .
Click to expand...
And I’m tired of hearing that all of us Catholics should only go to the Latin Mass. The Church gives us the legitimate option of which form of Mass we choose to attend. How about you let us choose for ourselves?
 
Timothysis said:
And I’m tired of hearing that all of us Catholics should only go to the Latin Mass. The Church gives us the legitimate option of which form of Mass we choose to attend. How about you let us choose for ourselves?
Click to expand...
No one is saying which form of Mass you should attend. We are merely expressing our love of the Traditional Mass. If you love the OF, all the more power to you. 🙂
 
A_Catholic said:
I don’t feel like I’m at Mass.
Click to expand...
I completely understand. Even my non-practising mother, when she first attended the Extraordinary Form, said that “that actually felt like Mass”.
Timothysis said:
And I’m tired of hearing that all of us Catholics should only go to the Latin Mass. The Church gives us the legitimate option of which form of Mass we choose to attend. How about you let us choose for ourselves?
Click to expand...
And Rome was wrong to give the option. The Ordinary Form should never have came into existence.

Vivat Longe Papa Sancte Pie V!
 
ProVobis said:
If it makes you feel any better, the number of English Masses is declining. Probably one of the reasons why they’re retranslating it.
Click to expand...
Actually that is not true. As a percentage of population, the number of Catholics in the United States is decreasing. As a raw number, the number of catholics is increasing by approximately 1.5% per anum.

The number of people attending mass less than weekly decreased through the 70/80s and is now on the rise again, with people born 1980 or later coming in just behind people born before 1943-1962 in terms of mass attendence (granted, those born before 1943 put both groups to shame, but that’s also because that age group is ALL retired… strangely enough, that age group also reports the highest percentage of attendence at daily mass).

In other words, the idea that Catholics are disappearing from the United States is untrue. The idea that mass attendence is in freefall was true until about 10 years ago when the trend began to reverse.

So please, don’t use the old atheist myth that Cathocism is fading from society on us, especially those of us who participate vehemently in the apologist section enough to know that the church is bigger than it has ever been and religious zeal is on the upswing.
 
And how much of that growth in the United States is due to migration trends from Latin America?
 
Te_Deum said:
And how much of that growth in the United States is due to migration trends from Latin America?
Click to expand...
🤷 I don’t consider a difference in Catholics, just as I don’t consider “translations” to be sales pitches for getting more congregants (and if that’s our attitude regarding the liturgy, then God damn us for profaning the mass as nothing more than a sales pitch).

Basically, I accept that the motivation for the new translation is as stated: making a more accurate literal translation from the OF latin rite. I don’t need to inject some sort of conspiracy theory about priests trying to use the mass as an advertisement to get people into the pews.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top