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Walking_Home
Guest
You know Tantum—what you stated above–I believe is what bugs many people. That the Church has provided and we have access to such documents. That we can now have the real information vs. the false “spirit of Vat. II” info. We have access to documents like RS 2004 and others to guide us in repelling the false “spirit”.
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ComradeAndrei
Guest
The Law is always compassionate in matters of necessity. I recall reading the story of a saint who had Mass said in her room because she was too sick to venture out. Masses were said in homes in England during their protestant revolt because a priest would be executed if found.
There are legitimate reasons for having Mass said in private quarters, but the norm is to have Mass in a church, oratory or chapel set up for that purpose. When you have priests that want to have Mass in a home because “that’s what they did in the Early Church…” or a common table in a refrectory because “we need to emphasize the meal aspect of the Mass…” then we have problems.
And yes, these things do happen with some regularity. Not so much anymore, nor all over the place but I have eyewitnesses for an example of the first instance and documentation for the second.
One shouldn’t, but you learn what can be trusted and what cannot be. That major abuses happen is really not in question, although I certainly don’t buy everything on traditio.
Amen. I have a copy of the Vatican II documents printed in 1966 with a price of 95c so it was available at a popular level to some degree but one wonders what sort of readership really grasped as such things. I would bet that most folks just trusted what they were told Vatican II said as opposed to reading it.
The modernists turned the “oppresive” relationship of priest to people into their own tool. Everyone was used to asking Father or Sister any Church question they had. So when Fr. Freelove comes in saying that Vatican II “said” that we need to ditch Latin and you can “come in as you are”-who was going to question?
The filial relationship between the laity and the priests/religious was seriously harmed by this abuse of trust. The only thing wrong with the “pre-Vatican II” attitute was that when it was perverted, the laity had no defense.
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netmilsmom
Guest
D’Nile is also a river in Egypt.This is why I find it amusing as well. Anyway, I don’t think we need to get all upset over these things. No one is going to take away our mass. Our Church is too strong to be taken in by such things. I have faith.
For some, liturgical committees have already taken it away. With even a question of whether or not it’s licit.
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mnowlin1
Guest
Tantum,
I had an almost exact experience at my Catholic college…although in a daily afternoon mass setting. It made me feel empowered too and made it “my mass”. It wasn’t until I went from judaism to evangelicanism and now(thank God) home to realize that all of this need for community and personal worship and thumbing my nose at tradition was the real result all of this innovation and poor catechetical teaching and learning.
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mnowlin1
Guest
I forgot to mention that I too have been involved in a home mass or two. The premise was a dinner party and the priest was invited so he celebrated mass. Not sure is it was out of place or not but looking back it doesn’t seem that it was out of necessity. I have seen many of the abuses in my own home parish and recently I found another local parish that is much more traditional and have made that my daily home.
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Marian_Carroll
Guest
Does any one have further commentary on the original article initiating this thread?
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whosebob
Guest
JMJ + OBT
Thank you for bringing us back on track. The intention of my OP was to invite forums members to read the article in its entirety, and then to discuss it, as a whole and in its finer points.
The weekend crowd here at CAF seems to be especially active; hopefully over this Sat. and Sun. more people will weigh in on the contents of the article (that’s my personal hope).
In Christ.
IC XC NIKA
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InTheWilderness
Guest
After having read the article, I find the argument rather compelling for the most part. I think in a few specific instances the author goes a bit too far out on a limb, but in general is on target. I think it takes a pretty balanced view. The focus on ritual is a take that is not often seen, and I think perhaps it deserves further consideration.
While the focus of this thread seems to be liturgical abuses, that isn’t the point of the article. The real content of this article is far more interesting than another thread griping about what Sr. Mary Pat the parish liturgist cooked up last month. (Though I do find value in learning what the liturgy should be. After all, it isn’t like anyone bothers to teach on that topic.)
I wish I had something more to say, but the brain is too tired to think deeply enough to add anything to what the author of this article has written.
While the focus of this thread seems to be liturgical abuses, that isn’t the point of the article. The real content of this article is far more interesting than another thread griping about what Sr. Mary Pat the parish liturgist cooked up last month. (Though I do find value in learning what the liturgy should be. After all, it isn’t like anyone bothers to teach on that topic.)
I wish I had something more to say, but the brain is too tired to think deeply enough to add anything to what the author of this article has written.
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netmilsmom
Guest
What do you think is the focus of the article? I’m truly asking.
I found that it’s not really about individual abuses, but rather the culture of humanism that has been brought to our liturgies.
Is that what you’re seeing?
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mnowlin1
Guest
The culture of humanism or individualism is what I took from the article too. Perhaps some of this is regional in nature?
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netmilsmom
Guest
You may well be right.
I think you might be hard pressed to find as much of the problem in Lincoln, Nebraska.
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drforjc
Guest
These principles are enumerated and developed in Hitchcock’s book “Recovery of the Sacred.”
I highly recommend it- though written in 1974 it still resonates with me today.
A few of the chapter titles:
“The Chimera of Relevance”
“The Cult of Spontaneity”
“The Loss of History”
I highly recommend it- though written in 1974 it still resonates with me today.
A few of the chapter titles:
“The Chimera of Relevance”
“The Cult of Spontaneity”
“The Loss of History”
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Ace86
Guest
*For some Catholics the past of the Church has thus come to be a mere burden, even something shameful, and the seemingly irrational reactions of some people against anything traditional in liturgy — the compulsion to destroy old churches, for example — is an expression of that sense. Such things as Latin prayers, Gregorian chant, baroque polyphony, and gothic architecture arouse unease and even antagonism among some people, precisely because they speak of things that are mysterious, transcendent, and divine, demanding awe and reverence.
Authentic ritual has something about it that even appears archaic, which is not the equivalent of dead,28 because such ritual is the experience of sacred time, of timelessness inside time.29 While experimental liturgies purport to express human creativity — control over the world — in reality they reflect man’s unfree place in that world because, in freeing themselves from the burdens of the past, modern men simply deliver themselves to the tyranny of history, often acting as though they have no right to live other than in accordance with the spirit of the times. Among other things, ritual embodies the deepest sense of order — the order of the cosmos itself — and when the rituals are in disarray the universe is experienced as disordered and man as trapped by the vagaries of chance and history.
The severing of continuity with tradition, whether deliberate or inadvertent, has had the result of throwing self-consciously modern Catholics entirely back on their own spiritual resources, which is a terrible kind of spiritual impoverishment. There is a direct link here to the heresy of Modernism, so named by Saint Pius X because it is the only heresy in the history of the Church to impose a temporal obligation. All previous heresies laid claims to eternal truth; only Modernism demanded submission to the spirit of the age.
The experience of chaos is close to the heart of modernity, and the governing spirit of the broad cultural movement called Modernism can be defined as precisely the necessity of doubting even the possibility of ultimate transcendence, which makes the very idea of “modern” worship problematic. Many highly praised modern church buildings, for example, strike people as cold and empty. However impressive as architecture, they seem to speak not of God but almost of God’s absence, of man as disoriented and embarked on some vague quest for “meaning”. History shows that some ages are more creative than others, and it is inherently improbable that a self-consciously secular — in many ways even irreverent — culture like that of the present can create new religious forms of lasting value. Thus until new forms of authentic liturgy reveal themselves, Catholics will of necessity look to the past, albeit not in that spirit of “restoration” or “retro” that substitutes for authentic tradition in our culture.*
I think this says a lot about the way in which the Church develops things like the Sacred Arts and architecture.
It’s not merely a matter of doing something that’s traditional for tradition’s sake. There’s a reason behind certain traditions. The traditional shape of a Catholic Church is a cross shape - specifically the Latin cross (like the lowercase letter “t”). These kinds of things actually matter. Many parish churches are just big rooms or have no resemblance to a church at all.
Authentic ritual has something about it that even appears archaic, which is not the equivalent of dead,28 because such ritual is the experience of sacred time, of timelessness inside time.29 While experimental liturgies purport to express human creativity — control over the world — in reality they reflect man’s unfree place in that world because, in freeing themselves from the burdens of the past, modern men simply deliver themselves to the tyranny of history, often acting as though they have no right to live other than in accordance with the spirit of the times. Among other things, ritual embodies the deepest sense of order — the order of the cosmos itself — and when the rituals are in disarray the universe is experienced as disordered and man as trapped by the vagaries of chance and history.
The severing of continuity with tradition, whether deliberate or inadvertent, has had the result of throwing self-consciously modern Catholics entirely back on their own spiritual resources, which is a terrible kind of spiritual impoverishment. There is a direct link here to the heresy of Modernism, so named by Saint Pius X because it is the only heresy in the history of the Church to impose a temporal obligation. All previous heresies laid claims to eternal truth; only Modernism demanded submission to the spirit of the age.
The experience of chaos is close to the heart of modernity, and the governing spirit of the broad cultural movement called Modernism can be defined as precisely the necessity of doubting even the possibility of ultimate transcendence, which makes the very idea of “modern” worship problematic. Many highly praised modern church buildings, for example, strike people as cold and empty. However impressive as architecture, they seem to speak not of God but almost of God’s absence, of man as disoriented and embarked on some vague quest for “meaning”. History shows that some ages are more creative than others, and it is inherently improbable that a self-consciously secular — in many ways even irreverent — culture like that of the present can create new religious forms of lasting value. Thus until new forms of authentic liturgy reveal themselves, Catholics will of necessity look to the past, albeit not in that spirit of “restoration” or “retro” that substitutes for authentic tradition in our culture.*
I think this says a lot about the way in which the Church develops things like the Sacred Arts and architecture.
It’s not merely a matter of doing something that’s traditional for tradition’s sake. There’s a reason behind certain traditions. The traditional shape of a Catholic Church is a cross shape - specifically the Latin cross (like the lowercase letter “t”). These kinds of things actually matter. Many parish churches are just big rooms or have no resemblance to a church at all.
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