"Kneel, sit ot stand?" A parishioner seeing different practices, asks a priest which should be done

[Tis_Bearself]

I grew up in the 60s and 70s. We had a Charismatic group at our church. There were some friction between the charismatics and the non-charismatics at the parish. Basically the non-charismatics felt that charismatic elements were being put into the regular Sunday Mass and they didn’t like it. I believe a lot of the charismatics ended up going to another parish that was more progressive. By the 80s I was off to college so I wasn’t keeping in touch with the parish doings any more.

 

[JimG]

I’ve always wondered why the introduction to a Pauline epistle reading, was not simply “Dearly Beloved,” instead of “brothers and sisters” or “sisters and brothers,” which is something St. Paul probably never said.

 

[otjm]

I still find it interesting that people argue against following the rubrics.

And I find it interesting that people who have no training presume that all rubrics are absolute.

I said that I recognize that it doesn’t change the substance of the words. However, the GIRM does not say “use one of these two, or just make up something that you like here.”

I still find it interesting that people argue against following the rubrics.

Okay, please reference the specific paragraph in the GIRM.

 

[goout]

goout:

Such a delicate balance to be had between obedience, respect, curiosity, inventiveness, self expression.
I do think of Jesus’s words:

Do this…

And yet. what we actually “do” at Eucharist does not precisely match the words of any of the four institution narratives handed on by Matthew, Mark, Luke as well as Paul in First Corinthians…and this latter being older in terms of a written account than Matthew who was an eyewitness…nor do the gestures and actions of Jesus occur in the liturgy in the manner that He Himself did them at the Eucharist’s institution. The Church defined how what it received from the Lord would be executed liturgically by its ministers.

“Well ordered and obedient worship” are not expressions of how I would articulate the action of the liturgically assembly or my role as Presider. That sounds much too mechanistic or automaton-like.

I’m not sure what the issue is with good order and obedience. Especially in the context I presented them, which I thought was well rounded and hinted at nothing like automation. I’m very puzzled how those connotations were gleaned from what I said.

I’m not going any further with this because I know where it leads.

 

[Phemie]

Right, wrong, or indifferent, many if not most of US Catholics tend toward the Germanic approach to liturgy; in the current topic, not only were the changes within the GIRM introduced with little or no explanation, but additionally, there seems to have been no reflection in particular that the procedure(s) for reception of Communion had any logical reason.

Taken literally (a Germanic approach) they were to provide some uniformity of procession, and that procession did not end with individual reception of Communion, but was to reflect a response different from the prior way, removing it from an individual’s reception to a communal recognition that “everyone else” behind us was still in this procession - so we all remained standing.

What I found amusing is that, regarding the posture at Communion, the rubrics in the universal 2002 GIRM were exactly the same as in 1975 GIRM. But it seems that in the US nobody realized that because they had received the 1975 GIRM with the US adaptations. And how many people back then even knew there was a such a thing as the GIRM?

The 1975 universal GIRM called for standing from after the Consecration until the end of Mass, just as it did in the 2000 or 2002 universal GIRM. But for the most part people weren’t told that and continued doing what they had done before 1975. In Canada, the 1975 GIRM was published without adaptations, except for the use of the Apostles’ Creed at any time. Where posture was concerned, what you did depended on which parish you were in. In that regard not much has changed. Depending on the parish you might kneel between the end of the Epiclesis and the beginning of the Mysterium Fidei, or immediately after the Sanctus until the beginning of the Mysterium Fidei, or immediately after the Sanctus until after the Amen. In some you knelt before Communion and in some you didn’t. But in every parish most knelt upon return from Communion regardless of the GIRM. Nothing much has changed, although in some dioceses the Bishop has decreed what posture he wants and when during the Eucharistic Prayer.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

GIRM means, “General Instruction of the Roman Missal”, not the “Absolute” Instruction of the Roman Missal.

People I’ve met got bent out of shape when they came on retreat at a monastery run by a religious order, because they did things a little different than what was done in their home parish. They actually left the retreat rather than attend the closing Mass on Sunday, because of this. How rude and the retreat master seemed a little hurt.
They had no clue that the religious order was allowed by the Vatican, to celebrate Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours according to their own approved rubric.