Lets talk ad orientem

[stpurl]

Well, I think most of us hate ‘boredom’ but I also think that most of us take responsibility for it. If we are ‘bored’ with Latin at Mass because “we don’t understand it”, yet we are not bored with algebra at school because, “I don’t understand it, but if I practice and work hard I will, even if I almost never will use it in my real life”, then there is something deeper rooted than being "bored with Latin because we don’t understand it’.

A lot of English speaking people are ‘bored with Mass’ even though it is perfectly understandable and full of excitement. So, you aren’t bored with that Mass, but they are. What would you tell them?

P.s. I’m a girl, but that doesn’t mean I love boredom. And I loved that Mass you were bored with. So. . .as somebody pointed out, I think AlbMagno, this is a ‘he said-she said anecdotal exchange’ in so far as what YOU experienced as one thing, I experienced as the polar opposite.

It’s a puzzlement.

 

[OraLabora]

A lot of English speaking people are ‘bored with Mass’ even though it is perfectly understandable and full of excitement. So, you aren’t bored with that Mass, but they are. What would you tell them?

Well, I rarely attend Mass in English (hint: I live in Québec).

I find that most people who are at Mass these days, are at Mass because they want to be at Mass. The Quiet Revolution in Quebec pretty much emptied the churches of those who were just going through the motions. Nobody looks bored, most people are following, listening, responding.

Maybe listening to someone drone on inaudibly in a language you don’t understand is “contemplative” for you. It doesn’t work for me, and 2147 bishops thought is wasn’t so great either, hence “full active participation” was one of the goals of the reform.

I get plenty of contemplation from a slow, meditative chanting of the Liturgy of the Hours and lectio divina. At Mass, I like having a role in the liturgy. It reinforces the “priesthood of all believers” and a sense of communion, even when someone chants the responses off-key like happened yesterday at Mass.

The “narrative” that is being peddled is the opinion of 2147 bishops; “defective” is perhaps the wrong word, certainly the Sacrifice itself can never be “defective”, but liturgy can always be improved and made more relevant to the times. The reason the Vatican II changes weren’t so “organic” was because there was no change, but only accretions, for nearly 500 years. Eventually, the missal got so weighted down by minutiae, as our abbot says it became impossible for the Mass to be prayer for the celebrant. The reforms restored a noble simplicity, as was the goal. I agree fully that sometimes the “noble” part of that statement is lacking. But that’s not the OF’s fault, any more than it was the Tridentine Mass’ fault when a priest sped-read it in 20 minutes flat while mumbling. Reverence is an attitude, not a liturgy.

For those that prefer the EF style of worship… it is now easier to find an EF Mass, or Mass in a religious community which, if not EF, is reverent and beautiful. For those of us who prefer the OF, many of us like it just the way it is, structurally, even if we’d like to see more attention paid to the “noble” part.

 

[stpurl]

I rather got that you’re in Quebec. OK, well then, you don’t feel that perhaps this boredom of yours may be related to other factors? In my youth I lived in Vermont and visited Montreal often and I remember in the 1960s and also later some pretty violent outbreaks, a lot of people getting upset over wanting the whole province to be either French-speaking or English speaking, etc. The US wasn’t alone with student riots and even ‘secession’ type murmurings.

I do believe that France, and Quebec, and the Maritime provinces especially, were heavily affected by a lot of socioeconomic and political furors and that, since the Catholic/French presence was so tied in, with the upheavals of Vatican 2 and a kind of militant secularism in place, your area received (much as the Northeast US and places like Chicago, as well as California and the Pacific Coast), severely strong doses of both anti-clericalism/anti-Catholicism as well as nationalism/individualism. Look at Ireland recently; something of the same sort went on there. An area which was heavily Catholic with strong Catholic traditions and the people united by those, but otherwise those same people comprised of several different factions, suddenly had their Catholic identity and unity taken away and thus by that imposition of "vernacular’ were pretty much forced into conflict. Those who wished to continue with ‘tradition’ were stifled and told to 'get with the ‘new’ program, which had identified itself with progression and liberalism.

So deep down you probably experienced, without being aware of it, an impression/indoctrination/ that ‘Latin/bad, new stuff good’.

Had you gone the ‘other way’ (and many did and do), you’d have the tendency to find the new stuff ‘lesser’, if not with positive needs for rectification in some areas.

So I’m saying we are both somewhat biased --I recognize that and i think you do too. That means we need to be extra careful to recognize the humanity of the other person and to be respectful, but also since obviously we are definitely at odds with what we think is truth, right, and just, as well as how we ‘feel’ about practices, we also need to recognize that our feelings alone don’t make something right.

I still feel my position is both right, and more liberal in that I say, "let’s have both, let’s give equal chances, let’s open up the richness of the ages, devotions, etc., not to ‘go back’ but to go forward with people having ‘more’. . .

 

[OraLabora]

So deep down you probably experienced, without being aware of it, an impression/indoctrination/ that ‘Latin/bad, new stuff good’.

You know I kind of resent your notion that you think you know where my attitudes come from. “Latin/bad, new stuff good” couldn’t be further from the truth. I’ve been singing in Latin for the OF Mass in a Gregorian schola for the past 17 years, I sing Gregorian chant with the monks of the abbey twice a week, and I chant the Liturgy of the Hours in Latin, every single day. I’ve attended many a private and public Latin OF Mass, and have read, aloud, the Epistle for a few of them, in Latin.

I believe that the traditions of the Church, including Latin and Gregorian chant can be admirably applied to the reformed liturgy.

In fact one reason I joined the schola was to help “evangelize” the faithful that Latin does not equal bad, and that we have thrown out the baby with the bathwater.

We stick to the OF Mass because we want it to become more mainstream, not restricted to an EF that is the privilege of a tiny minority.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Do you realize that what you have at your abbey is lacking in most parishes and that is why so many, usually younger, Catholics are wanting to return to the the EF, because it is hard to find in a typical parish the kind of reverence you experience at your OF? It is slowly returning but it is a very steep uphill climb.

 

[OraLabora]

Do you realize that what you have at your abbey is lacking in most parishes and that is why so many, usually younger, Catholics are wanting to return to the the EF, because it is hard to find in a typical parish the kind of reverence you experience at your OF? It is slowly returning but it is a steep uphill climb.

Of course I realize that. It’s why I sing in a schola: to be part of that uphill climb of putting the “noble” back in “noble simplicity”. And that’s my big beef with these sorts of threads: if people aren’t happy with the current state of affairs, step up to the plate and do something about it. I have. For 17 years. I learned Gregorian chant from scratch, and slowly improved my skills.

A wholesale retreat to the EF is not the answer. Do you honestly think, if a priest is disobedient to the rubrics in the OF, he suddenly will become a model of perfection in the EF? If people think that, I think I’d like some of what they are smoking… the reason the EF is more reverent isn’t because it’s the EF. It’s because today, the EF is in the hands of dedicated aficionados. Put the OF in the same caring hands, and you get what happens at our abbey and many other abbeys around the world. Put the EF in the hands of clergy who could care less, and the EF will degrade in nobility. There are plenty of pre-Vatican II anecdotes to confirm that, such as my monk friend who, when as altar server in his youth, would be ending the chanting of the Sanctus while the priest had already sped forward and completed the consecration; and that wasn’t with EP II either, it was with the Roman Canon. Was that noble? Was that reverent? No, and no. Was it the fault of the Mass? No, but, partly the way it was structured (silent canon) and the fact that the laity’s role was restricted to the altar servers, probably didn’t discourage it. While you can certainly make abuses in the OF, you probably couldn’t pull off that abuse today.

In fact I dare say that the wider availability of the EF has made it harder to improve the OF, people just say “if you don’t like our Mass, go to the EF”.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I think it is great that you have been given the opportunity to do all that. It is definitely a blessing to you from God. Unfortunately not everyone has that opportunity and ability. Attempts to improve things many times will hit brick walls, so to just tell people to get involved isn’t the answer either.

Actually we do have a priest who visits and says Mass very speedily. Moving from one thing to another in quick seconds. He is very good but fast.

Perhaps pray for those of us who hunger for the reverence and beauty to return to our Masses.

 

[OddBird]

Except that, at this point in the Mass, only bread and wine is on the altar

This is probably a stupid question, and I hope I am not opening a can of worms, but isn’t the altar Christ too ?

 

[CilladeRoma]

@OraLabora didn’t have an opportunity- he made one.

He learned chant on his own, for his own personal use, then took it out with some like minded people to his diocese.

I would have a lot more respect and patience with those who cry for “more reverence & beauty” if they would actually do something about it, even if it is just being an example in your own parish, instead of complaining and wringing their hands because it’s too hard.

 

[PetraG]

Wait till the generation who remembers the “old days” are gone; at that point, this particular sensitivity (and resistance to reversion) will be gone, too. Maybe the generations who follow us will “sing a new church into being” …and do it in Latin. Maybe not. Who knows…

I expect that the Church will eventually settle into a variety of usages. I hope that this doesn’t settle into mutual low regard concerning the implied quality of devotion in those who employ one usage rather another (provided the Mass is offered in a reverent way, of course).

After all, if there is a best way to offer the Mass but the primary result of offering the Mass in the best way is to inflate the participants with spiritual pride because they habitually compare themselves very favorably to other Christians, that pretty not only erases the advantage of having access to a more reverent and elevated liturgy but even makes it into a near occasion of sin, doesn’t it? This is not what most pastors have in mind when they encourage the faithful to greater reverence and devotion!!!

At any rate, be careful how you word what you are saying. It can come off sounded a lot like “we cannot wait until the day when all you old geezers are dead,” and that is not a very charitable thing to say.

 

[OraLabora]

, instead of complaining and wringing their hands because it’s too hard.

Exactly. Our schola had many doors slammed in its face over the years; we’ve been kicked out of a parish that had been our home base because “the collections were smaller at the Mass we sang at”.

Like anything that’s hard in life, perseverance is key. We now have much more acceptance; we even have a couple of “groupies” who make sure on the Sundays we sing, they come to “our” Mass, and the archbishop makes us feel most welcome to sing at the cathedral. He recently even allowed us to make a recording in his private (and very beautiful) chapel. We still have parishes that won’t show us the time of day, but as it says in the Bible, we dust off our sandals and move on.

I would recommend to anyone wanting to get started, get a group together of like-minded people and start learning and chanting for yourselves. Lots of YouTube resources out there to help. Find ways to make yourselves known. Recitals if you have to. Knock on parish doors until you find one willing to give you a try. Start easy with pieces you can manage, but do them really well. Eventually a door will open. Don’t saturate. We sing at a different parish every month. We are then seen as a special occasion or special treat. Don’t grind people down, feed them in baby doses that they can manage. We have a few parishes we visit almost every year, some we visit rarely. We aren’t pushy, just perseverant.

 

[Mi_Rose]

I checked with my kids. They are in their thirties and forties. They like the Ordinary Form. They like the 70s hymns they grew up with so your wait may be longer than you think.

 

[MagdalenaRita]

I would have more respect and patience with those who cry for “more reverence & beauty” if they would actually do something about it,

I think that is exactly what people are trying to do, is get involved, and be an example and change things. I am sure you realize and can tell just by the discussions here at CAF that some people do not want that return to reverence, even if it is in the OF. So when people do try to get involved they run up against a lot of resistance, so many are doing the same thing; studying on their own, Latin, chant, catechism…and all they can.

But just saying to people get involved isn’t the answer, though it certainly helps. How, though, do you say this to the very elderly, the disabled homebound, mothers at home with young kids, those who work long hours.

I couldn’t agree more, getting involved is very important along with being an example, though we also need to add prayer, penance, acts of reparation and instructing those who lack understanding.

God bless

 

[MagdalenaRita]

Wait till the generation who remembers the “old days” are gone; at that point, this particular sensitivity (and resistance to reversion) will be gone, too. Maybe the generations who follow us will “sing a new church into being” …and do it in Latin

Only in your dreams.

It could happen. A Pope deciding all priests of a certain age and younger, plus all new priests coming in learn Latin and learn how to say both forms of the Mass.

People were surprised when Pope Benedict XVI issued SP.

 

[snarflemike]

I would have a lot more respect and patience with those who cry for “more reverence & beauty” if they would actually do something about it, even if it is just being an example in your own parish

A lot are trying, but if you have an entrenched (usually older) pastor who’s opposed, you’re dead in the water. If you have an entrenched (usually older) parish music team, you’ve got a hard road ahead. We have a friend who is an excellent Church musician who was booted from more than one Church job for the simple reason that he introduced sung Propers (in English). He finally found his perfect position at a church doing excellent (yes, reverent and beautiful) liturgy.

Which is not to say that people shouldn’t try. Make the effort and let God produce the results.

 

[snarflemike]

I checked with my kids. They are in their thirties and forties. They like the Ordinary Form. They like the 70s hymns they grew up with so your wait may be longer than you think.

Counter anecdote. My kids are in their 20s and they roll their eyes at “grandma’s” church music. They have no objection to a well-celebrated Ordinary Form (nor do their parents).

 

[goout]

It would help if some of this music was transcribed into standard musical notation.

And I know…the answer is that it’s not that hard to learn. But that’s not the point.
The point is that it’s one more thing to learn, and in our choir it ain’t happening.
Everyone of us are laypeople and at the edge of time and capacity, and learning new musical notation just isn’t going to happen where we are. And we have a pretty agile choir.
And the director has way too many thing on his plate. We learn two or three new pieces for every new liturgical season, and that can take several weeks in a large choir of laypeople.

There are many people thirsting for ancient music, and the Church ought to make this approachable if we want this to increase.
We do Pange Lingua on Holy Thursday every year, and it’s simply written in musical notation we can all read. …

 

[stpurl]

And just how exactly do you know that those ‘complaining’ aren’t doing something, haven’t tried for years, haven’t volunteered time, money, etc., and haven’t been shot down, disregarded, criticized etc but are still trying???

 

[OraLabora]

It would help if some of this music was transcribed into standard musical notation.

You can probably find some out there. I’ve seen some in the song book our Conference of Bishops puts out; I’ve also seen a Paroissien Romain (local adaptation of the Liber Usualis) in modern notation. Our choir uses square notes; we were trained on square notes and I find them easier to read myself, the 4 bar staff spreads the notes out a bit making the score easier to resolve on these 61 y.o. eyes. Probably the fact that I never really learned modern notation made it easier for me to adapt to square notes.

 

[Minks]

Sacrosanctum Concilium, which you noted due to a link you have read.

I am not focusing on people on either side of this issue - most seem to have never read it, or any of the other documents.

Lol! Nice try, but there was no vote for people in the pews, and I didn’t say a majority. I said many.
Your taking umbrage with my use of the word “many” is interesting. Since we in the pews had no vote, no one knows what the total yes and no tallies would have been.

In reference to Post 71, you seem to think nearly everyone wanted the changes, based upon the people you knew then, but how wide was your sphere of Catholics?

Are you forgetting the “go along to get along” code that guided people of that era in most circumstances? Especially Catholics? Unlike today, when Catholics question picayune things to pieces, it was part of Catholic DNA to obey whatever the Church told us. Social mores were far different then than they are today. Most people tended to put their best foot forward so as not to rock the boat or be thought unaccommodating.

Lol! When Catholic women could ditch headgear, gloves went into the back of a drawer, it wasn’t long until sheer hose were history, and with dressed-down gals, the guys didn’t need to spiff up, either. Just look around Church on any Sunday. “As goes the Catholic Church, so goes the world,” indeed!

Yes, the Church—as it was known then—was dismantled. Yes, the Catholic experience—as it was known then—was the Catholic experience. It can never be retrieved. It was slightly different, of course, from person to person, and from area to area, but it was generally the same.

I was schooled by Benedictine nuns in 1st & 2nd grades, then St Joseph nuns. We were taught that Satan would try to tear down our Church from within, and that we must be ever-vigilant, to the point of dying for our faith. We learned about the saints who died and were taught to be equally protective about changes.

Remember, the world had been recently in a horrible war. Underground bomb shelters were common in case of attack by another country. Children went through classroom drills for possible bomb attacks. Some radicals had threatened to destroy us “from within.” We had heard that communists/socialists had permeated our seminaries. Many of us were on guard for our faith.

Maybe those of us who were traumatized by the Mass changes were more serious and had believed that we must be prepared to die rather than allow anything to destroy our church. When Christ’s very words were changed, as, initially, “many” had been changed to “all,” that certainly seemed like someone was trying to destroy our Church.

As Catholics we should be able to converse without scorn or ridicule from our sisters and brothers. Teasing? Sometimes, but scorn, never. I’ve never held animosity toward anyone regarding the changes. I did feel betrayed and fearful. We all need to be kinder and gentler toward each other.

My current Church is blessed to have a priest who offers a beautiful OF Mass. I wish everyone could attend his Mass and know the deep sense of peace that comes to us who have that privilege.