Interesting essay about veiling and Latin

[CradleRC58]

I think the answer to that may be that Fr was talking about pre VII times. Mass times were earlier in the morning. Unlike after Pope St JPII’s indult and Pope BXVI’s Summorum Pontificum. If the old midnight fast guidelines were still in effect today, our EF Masses would surely be early in the morning rather than in the afternoon as in a lot of diocesan parishes today.

He also mentioned that Communions were fewer in those days. One could eat breakfast before Mass and just do a Spiritual Communion.

Not that often, but sometimes I just do a Spiritual Communion at my parish EF, followed by the Sorrowful Mysteries using the meditations/prayers of the Eucharistic Rosary found in at least two of Fr Lasance’s prayed books.

 

[JulianN]

Nobody complained about the Eucharistic fast from midnight; nobody complained about Communion on the tongue or about the Latin. In fact, we were proud of the Latin we knew. Non-Catholics marveled at the piety and the reverence of the congregation and the head-coverings of the women.

He clearly didn’t know all the people I knew during the ‘glory days.’ Believe me, no one was marveling at the piety of the somnolent congregation nor the hats women wore to church. Because women wore hats everywhere – and gloves. One did not go shopping downtown without hat and gloves.

 

[goout]

The idolization of pious customs has led to as much apostasy as idolization of our rotten popular culture.
Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

The idolization of pious customs has led to as much apostasy as idolization of our rotten popular culture.
Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

Hmmm - - in which environment would I rather raise children? Hmmm, pious customs vs. rotten popular culture…hmmm …tough one…

 

[goout]

goout:

The idolization of pious customs has led to as much apostasy as idolization of our rotten popular culture.
Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

Hmmm - - in which environment would I rather raise children? Hmmm, pious customs vs. rotten popular culture…hmmm …tough one…

False dichotomy

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

But it’s what we have now. A rotten popular culture. It permeates everywhere and everything.

And we used to have a culture of pious customs (at least to some degree). Some people may have idolized them, some may wish we still had them more widespread. But I think they used to be more widespread than they are now, and I think they used to be a part of Catholic culture. Not sure if they are anymore - - at least not for most Catholics.

 

[PetraG]

I think this was all predicted when the Mass was taken out of Greek and replaced with the vulgar Latin, LOL.

Seriously, I’m of the opinion that most of what sent our culture into a nose dive was (a) two World Wars (and their brutal attacks on the citizenry, not to mention their indiscriminate and inglorious mechanical decimation of so many young men in the flower of their youth) and (b) the idea that every individual’s opinion on what is and is not culturally significant is equally valuable. Well, why learn what the Greeks or the Romans or Shakespeare or the Doctors of the Church or anybody else ever wrote or said or did, if my opinion is the equal to theirs?

Let us remember, too, that there was a time when “culture” wasn’t presumed to be for all, but for relatively few.

That doesn’t mean I’m utterly against individualism or the common touch or being willing to learn from anybody or any of the rest, but when you get rid of the starch and start treating everyone with a tongue as if they all really do have something well-considered to say, there are going to be both up sides and down sides to it.

As for the veiling piece, good grief, using Latin and wearing a veil is not a panacea for everything that ails the world. One of the reasons there is this perception of how great things were, after all, is that a great deal of brutality and evil against vulnerable persons that took place even within the Church herself was “veiled.” Knowing what some people did to little children that was hidden in order to make the Church seem perfectly pious and holy makes our time seem less innocent, but we have to be both “shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matt. 10:16) That means confronting some unpleasant truths, but it beats the alternative. (A world free of nasty and brutish things and people is not one of those alternatives…this is a vale of tears, and that isn’t ever going to change entirely.)

Hearing the Mass said in Latin and veiling are religious practices that some people find very edifying. By all means, those ought to be made known and available. That doesn’t mean they are ever going to be or ever ought to be the universally enforced norm. It isn’t going to happen and there is poor evidence that it even should.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

So, when someone chooses pious customs, they are into idolatry?

 

[Loud-living-dogma]

Seriously, I’m of the opinion that most of what sent our culture into a nose dive was (a) two World Wars (and their brutal attacks on the citizenry, not to mention their indiscriminate and inglorious mechanical decimation of so many young men in the flower of their youth) and (b) the idea that every individual’s opinion on what is and is not culturally significant is equally valuable. Well, why learn what the Greeks or the Romans or Shakespeare or the Doctors of the Church or anybody else ever wrote or said or did, if my opinion is the equal to theirs?

Let us remember, too, that there was a time when “culture” wasn’t presumed to be for all, but for relatively few.

As for the veiling piece, good grief, using Latin and wearing a veil is not a panacea for everything that ails the world. One of the reasons there is this perception of how great things were, after all, is that a great deal of brutality and evil against vulnerable persons that took place even within the Church herself was “veiled.” Knowing what some people did to little children that was hidden in order to make the Church seem perfectly pious and holy makes our time seem less innocent, but we have to be both “shrewd as serpents and simple as doves.” (Matt. 10:16) That means confronting some unpleasant truths, but it beats the alternative. (A world free of nasty and brutish things and people is not one of those alternatives…this is a vale of tears, and that isn’t ever going to change entirely.)

Oh, of course. The pre-Vatican II Church was just elitism, starch, brutality, and child abuse. Thanks for clearing that up!
Good thing we now have relativism in its various forms to fix all those problems, and everything is so much better.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

He clearly didn’t know all the people I knew during the ‘glory days.’ Believe me, no one was marveling at the piety of the somnolent congregation nor the hats women wore to church. Because women wore hats everywhere – and gloves. One did not go shopping downtown without hat and gloves.

I think he is talking about the veils women were wearing. True a lot of women were still wearing hats and gloves in the 50’s and 60’s but by the 60’s it was going out of style. The veils continued for a little longer into the early 70’s.

He was right, though, growing up Catholic then was different. It was something you lived every day. There were many more Catholic schools, so you were with Catholic friends and families so much more than we are today. There was much more community at that time.

 

[Sarcelle]

Pious customs do not necessarily mean the existence of genuine faith.

It is possible to have all the bells and whistles and yet miss the main point of Christianity.

Just because people do not go to TLM or wear veils does not mean they are part of the rotten secular culture.

Those aren’t the only two options.

 

[goout]

goout:

Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

So, when someone chooses pious customs, they are into idolatry?

Where did you get that idea? Did you intent to respond to a different poster?

 

[JulianN]

I was around during that time period – some women did wear mantillas because they were convenient and didn’t mess up your hair. Most women wore hats.

Growing up in any denomination was different than it is now. Society was much more arranged around local community, and churches in particular.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

The idolization of pious customs has led to as much apostasy as idolization of our rotten popular culture.
Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

Sorry, I thought this was your quote. ? Maybe I grabbed it from the wrong person. I have accidentally done that before.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I was around during that time period – some women did wear mantillas because they were convenient and didn’t mess up your hair. Most women wore hats.

I love hats. I loved the whole hats and gloves thing. I remember hats and veils both being worn. My mother recently passed away and I, her only daughter, was going through her box of keepsakes and found her veil she wore to Mass so many years ago. I remember in the early 70’s when we stopped wearing them and it really meant something to see she kept hers all these years.

God bless

 

[Mary888]

To quote the author " Latin is a veil. It is a language for worship. We do not speak the common tongue to worship the heavenly God. We rather sing with the cherubim and seraphim. "

Does that mean they all speak Latin in Heaven ?

Cardinal Arinze explains it all in a way even the EF and the NO fans can understand without being conflicted:

“The New Mass can be sung in Latin. The whole thing! And even the homily. If the priest knows Latin” (Cardinal Arinze from the video). He says, and this stands as common sense to me, that people are angry at today’s Mass because of certain priests’ creativity. So the call for a Latin Mass is just a cry of people who are sick at having to face these egotistical manifestations of certain priests. So they want “the good ol’ Mass” which in fact is just a Mass without any innovations.

 

[goout]

goout:

The idolization of pious customs has led to as much apostasy as idolization of our rotten popular culture.
Pious customs are good and can help lead to holiness. Idolatry is not good.

Sorry, I thought this was your quote. ? Maybe I grabbed it from the wrong person. I have accidentally done that before.

No, that’s me.
You responded thus:
"MagdalenaRita:

So, when someone chooses pious customs, they are into idolatry?

Not sure where your response comes from.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I’m sorry I guess I misunderstood your post. I thought you were saying pious customs can be idolized as in making them an idol and that this has led to apostasy.??

 

[PetraG]

Oh, of course. The pre-Vatican II Church was just elitism, starch, brutality, and child abuse. Thanks for clearing that up!
Good thing we now have relativism in its various forms to fix all those problems, and everything is so much better.

Whoa. Whoa. Just whoa.

I never made an accusation that was anything like the pre-Vatican II Church was “just elitism, starch, brutality, and child abuse.” That is a total misrepresentation of the admission that we now know how many unpleasant truths were covered up. When you don’t know better, you can only do so much. When you know better, though, you have to do better.

I said that there was veiling of information that was contrary to a perfect self-image, and we all know that was the truth, not just in the Church but across the society. We know that young women who got pregnant were sent off in secret, and we know the harm done by all the other things that people couldn’t or wouldn’t talk about.

When the sexual abuse crisis in the Church became known, I was not really surprised. Was that because I had a low view of the Church? No! It was because I knew that mothers and grandmothers and aunts had failed to protect their children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews from sexual predators because they didn’t want the shame that would come if the perpetrators were confronted and brought to justice. If your mom and your grandma would fail you because they wanted to deny the problem in your own family, why on earth would we think that bishops could not fall to the same kind of wishful thinking about the chances that offenses that were known could just be forgiven and forgotten and hoped to have been isolated incidents that would never happen again?

Honestly, I think bishops hid this stuff for the same reason that mothers did: they could not imagine how the good-seeming men they knew could ever do such a thing. They couldn’t comprehend that this horrible predatory behavior was a deep-seated tendency in someone who otherwise seemed like a good person. They did not comprehend that people who did things like this simply had to be kept away from children altogether and forever thereafter, that repentance and a purpose of amendment was not sufficient. They really truly wanted to believe that the acts they knew about were aberrations or misunderstandings or bad judgment and would never happen again.

That doesn’t mean there is a thing wrong with literal veiling. It does mean there is a lot wrong with wishful thinking that denies unpleasant truths, preferring instead simplistic pictures of an idyllic past that we all know now never existed.

 

[GospelOfMatthew]

Agreed with this, also Jesus is getting at the heart of this with Matthew 6:5. Objectively speaking, there is nothing wrong with veils or these customs but the question is if they are done out of respect or dignity or getting closer to God as opposed to trying to “show off” your holiness to others.

After all, we are called to humility and a veil can be a most humble thing, but it can also be a gateway to pridefulness