Missal of Paul VI

[archangel04]

Br. JR I have no idea why God did not call you to the priesthood, but I am no one to question His will. BTW the Canons of St. John are awsome! I would frequently visit their parish in Chicago for Rosary and Vespers after school. I remember when Rev. Tremari came up to talk to me, and I asked him “are you not surprise to see a guy in his 20s preffer Latin?” he said “no not really, if you came to our Sunday mass you would fit right in with the rest of the young people who attend” lol. He also asked me if I ever had interest in becoming a priest, I told him of course, but God has called me to an easier life of pursing a career in law enforcement and he started to laugh, but I told him that if God changes His mind that they would be my first choice I would try to join

 

[Planty_Pall]

After debating a Protestant for nearly three hours while attending a prayer vigil in front of a local abortion clinic, I can only laugh at the naivete of Roman Catholics that thought revising the sacred liturgy to better accommodate Protestants would end the division between Protestants and Catholics. In the end, the liturgical issues within the Roman Rite of the Church has prevented me from pursuing a priestly vocation in the diocesan system and instead I will commit my time to discerning a vocation in the priestly societies of the Church that celebrate the sacraments in the usus antiquior.

Hi again PA650

I think JReducation is correct. If you will be associated with the FSSP, or other fraternities of priests that exercise their priestly duties under the authority of a local bishop, a publicly expressed belief in the imprudence or inferiority of the Ordinary Form will not be tolerated.

I don’t think even the most optimistic Fathers of Vatican II hoped that by reform of the liturgy alone, divisions between Catholics and Protestants would be removed. That is why the Church has changed in many other ways since the Council, in an effort to not merely appease the Protestants, but Eastern Orthodox, Jews, and even non-Christian religions by various means. The Prayer Meetings at Assisi for world peace held by Bl. Pope John Paul II was an event designed partly to show how the Church honors and seeks what is good and true in all religions. Another such meeting, hosted by Pope Benedict is scheduled for October. Ecumenical dialogue has been used as much as possible to demonstrate to non-Catholics our willingness to reassess Catholic history as well as Catholic doctrine.

Only by changing the way Catholics pray, and not just at Mass, could Catholics have been prepared for events like Assisi and the beginnings of fruitful ecumenical dialogue. The post-conciliar popes and bishops now seem to believe that it was a sense of superiority, of unChristlike militancy among Catholics that needed to be suppressed before any progress could be made toward unity. This is why, for instance, the Church has carefully excised every “imprecatory prayer”, those which ask God to punish the unjust, from the Psalter used in the Ordinary Form of the Divine Office. For ages past, the Church had assumed that it would be beneficial to her priests and religious to recite all 150 Psalms every week. But since the Council, it has been seen that perhaps there are parts of the Psalms that express hostile ideas that are undesirable for priests, religious, or indeed anyone.

You say you laugh at the naivete of Catholics who think that by changing the Sacred Liturgy, the resulting divisions would end. Oh no. No one ever thought that. The changes must go even deeper than the Mass if the “Church Militant” will be transformed into the “Church Pacifist”. But the changing of the Mass has been a good start.

May God lead you on your journey PA650. I don’t think you should consider the Society of St. Pius X without pondering the arguments, which will follow this post, for how they are separated from Rome, the priests being suspended, and having no legitimate ministry in the Church. However, it seems like you should honestly deplore everything I have said so far on this thread. I certainly hope so. I wasn’t just being facetious. I think I was presenting the position of the Conciliarists pretty honestly with the hope that it would appear in all its outrageousness.

Do you want to have to pretend that the New Mass is as good as the Traditional Mass? Do you want to be assigned, as FSSP priests often are, to areas where the SSPX already have a following. (That is how the bishops often use the FSSP). You are in Oregon? He would be typical if Archbishop Vlazny would only have an FSSP presence reluctantly, and then place them in Eugene, not because Eugene is crying for a Traditional Latin Mass, but because the SSPX is there already.

Its terrible the way many bishops merely tolerate the FSSP, or other Traditional groups who believe just as the SSPX does about the Mass, Vatican II, and the post-conciliar follies. But because they have agreed to be very quiet about their true beliefs, the bishops can use them to oppose the SSPX. And if you don’t think that is the way it works, it is you who are being naive.

Do you want to be a pawn played by local bishops in an effort to destroy Tradition? Probably not. If you don’t, you should carefully pray and study the arguments for and against the legitimate canonical status of the SSPX during an alleged present state of crisis in the Church. If you find the Society arguments lack merit, forget about them and follow Tradition however you will. But from the sounds of what you are saying, you are already half way there because you believe something “has gone terrible wrong”. During an emergency, a fire, a heart attack, a tornado, actions are acceptable that aren’t ordinarily. The arguments against the Society invariably refuse to acknowledge that the norms of Pope John Paul’s 1983 Code of Canon Law which speak to the different rules which govern the Church in a state of emergency are rightly invoked by the SSPX now, or 20 years ago after the first Assisi meeting, without which I don’t think Abp. Lefebvre would have consecrated the bishops.

But I warn you, Abp. Lefebvre agonized over whether to consecrate the bishops, and you should do nothing less before associating yourself with the priests who have followed his labors.

Planty Pall

 

[corsair]

Absolutely correct Planty Paul. My favorite FSSP parish is fortunate to have a new trad friendly Abp. Not so in western Oregon. Our previous Abp tolerated the FSSP and invited them in after almost 15 years of pressure.

Oregon needs such a consistant pressure group. However, ultimately, the FSSP or any priestly society is subject to the diocesan Bishop, as it should be.

As long as there are Bishops that are not friendly, the future of any TLM will be in doubt.

About all you can do is to trust in Christ.

 

[wisdomseeker]

Hi PA650.

It seems to me like what you characterize as “gone terrible wrong” in the liturgy is what the pope, bishops, and most Catholics want. You talk about the Church’s mission in the world in connection with the liturgy. You are on to something. There is now a new way of reaching out to non-Catholics. The updated liturgy is about reaching modern men and women. Do modern men and women want Latin, a bunch of genuflections, or signs of the Cross? Does modern man and woman want to kneel to not even receive communion in their hand, but on the tongue like a baby? What ever criticism you can bring against the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite, you can’t say it fails to incorporate the native genius and human sensibilities of all men and women of every nation.

You can catechise the convert and they conform to the Traditional Mass. Or you can make the Mass conform to the needs and sensibilities of the Age. In my opinion, that is the main practical difference between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. Given that needs and sensibilities change every generation, one has to expect in the Ordinary Form continued reforms of reforms of reforms of reforms until the Lord comes back. Either that, or catechise the converts like the Church had always done, and make them mostly suppress their distinctive national characteristics, at least so far as liturgy is concerned.

Regards,

PP

For 2000 yrs men learned the language of the Church. today it seems to be impossible to require such a thing from men. yet teh world has offered much harder things nad men found so easy to accept. like vulgar language, open sex, divorce, homosexual acceptance. but men find very hard to learn a sacred language of the Church. what are we doing here? we only want what is convinient for us. confortable living. we seem to forget that God requires much from us. today what we see is a multitude of different languages within one Church. that is one of the reasons why so many Catholics has left the Church when they go another country. they dont understand local language and end up in some protestant congregation. I seen this happen.

 

[ProVobis]

but men find very hard to learn a sacred language of the Church. what are we doing here? we only want what is convinient for us. confortable living. we seem to forget that God requires much from us. today what we see is a multitude of different languages within one Church.

You’re right, of course. But we live in a society that thinks because we have calculators, we don’t need basic math, because we don’t teach grammar, we can say however we want to say it, because we have spell checkers, we don’t need to learn how to spell, because we have translators, we don’t need to translate, etc. But most of us still need some spirituality and will realize in time we don’t get anything out of something unless we apply at least a little effort somewhere along the line. Calculators break down, bad grammar can lead to misunderstanding, spell-checks can’t distinguish between homophones, and translations lose meaning. Learning Latin, even a little bit, can’t hurt you.

 

[JReducation]

Br. JR I have no idea why God did not call you to the priesthood, but I am no one to question His will. BTW the Canons of St. John are awsome! I would frequently visit their parish in Chicago for Rosary and Vespers after school. I remember when Rev. Tremari came up to talk to me, and I asked him “are you not surprise to see a guy in his 20s preffer Latin?” he said “no not really, if you came to our Sunday mass you would fit right in with the rest of the young people who attend” lol. He also asked me if I ever had interest in becoming a priest, I told him of course, but God has called me to an easier life of pursing a career in law enforcement and he started to laugh, but I told him that if God changes His mind that they would be my first choice I would try to join

That’s easy to answer. I went through eight-years of seminary, four minor and four major. When I applied to my superior for Holy Orders, Christ spoke through him and the council. The answer that came back was that our community had enough priests to take care of oiur internal needs. However, there as a need for men to train future priests. So . . . I was sent on for a doctorate in theology to come back and teach. Once Christ has spoken through the superior and the council, you no longer ask further questions. You obey and you’re happy.

I’ve always taught seminarians, novices, student friars, religious from other communities and evne lay people. Now, I’m too sick to teach full-time. I still teach the novices. But I also run workshops for the priests in our diocese on the Gospel of Life and what to do in confession and spiritual direction when someone comes in with an abortion, euthanasia or a loved one who has been executed. Our priests know how to grant absolution and they try as hard as they can to be very helpful, but they’re not well trained in the post-abortive mind and so forth. Often the person does not want to go to a pregnancy center or to Project Rachel for help. The priest tries to do the best he can until the person is ready. I run workshops tha thelp the priests.

I also teach Traditional Catholic Ascetical Mystical Theology to lay people at a local parish. It’s a lot of fun. I used to do a lot more, but I spend a lot of time in bed now. I only get out two or three times a week; I’m happy as a pig in mud.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[wisdomseeker]

You’re right, of course. But we live in a society that thinks because we have calculators, we don’t need basic math, because we don’t teach grammar, we can say however we want to say it, because we have spell checkers, we don’t need to learn how to spell, because we have translators, we don’t need to translate, etc. But most of us still need some spirituality and will realize in time we don’t get anything out of something unless we apply at least a little effort somewhere along the line. Calculators break down, bad grammar can lead to misunderstanding, spell-checks can’t distinguish between homophones, and translations lose meaning. Learning Latin, even a little bit, can’t hurt you.

And all work together to take men away from God. I mean things of the world that is so attractive to the flesh and slowly make itself into the Church and hearts of men.

The more is taking away from tradition the better it is to the enemy of God. we have much to loose.

 

[PA650]

It’s perfectly fine to follow the voice of Christ to join either a religious institute or a society of apostolic life instead of a diocese. What is essential, not matter which one Christ calls you to is to be humble.

Sometimes, I meet men who want to enter a society of apostolic life such as the FSSP, but when I speak with them they give off an air of superiority. It’s hard to describe. It’s almost as if to say, “We’re too good to be a common diocesan priest. After all, we celebrate the Extraordinary Form.”

Yet, when working along side the priests of the Fraternity in another assignment, I found that they not only avoid such pride, but they actually reject candidates who exhibit any kind of negativity for the traditional diocesan priest. In other words, they realize that their place in the Church is very unique and that they depend on the support of the clergy and religious in any diocese where they serve. Without that support and welcome they would be unable to serve. Their approach and their attitude is one of great warmth and positive regard for priests and religious who celebrate the Ordinary Form. Some of them celebrate both forms without any conflicts.

Another wonderful community is the Canons of St. John Cantius. They’re not a society of apostolic life, but a diocesan congregation of canons regular. They too have a wonderful relationship with other priests and religious who celebrate the Ordinary Form and they are very humble in their dealings with those around them. They are aware that they have a very special place in the Church and are very happy to fill that place. I find them a joy to work with, especially when we ask them to teach us the EF. They are gentle, friendly, unassuming and they make it clear that they are Canons, not because there is something defective with the rest of us, but because Christ calls them to serve in a unique ministry and to live in a unique religious charism.

As you discern, try to focus not on what you perceive as deficiencies in the liturgical practices of the clergy around you. Instead, focus on the gifts that God has given you and where those gifts may best serve the Church with the greatest humility and charity. Whether you join a diocese, a society of apostolic life, a religious congregation, religious order or a monastery, the important thing is to look up to others, not down at them. As St. Francis said to us in our rule and in our admonitions.

** “The brother knows that he is nothing and no one. He sees all men as his masters and holds them in the highest esteem, because the brother is nothing better than the dust beneath our feet.”**

This rule of life governed great men such as Bonaventure, Anthony of Padua, Maximilian Kolbe, Fidelis, Conrad, Paschal Baylon, John Duns Scotus and hundreds of saints and blessed, cleric and non cleric.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

Hello Br. JR,

I admit my previous post did contain some moments of pride and I can only apologize for my lack of humility. I have only postponed my discernment with my local diocese and I may continue the process with them in the near future. I have never truly had any objections to the Missal of Paul VI, albeit I would prefer it to be celebrated in a traditional manner, which many of our younger priests happen to do. At the parish level, I’m quite familiar with our ‘regular’ parishioners and of course our clergy members and I will continue to interact with them as I continue my journey of discernment. Overall, I may have gotten sidetracked by some of the minor details in the Church today and forgot about the bigger picture of the Church and its mission.

 

[JReducation]

Hello Br. JR,

, I may have gotten sidetracked by some of the minor details in the Church today and forgot about the bigger picture of the Church and its mission.

This is such an easy thing to do. The toils and disappointments of eveyday life, along with our aspirations for the better, can often distract us from the big picture. It happens to all of us and the more passionate that we feel about something the easier it is to lose focus.

It’s rather interesting. We not only lose sight of the Church’s mission, but even worse, we lose sight of our own sinfulness.

I have worked for many bishops, for many years and a few a personal friends. Whenever this issue of the EF and the OF comes up, I cringe when I see or hear people propose that the bishops have some sinister plot or desire to extinguish the EF of the mass. I cring for several reasons.

Having worked with many bishops and having a number of them among my friends, I know them to be human beings just like me. Some feel very passionately about the EF. Others feel very passioantely that it’s not necessary in their jurisdiction. Others have no attachment to it, because their spiritual needs are met by the OF. However, they are not going to do anything to stop it and may not do much to promote it, either. Then there are those bishops who feel that this has to be done and they will brainstorm to make it happen. In all of this, I don’t see evil or sinister planning. I see human beings with an opinion on something. That opinion may be valid or invalid. Those who believe that the local bishop’s opinion is an invalid one have a challenge to face. They have to persuade the bishop to consider another opinion. That’s not an easy thing to do. I’ve been in that position with some bishops.

I’m not a good salesman. What has always helped me has been my attitude. I always state the facts when I walk in. “You’re the bishop and I’m a no body. You have every right to decide what you believe is best and I have a moral duty to obey whatever you decide and I’m willing to do that. Having said that, I’m grateful for the chance to get to speak to you about what I’m thinking. Feel free to tell me that I have no right to think that, if that’s the case.” Then I proceed.

St. Francis taught me not to look for faults in those who are better than I am, but to look for faults in me and then approach those who are better with a submissive attitude. The popes and bishops of his time loved him and respected him, because he did not judge them, nor did he question them or challenge them. We know that the 13th century was probably much more chaotic than the Church of the 20th century. However, those bishops were dealing with a man who have a very clear vision of the Church’s mission and of his insignificance in that mission.

Francis never approached authority with the idea that he had rights. He discouraged his brothers and sisters from doing so too. He always told us that the only right that we had was to own our sinfulness and atone for sin, everything else that we received from the Church was through her mercy and the mercy and compassion of the hierarchy. Who’s going to turn away a man who expects nothing, who believes that whatever you give him is a gift, not a right and who is grateful that you honored him by listening? Even if they did deny him anything, he would still walk away happy, because he knew that he had no right to expect anything from them, because he was a sinner. Any suffering and rejection that he might suffer at the hands of the clergy, the bishops and the popes were opportunities for penance. In other words, they were gifts from God. God had taken compassion on him and had given him the opportunity to do penance in this life and spare him from suffering in purgatory.

I cringe when I feel that we foget that bishops and faithful are human beings who are imperfect, but are not necessarilly evil and have no evil intent. Mistaken . . . maybe, but not evil. Who of us has never been mistaken? When we forget that we too are mistaken in many ways, we project an air of authority that is foreign to the saints when they deal with the Church and Church authority.

To begin to make things better, we have to begin by admitting that we are also human and sinful. Then we proceed with the belief that bishops are not evil people, even when they’re mistaken. We are open to the possibility that we may have to accept what we don’t want. However, that can be a sign of God’s love for us, which allows us to do penance here rather than there. If we look a the saints who were great reformers, they usually got the Church’s support, because they were tenacioius AND humble. Some of them were very clever, such as Teresa of Avila and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, but they were non threatening and non confrontational. If there was a confrontation, St. Teresa and Mother Teresa would back off. Mother Teresa had a wonderful saying when things rose to the level of confrontation with the hierarchy. “If it’s that much of a problem, God must not be that interested.” Like St. Francis, she was very convinced that she had no right to demand from God or the Church. Yet, we look at her and St. Francis, their influence in the Church and the world and how admired and respected they were by Church authority and we have to wonder if we’re missing something in our approach.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[BertBlyleven]

Hi PA650.

Do modern men and women want Latin, a bunch of genuflections, or signs of the Cross? Does modern man and woman want to kneel to not even receive communion in their hand, but on the tongue like a baby?

Its a good thing there’s a Mass that still isn’t about modern men and women.

 

[BertBlyleven]

I do think it is important to note that not all diocese and Masses foster priestly vocations. Masses in my home diocese very much deter me from the priesthood. This is a very unfortunate truth that should be addressed by bishops and pastors. Do keep an open mind, but if God truly did want reform or return to the EF, he would stir in the heart’s of men.

 

[laszlo]

Do keep an open mind, but if God truly did want reform or return to the EF, he would stir in the heart’s of men.

God does not forces the mind of the people to any direction. He stands with the decisions of the Hierarchy, but even in that level allows temporary errors . The sensus fidelium in itself has no defining power.

 

[wisdomseeker]

I do think it is important to note that not all diocese and Masses foster priestly vocations. Masses in my home diocese very much deter me from the priesthood. This is a very unfortunate truth that should be addressed by bishops and pastors. Do keep an open mind, but if God truly did want reform or return to the EF, he would stir in the heart’s of men.

Do you think that it is why there is such a great movement towards the EF?

 

[JReducation]

I do think it is important to note that not all diocese and Masses foster priestly vocations. Masses in my home diocese very much deter me from the priesthood. This is a very unfortunate truth that should be addressed by bishops and pastors. Do keep an open mind, but if God truly did want reform or return to the EF, he would stir in the heart’s of men.

We have to be very careful here and I believe this is the reason that bishops, pastors and religious superiors do not address this. Promoting vocations to the priesthood is not the purpose of the mass.

It is true, that many men have heard the voice of Christ calling them to Holy Orders through the mass. However, many men have also heard him calling to be brothers, friars, monks and hermits. Many women have heard him call them to be nuns and sisters. Others have heard the confirmation to the life of single celibacy or marriage.

We have to ask ourselves a question about fairness. Do we tailor the mass so that it promotes vocations to the priesthood and ignore vocations to the monastic life, the mendicant life, the life of the brother, the sister, the nun, the single person or the married vocation?

This was not what Christ had in mind when he instituted the Eucharist and it has never been the mind of the Church. However, many holy men and women have heard the voice of God call them through the mass, as it is. I always remember Francis of Assisi. He was at mass and he heard the Gospel, “Go seel what you have, give to the poor and come follow me.” He felt his soul leap with excitement and say, “This is what I’ve been waiting to hear.” However, he never became a priest, nor did he found an order of priests. He became a brother and started a brotherhood that admitted priests who wanted to consecrate their lives as brothers.

Did the mass fail, because it did not inspire Francis to be a priest or to found an order of priests as did his counterpart, Dominic? I would say that the Lord used the mass to do His will and to deliver his message for Francis, withou the effort of the priest who was celebrating it or that of the local bishop. They couldn’t have made an effort to recruit Francis, because the form of religious life that Francis started did not exist in the Catholic Church, until he founded it. There were no mendicant brotherhoods of brothers who were lay, consecrated religious, priests, married men and women. It was the very first expression of such a form of religious life. It blew the minds of the bishops and the pope himself. It took from 1209 to 1223 to get the final rules right. Was this the failure of the bishops and pastors of the time or was it the work of God?

The Eucharist is the summit of the Christian life, as we all know. Through it, God draws us to himself. God’s work is not determined by the strengths and weaknesses of human beings. The mass during Francis’ time was a much bigger mess than is our own today. Our OF mass has problems. People have introduced things that don’t belong. During Francis’ time, there were many forms of the mass and few of them were celebrated with reverence and with faith, if and when they were celebrated at all. Francis just happened to catch a mass because there was an old secular priest who seems to have had no place to live or work. He happened to have a little house adjacent to St. Mary of the Angels, a chapel abandoned by the Benedictine monks. It was uncommon for secular priests to celebrate daily mass. It may have been God at work that Francis arrived on a day when the priest was in the mood to celebrate the mass.

Despite the human circumstances around the mass, God drew Francis to him, but not to be a priest. He drew him to be the Patriarch of the largest religious family in the Church during the last 800 years and to influence Catholics, Protestants and Muslims who still venerate him to this day.

I would be very surprised if bishops, pastors and religious superiors would want to sit and discuss how to make the mass promote vocations to the priesthood. It’s not what Christ intended, not how the Church has seen it, and not how God has done it. God has called men women to many walks of life through the Eucharist and outside of the Eucharist. The entire Salesian congregation was born after death of Francis de Sales. Those early Oblates of St. Francis de Sales were inspired through a man, his life and his work. They went on to become the largest congregation of priests in the Church.

The mass is not supposed to promote any specific call. The mass is for the Church and it draws all men and women to Christ down many paths.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Warrenton]

—Sacrosanctum Concilium, Ch. 1, para. 37

It occurs to me that this sentiment was fundamentally incorrect. What, other than its openess to true religion, is a racial or cultural strength? There are few, although there are many, many negatives.

The things we conceive of as cultural strengths mostly have no bearing on the Church. It does not matter, for instance, that Japanese are good at preparing fish sans fire, or that Indians are good hunters. In the eyes of the Church, it does not matter that Chinese art is sublime, or that Lapplanders make sweaters admired the world over, or that Arabs breed the best horses. How would any of these things inform, or shape, the liturgy?

The idea that culture informs religion is looking the wrong way through a telescope. Religion informs the culture. In the case of Europe, almost everything that is “European” about it is Catholic, and that which is not, was either horrible or irrelevant to the Church.

Did the eucharist taste better in France than in England, because the French are better cooks?

The answer to the question posed by the OP, namely “Why the new missal” is “who knows?”

When the reasons are not reasonable, they lead only to further questions.

Some people were, and are, comfortable with that.

 

[BertBlyleven]

Do you think that it is why there is such a great movement towards the EF?

Yes and no. If the movement is increasing priestly vocations, it does not surprise me. Whether that is because those flocking to EF masses are more inclined to the priesthood is yet to be seen.

 

[BertBlyleven]

We have to be very careful here and I believe this is the reason that bishops, pastors and religious superiors do not address this. Promoting vocations to the priesthood is not the purpose of the mass.

Nor should it be. But, if it isn’t, then something probably isn’t right. There isn’t a gimmick to the Mass. It neither caters to seminarians, nor monks, nor nuns explicitly. I think you misunderstood what I meant; I meant it in the manner of a litmus test, not a focus point. Should the Mass deter a call though? Any call? Certainly not. This is what I was referring to.

 

[Planty_Pall]

It occurs to me that this sentiment was fundamentally incorrect. What, other than its openess to true religion, is a racial or cultural strength? There are few, although there are many, many negatives.

The things we conceive of as cultural strengths mostly have no bearing on the Church. It does not matter, for instance, that Japanese are good at preparing fish sans fire, or that Indians are good hunters. In the eyes of the Church, it does not matter that Chinese art is sublime, or that Lapplanders make sweaters admired the world over, or that Arabs breed the best horses. How would any of these things inform, or shape, the liturgy?

The idea that culture informs religion is looking the wrong way through a telescope. Religion informs the culture. In the case of Europe, almost everything that is “European” about it is Catholic, and that which is not, was either horrible or irrelevant to the Church.

Did the eucharist taste better in France than in England, because the French are better cooks?

The answer to the question posed by the OP, namely “Why the new missal” is “who knows?”

When the reasons are not reasonable, they lead only to further questions.

Some people were, and are, comfortable with that.

Hi Warrenton

I followed up that post with another that was subsequently removed which clarified my position. If you could see my post in context, you would know that I wasn’t arguing in favor of Sacrosanctum Concilium. I was pointing out that it called for the flexibility that makes a liturgy from the Missal of Paul VI different in every region, and even in every parish. I do not say that is a good thing. I have a negative opinion of the available options, adaptations, and liturgical flexibility. I’ll have to leave it at that.

PP

 

[JReducation]

Nor should it be. But, if it isn’t, then something probably isn’t right. There isn’t a gimmick to the Mass. It neither caters to seminarians, nor monks, nor nuns explicitly. I think you misunderstood what I meant; I meant it in the manner of a litmus test, not a focus point. Should the Mass deter a call though? Any call? Certainly not. This is what I was referring to.

I’m beginning to understand. How is the mass a litmus test? Can you say just a little more to be sure that I know eactly what you’re saying. I want to understand. Thanks.

Fraternallly,

Br. JR, OSF

 

[Warrenton]

Hi Warrenton

I’ll have to leave it at that.

PP

Based on our previous discussions, I did not think you would be following the rationale of S.C. I am fairly sure you and I share a similar view of that thinking.

I was simply putting some thoughts down that your citation inspired! Cheers!