I’m not sure where you see that you approached it with a great deal of objectivity. You quoted several documents regarding Eucharistic processions, and seemed to suggest that because those documents indicated circumstances where “It is fitting…” for a procession to occur, that it could not occur in any other way. That is an improper method of interpretation. You also ignored all of the sections in the documents that allow flexibility to adhere to local custom /…/
Finally, you went on, at length, regarding the music choices for the evening, including a rather bland parsing of “Come As You Are” - and I say bland, because if you can’t see how that song is totally appropriate for laying yourself bare in front of Jesus as He is present with us, then your interpretative skills are truly lacking. Truthfully, I can’t imagine a message that is more fitting for meeting Jesus, and certainly one that has to be better conveyed to our youth
/…/
This is it - YOU feel there was a better way to carry out a Eucharistic procession. YOU believe it should have been done differently, and that YOUR way would have been better
Again, I’ll say - I was there. It was an incredibly powerful experience. Maybe instead of criticizing, we can just rejoice in the fact that 25,000 youth gathered together to worship and give glory to God
There was one point you left out – it was presided by a Bishop. Not only did you have the privilege of being with a successor of the apostles, a Bishop has even broader latitude when it comes to liturgical rubrics
The Rite for Worship of the Eucharist Outside of Mass is so well suited for WYD as it has such breadth of flexibility
What you experienced was irreplaceable. I’m very glad you had this superb blessing. It’s something you will carry with you all your life, actually – and it’s also something for you to share with less fortunate people who don’t have the opportunity to assist at such epic moments in the Church’s history. You’ve seen something extraordinary
It’s an incredible and a singular experience of the incredible diversity within the Universal Church and its many varied expressions…each to be cherished for how the Lord uses it to touch His people and be in their midst
In the course of my years of priesthood, aspects of my work took me around the globe
I was in abbeys of the Solesmes Congregation – and, as OraLabora has already said, they know uniquely how to do Gregorian chant because they are the great repository of it. As
Sacrosanctum Concilium says, it has pride of place. And one certainly sees it enjoys pride of place when in one of the abbeys of Solesmes or, indeed, with the Sistine Choir or one of the other great Cathedral Choirs in Europe…but I certainly don’t expect to encounter it or try to replicate it in a rural parish anymore than I expect the rural parish to execute the Liturgy of the Hours comparable to the monks of Monte Cassino – if indeed they attempt the Liturgy of the Hours at all
And there is so much beyond Gregorian chant
I’ve been in one moment in an abbey of Solesmes and then right thereafter in a Trappist abbey where the liturgy was as spartan, austere, and ascetic as the monastic life and their rustic setting
I’ve been with hermits where the emphasis was on solitude and the liturgy and prayer life reflected that – as well as with communities of the new ecclesial movements that live community so intensely that I retreated to the garden just to cherish alone time since my guest accommodation was a curtained off bed in a dormitory. Their liturgies were a vibrant contemporary experience of guitars and other instruments that worked wonderfully well with the members of the community of Consecrated as well as their various lay associates
From such an experience, I’ve then found myself in monasteries occupied by members of royal families in centuries past with opulent art treasures on a breath-taking scale
And then there is the dynamic prayer with the charismatics
Of course, I lived my life surrounded by the great pipe organs of Europe and I always cherish them – even as I ministered in small chapels and oratories that relied on keyboards or other very modest instruments but that made music to the Lord ever so wonderfully…at least to the soul, if not to the ear
But I think, above all, I shall never forget the Africans and my time with them…with their music, with the drums, with the liturgical dance. For a professor of liturgy, that experience of liturgy far and away surpassed the
Vetus Ordo Masses I had attended decades long past and then, as a priest, had offered, or the magnificence of the pontificated liturgies…or, yes, OraLabora, I must tell you even Solesmes. The memories of those African inculturated liturgies
I remember one of my African seminarians, a bit nostalgic, coming to see me and saying “The organ is pretty enough…but when I hear the drums, it is entirely different.” I looked at him and said…“Yes, I experienced that just enough to have an appreciation for how true it certainly must be for you”
Starting with the incomparable gift of the liturgical movement that gave us reform and renewal. From the
Vetus Ordo to the
Novus Ordo…and the liturgies as they are to be experienced in Europe, Africa, Asia, the Islands, and America. And of course, I could write so much about the East and my experiences with the
sui juris Churches
From liturgies with the monks…Benedictine, Cistercian, Trappist and even the new communities of the Beatitudes and the Jerusalem Community…the canons regular…the friars…the clerical congregations and missionary congregations that arose after Saint Ignatius…the societies of apostolic life and the secular institutes – each with their own spirituality and their own ways of offering the liturgy. To experience the diversity within the Church is an incredible gift
