Mass Preference--The Greatest of These is Love

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RosalieM said:
The priests let a visiting missionary nun give the homily. At first I was uneasy, but she had good things to say about love thy neighbor and how it applied to the mission in South Africa. She wore nothing on her head and was dressed in African garb.
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Interestingly, this is probably a pretty good example of an abuse that was committed with good intentions in mind. I’m sure the sister had good things to say, and the priest(s) meant well, but only the priest or deacon is allowed to give the homily (with one exception) as per the General Instructions of the Roman Missal (GIRM):
  1. The Homily should ordinarily be given by the priest celebrant himself. He may entrust it to a concelebrating priest or occasionally, according to circumstances, to the deacon, but never to a lay person.65 In particular cases and for a just cause, the homily may even be given by a Bishop or a priest who is present at the celebration but cannot concelebrate.
usccb.org/liturgy/current/chapter2.shtml#sect3b
 
Sarpedon said:
You seem to make a connection between the NO and liturgical abuse. While litugical abuse has obviously been closely interwined with the NO, do you blame the NO itself for the abuses? I think that the abuses are more a product of modernism than the NO.
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The NO is a valid Mass, and I would say it has a certain beautiful simplicity when said correctly. It is the only Mass I have ever attended and I love it because the Eucharist is consecrated within it.

However, the new Mass has been used as a vehicle by certain church “progressives” to make the Mass a “work of the people” or a “reflection of the community”. The Mass was introduced so poorly, and was left so open to interpretation, that the modern version barely reflects, in many cases, what was intended by Vatican II. The philosophy that says “let’s make this about us” has taken hold of the new Mass in most places.

Applause and laughter frequently break out during the homily at the liberal parish I’m attending during the summer. Human achievements are given the centre of attention at an event which is supposed to be about our communion with God. There’s an attitude which simply doesn’t respect the awesome gift which is the Eucharist and the Mass. It’s an attitude which is completely, and refreshingly, absent at the Traditional Latin Mass.
It seems to me that you think the TLM displays Truth more so than the NO. Why? God is still present in the Eucharist, and the NO was instituted by Christ’s Church. Also, at first the liturgy was in Greek, and even now there are around 22 Eastern rites. Do you think the TLM is superior to these and the NO?
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The Traditional Latin Liturgies and Sacraments do display more truth!! Look at an example which was recently brought to light by the Motu Proprio - the prayer for the conversion of Jews:

Old Good Friday Liturgy:

“Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.”

New Good Friday Liturgy:

“Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.”

The new prayer obviously tries to gloss over the Catholic faith. It tries to pretend that Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Sallus is no longer a Catholic doctrine! The New Mass is valid and can even be beautiful, but it lacks a certain honestly which the TLM has. Even in the words of the consecration, the new “for all” is used, instead of the honest (and biblical) “for many”.

I have a deep respect for the Eastern Catholic liturgies. For the most part, they have held true to their traditions. I wouldn’t personally attend an eastern church, though.
 
Cat said:
If you grew up Catholic with the formal, traditional TLM, you will perceive the “new Mass” as an irreverent travesty and find the rock music loud and distracting, the informal “homilies” irreverent, and vernacular language ugly and not appropriate for the seriousness of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

So as long as the Bishop has given the “go-ahead,” no Mass is sinful, and no one is committing sin to attend a Mass that is pleasing. We should not criticize or belittle each other for attending a Mass that is pleasing to us personally. We are Catholics–one Church, and it is by our love for each other that the world will know we are Christians.

OTOH, the Mass is not about our personal preferences, and if we cannot find a Mass that is “pleasing” to us, we should not complain or criticize what the Bishop of the Church has approved.

Does all this sound reasonable?
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You sound quite reasonable, except I can think right offhand of at least one prelate who apporves a liturgical practice reprobated by the Holy See. When that happens, we should complain, respectfully, but persistently (recall our Lord’s parable regarding the corrupt judge and the wronged widow who persisted in her suit).

And, just as the TLM appeals to some of the young, the NO appealed to some of those who were raised with the Tridentine. I know many Catholics raised with the Tridentine who welcomed the NO (and no, they didn’t welcome abuses TO the NO).

As I said, you sound quite reasonable, but time will tell if reason suffices. We’re probably going to continue to have a lot of arrogant, liberal, progressivist, modernist types who are going to disparge and belittle the Tridentine Rite, just as we’re going to have a lot of arrogant, rigid, retrograde, “traditionalist” types who are going to disparge and belittle the Pauline Rite. Pray for the Church, but remember that the Church will prevail. In a sense, she already has (we know how the story turns out!🙂 ).
 
Is it correct to say that the Church (the Magisterium and the Pope) have the authority to design the Mass? Or does the Mass have authority over the Church?

Some people talk as though the Mass is a separate thing, not something the Church has designed and changed and tweaked over the centuries.

It just seems that we need to submit to the Church, not the Mass, and if we submit to the Church, even if one of its priests is abusing his authority, we will still be blameless. But if we submit to a Mass and refuse to submit to a Church, we are sinning against Christ-appointed authority.

Does any of this make sense? Could someone please tell me if I am on the right track here? Thanks.

Keep in mind that for many of us ex-Protestants, a worship service was planned by the Worship Pastor, Music Pastor, and sometimes the lay worship committee, and it could be ANYTHING they wanted it to be. So to ex-Protestants, authority is an EXTREMELY BIG ISSUE! We want to submit to the proper authority. We are very afraid of going back to allowing the lay people to “plan out the worship service” like some kind of theatrical director. Perhaps that’s why I am leery of those who would criticize Mass in any form, as long as a valid, licit priest is in charge of the parish. We want to do what will make us Christ-like and sinless, ready for heaven. We do NOT want to do our personal preferences.
 
Cat said:
Is it correct to say that the Church (the Magisterium and the Pope) have the authority to design the Mass? Or does the Mass have authority over the Church?

Some people talk as though the Mass is a separate thing, not something the Church has designed and changed and tweaked over the centuries.

It just seems that we need to submit to the Church, not the Mass, and if we submit to the Church, even if one of its priests is abusing his authority, we will still be blameless. But if we submit to a Mass and refuse to submit to a Church, we are sinning against Christ-appointed authority.

Does any of this make sense? Could someone please tell me if I am on the right track here? Thanks.
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I can’t speak on the theological details, but the essential structure of the Mass is a part of the deposit of faith received by the Church. So the Church would never have the authority to e.g. remove the Liturgy of the Word entirely and still call it a Mass. The Church can change the details of the Mass, but not its essential structure.

You are right that as Catholics we are called to submit to the divine authority which rests in the Church. That can be difficult at any time, but it can be especially so when e.g. a Bishop is telling one to do something contrary to what the Pope has said.
 
Dauphin said:
The NO is a valid Mass, and I would say it has a certain beautiful simplicity when said correctly. It is the only Mass I have ever attended and I love it because the Eucharist is consecrated within it.

However, the new Mass has been used as a vehicle by certain church “progressives” to make the Mass a “work of the people” or a “reflection of the community”. The Mass was introduced so poorly, and was left so open to interpretation, that the modern version barely reflects, in many cases, what was intended by Vatican II. The philosophy that says “let’s make this about us” has taken hold of the new Mass in most places.
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I agree. I don’t think the NO is a problem, but rather the spirit of modernism that has eclipsed it.
The Traditional Latin Liturgies and Sacraments do display more truth!! Look at an example which was recently brought to light by the Motu Proprio - the prayer for the conversion of Jews:

Old Good Friday Liturgy:

“Let us pray also for the Jews that the Lord our God may take the veil from their hearts and that they also may acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us pray: Almighty and everlasting God, you do not refuse your mercy even to the Jews; hear the prayers which we offer for the blindness of that people so that they may acknowledge the light of your truth, which is Christ, and be delivered from their darkness.”

New Good Friday Liturgy:

“Let us pray for the Jewish people, the first to hear the word of God, that they may continue to grow in the love of his name and in faithfulness to his covenant. Almighty and eternal God, long ago you gave your promise to Abraham and his posterity. Listen to your church as we pray that the people you first made your own may arrive at the fullness of redemption.”
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The new prayer obviously tries to gloss over the Catholic faith. It tries to pretend that Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Sallus is no longer a Catholic doctrine! The New Mass is valid and can even be beautiful, but it lacks a certain honestly which the TLM has. Even in the words of the consecration, the new “for all” is used, instead of the honest (and biblical) “for many”.

I have a deep respect for the Eastern Catholic liturgies. For the most part, they have held true to their traditions. I wouldn’t personally attend an eastern church, though.
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It seems superficially to me that the new prayer says basically the same thing using weaker language. If my interpretation is correct, I guess this poses another question: why would God allow his church to establish a weaker liturgy?
 
… why would God allow his church to establish a weaker liturgy?
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Is “weaker” the right word here? According to the Council of Trent, no new rites were to be allowed at all. Vatican II didn’t even call for it. Apparently the Vatican II spiritists missed those parts.

God “allows” many things to happen. But we’re digressing. We now have to accept the New Rite as the Ordinary Form, the Old Rite as the Superordinary Form.
 
BobP123 said:
Is “weaker” the right word here? According to the Council of Trent, no new rites were to be allowed at all. Vatican II didn’t even call for it. Apparently the Vatican II spiritists missed those parts.
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We keep seeing these claims that Vatican II did not intend a new liturgy. I don’t see that to be the case at all however. From Chapter III
Sacrosanctum Concillium:
III. The Reform of the Sacred Liturgy
  1. In order that the Christian people may more certainly derive an abundance of graces from the sacred liturgy, holy Mother Church desires to undertake with great care a general restoration of the liturgy itself. For the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change. **These not only may but ought to be changed with the passage of time **if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become unsuited to it.
In this restoration, **both texts and rites should be drawn up **so that they express more clearly the holy things which they signify; the Christian people, so far as possible, should be enabled to understand them with ease and to take part in them fully, actively, and as befits a community.
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This quite clearly indicates that those preparing this approved document felt that a “restoration” needed to take place, rather than a “reformation” as people keep stating. It states that “texts and rites should be drawn up…” which means created, not modifying. When added to the parts that clearly call for increased participation–meant to get rid of the idea of private devotions occuring while the priest, in essence, celebrated mass on his own–it is quite clear to many of us that it was the intention to “draw up” a new, or at least greatly revised rite that would “express more clearly the holy things which they signify”.

It further again calls for it to easier to understand and participate in, as a community, both of which are largely incompatible with the format of the TLM. Whether all of that implies that the intention was to suppress the TLM in favor of this new liturgy isn’t stated, but that intention could certainly be inferred from the clear language that finds it not well suited by the Council fathers.

Of course all of this is off-topic though. With the MP finally released, is it not possible for those who prefer the TLM to attend it joyfully while at the same time allowing those who prefer what the Church considers its normative liturgy to do likewise? Do we really have to continue to harbor this animosity that is leading to greater and greater division over the Eucharistic celebration that should be uniting us?

They shall know you are my disciples by the way you love one another.

Indeed.
 
Please keep the discussion on topic or I will have to close the thread. Thank you.
 
“With the MP finally released, is it not possible for those who prefer the TLM to attend it joyfully while at the same time allowing those who prefer what the Church considers its normative liturgy to do likewise? Do we really have to continue to harbor this animosity that is leading to greater and greater division over the Eucharistic celebration that should be uniting us?”

This quote from ncjohn is perfect for what I am trying to say!
 
Cat said:
Is it correct to say that the Church (the Magisterium and the Pope) have the authority to design the Mass? Or does the Mass have authority over the Church?

Some people talk as though the Mass is a separate thing, not something the Church has designed and changed and tweaked over the centuries.

It just seems that we need to submit to the Church, not the Mass, and if we submit to the Church, even if one of its priests is abusing his authority, we will still be blameless. But if we submit to a Mass and refuse to submit to a Church, we are sinning against Christ-appointed authority.

Does any of this make sense? Could someone please tell me if I am on the right track here? Thanks.

Keep in mind that for many of us ex-Protestants, a worship service was planned by the Worship Pastor, Music Pastor, and sometimes the lay worship committee, and it could be ANYTHING they wanted it to be. So to ex-Protestants, authority is an EXTREMELY BIG ISSUE! We want to submit to the proper authority. We are very afraid of going back to allowing the lay people to “plan out the worship service” like some kind of theatrical director. Perhaps that’s why I am leery of those who would criticize Mass in any form, as long as a valid, licit priest is in charge of the parish. We want to do what will make us Christ-like and sinless, ready for heaven. We do NOT want to do our personal preferences.
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Cat,

the great ancient Liturgies were not designed or tweaked; they grew organically over centuries out of the great apostolic and patristic Tradition.

I think however that your question about the Church’s power should be answered in the words of the Council of Trent, session XXI, which is, by the way, one of the most famous dogmatic decrees in church history:
…this power has ever been in the Church, that, in the dispensation of the sacraments, their substance being untouched, it may ordain,–or change, what things soever it may judge most expedient, for the profit of those who receive, or for the veneration of the said sacraments, according to the difference of circumstances, times, and places. And this the Apostle seems not obscurely to have intimated, when he says; Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and the dispensers of the mysteries of God.
*
 
ncjohn said:
We keep seeing these claims that Vatican II did not intend a new liturgy. I don’t see that to be the case at all however. From Chapter III

This quite clearly indicates that those preparing this approved document felt that a “restoration” needed to take place, rather than a “reformation” as people keep stating. It states that “texts and rites should be drawn up…” which means created, not modifying. When added to the parts that clearly call for increased participation–meant to get rid of the idea of private devotions occuring while the priest, in essence, celebrated mass on his own–it is quite clear to many of us that it was the intention to “draw up” a new, or at least greatly revised rite that would “express more clearly the holy things which they signify”.

It further again calls for it to easier to understand and participate in, as a community, both of which are largely incompatible with the format of the TLM. Whether all of that implies that the intention was to suppress the TLM in favor of this new liturgy isn’t stated, but that intention could certainly be inferred from the clear language that finds it not well suited by the Council fathers.

Of course all of this is off-topic though. With the MP finally released, is it not possible for those who prefer the TLM to attend it joyfully while at the same time allowing those who prefer what the Church considers its normative liturgy to do likewise? Do we really have to continue to harbor this animosity that is leading to greater and greater division over the Eucharistic celebration that should be uniting us?

They shall know you are my disciples by the way you love one another.

Indeed.
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VERY well stated.

Unfortunately, the answer to your last and very cogent question is, on the part of a number of people who self-identify as traditionalists, realistically and pragmatically, “yes, we have to continue to carp and carp and carp, even though we’ve been given our heart’s desire by the Vicar of Christ himself.” As Garrison Keillor has said, some people only feel fully themselves when they are in opposition to something.
 
Sarpedon said:
You seem to make a connection between the NO and liturgical abuse. While litugical abuse has obviously been closely interwined with the NO, do you blame the NO itself for the abuses? I think that the abuses are more a product of modernism than the NO.

It seems to me that you think the TLM displays Truth more so than the NO. Why? God is still present in the Eucharist, and the NO was instituted by Christ’s Church. Also, at first the liturgy was in Greek, and even now there are around 22 Eastern rites. Do you think the TLM is superior to these and the NO?
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Yes
 
Great postings, especially Dauphins

I came from an Anglican childhood, then through baptist, pentecostal, eastern religions and arrived at the point of agnosticism which is a religious way of saying… I dont care.

I had never ever been to a catholic mass until aged 50. Thank God it was a Traditional Latin Mass. The Mass moved me… correction… moved my soul.

I could see countless years of tradition, and respect, awe, magesty, reverence… all those adjectives…

and after 2 years of studying the tumulturous life of the Roman Catholic church wondering how with so many upheavals from both inside and outside it has survived for 19 centuries… well we all know … God does keep His Promises. I found the true faith
 
Please keep my thread on topic. Those of you who are posting “My Mass is better than your Mass” need to read I Corinthians 13 again, which is where I took the title of my thread.

Or do you not agree with the Sacred Scripture?

Pope Benedict has written that the TLM and the NO have worth and are holy. So knock off the arguments, OK? Mind your Holy Father.
 
JKirkLVNV said:
Even the Eastern Rites in communion with Rome, which are reckconed to have apostolic origins?
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The eastern rites are of equal dignity. Virtually everything the popes have said since Leo XIII’s Orientalium dignitas confirms this.
 
CAT

Your original post “sounds” reasonable. Yet much of it sounds to me (I am the only one I can speak for) like what I heard when visiting the places of worship of non-Catholics.

So yes the arguments need to stop. But, the teaching of Holy Mother Church needs to be shouted from the roof tops and not watered down so it is easier to swallow.

It is wonderful that you and your husband have found the Catholic Church. Many have come into the One True Church.

But, understand many have left the One True Church also in this time period. Attendance is down. Divorce is up. The core beliefs of many are not based on the Church. Many believe that as long as your “inner conscience” is OK with it it is OK no matter what. Relativism is rampant in this world. I only PRAY that this will return many to the facts that there are beliefs that are the basis of the Catholic Church and they can not and will not be compromised. No matter what rite you go to. There is only ONE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

Again God Bless
 
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