My problem with "Tradition"...

[JKirkLVNV]

This is what “modernism” has done to the Holy Mass:

cathcon.blogspot.com/2007/02/mass-for-unbelievers.html

I am sickened.

That’s an example of what I mean. Yes, modernism has inflitered the Church, infected it. But are we prepared to say that a Pope and a Council are guilty of what the Church has defined as a heresy? I know some are. I’m not.

 

[chotock]

I don’t believe Vat II called for abuses. The time period was filled with all sorts of craziness, especially here in the US. People were terrified with absolute authority in anyone or anything due to fascism and communism, we had just come out of a puritanical fanaticism and to top it all off we were beginning to see the effects of more rapid communication.

I feel, and this is only IMO, that in the years directly following VII such endeavors such as guitars being used, hand holding and the like were more to help folks adapt to the rapid changes happening around them. I can only imagine the general anxiety of a world that had just a few short years ago been embroiled in a war against an evil unimaginable and now being bombarded with information so rapidly as to make one’s head spin. People were scared and the thought of placing one’s complete trust in anything that seemed like government was terrifying.

My thoughts are still out on the state of the Church today. I am still trying to figure out my own place in everything. I am caught between the two liturgies seeing that neither fully expresses the faith, each with its own individual flaws. It feels like I am sitting on a plank suspended over a deep crevice not knowing which direction to go, hoping that someone comes along a tells me.

It kills me to see how hateful people get when it comes to the Liturgy. Perhaps there is more at stake here than just the obvious? I don’t know, I just want to go to Mass and know that my prayers were heard, that my worship is acceptable and that I truly worshiped God. I want to walk out feeling like something was accomplished, not just by the priest and not just by the congregation, but by both, together as a body with a head.

ack I’m rambling again, back to decaf I believe

 

[CarolAnnSFO]

Show me pics where you see these in the TLM before Vatican II. See my above attachment. You will not find that nonsense before VII.

I never saw liturgical dancers or clown Masses pre-Vatican II, but I’ve never seen them in the new Mass, either. I have no doubt that abuses occur in some parishes, but it’s not really accurate to take the worst example anyone can find (like that “light show” Mass, for example), and assume it applies to all Novus Ordo Masses.

(By the way, the trend among altar servers here is to wear black leather shoes; I never see sneakers, at least, not white ones. )

 

[Windmill]

http://www.unavoce.org/ratzingerweimar3.jpg

Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) playing make-believe at a Tridentine Mass.

 

[kitkatty]

What makes you call the Tridentine Mass make believe? It has been the Mass of the Latin Rite for centuries. Also, it is still a valid Mass though unfortunatly not available enough for those Catholics who would wish too attend it. There is nothing wrong with the Pauline Mass when celebrated reverently but I would still have to say I personally like the Tridentine Mass better for the Western Church. There is a real beauty and spiritually to it. what are you going to do if the Pope encoutrages more widespread use of the Tridentine Mass which he may very well do? I think you are being very disrespectful towards an ancient Rite of the Church.

BTW, I m not what you would probably call a" Traditionalist, ":( Im a Byzantine Catholic.

 

[Ceil-1]

The controversy is very disheartening. As if we didn’t have enough problems. I find myself more and more attracted to the Byzantine rite. They use the liturgy from St. John Chrysostom which is very beautiful, and more relevant, as it is a shortened version of an original liturgy written by an apostle. The original language was Greek, not Latin, which predate language and I surmise was chosen by God due to its richness and ability to convey Sacred Mysteries.

Traditionalists, please explain your claim that the Latin rite liturgy is the only relevant one.

 

[kitkatty]

The Tridentine Mass is a legitimate preference. The schismatic groups are a different matter. It is there you find the high-pressure recruitment. They will go right into a regular Tridentine Mass and sell you their story.

It is there you find the spirit of rebellion. It is okay to go against the Church, but doooon’t you dare go against them. They will tear you to pieces.

What these schismatic types don’t realize is their spiritual pride. It is one thing to dislike the method and the music, and another to insult those who attend. They fast for twelve hours before communion, but cannot mortify themselves not to insult the rest of us. I consider it every bit as derisive and sinful as the liberal factions, only in the other direction. It is a spiritual blindness that spreads like an infection.

My feelings too Ceil, both are legitimate Masses of the Church, no need to put anydown for their personal preference. It is the pride of the ultr-liberals and ultr-trads that are hurting our Church.

 

[bear06]

Yikes! I deplore the original post and now I deplore what’s come since. Why is it that we can’t praise the Tridentine without deriding Vatican II, Popes John, Paul, John Paul and as I’ve seen as of late Benedict, the Novus Ordo, etc.,etc., etc.? And why to people who want to go to the Tridentine get taken to task simply for that? If those who are doing the former would just stick to what they love about the Tridentine, traditional devotions,etc. without ending their posts with “you never see things like that at a Novus Ordo”, we’d probably have very few debates. And, as I’ve already said in this post, the polar opposites might want to check into Church teaching before deriding the TLM. I’ve been pleasantly surprised to see more posts on this forum discussing the beauty of the TLM without even mentioning the Novus Ordo. It would be quite nice to see more of that. Of course we’ll probably still run into the threads with questions about the SSPX just as we will run into threads with questions about liberal dissenters on another forum. We should be free to address the topic at hand but actually stay on the topic at hand without repeatedly drifting into the all traditionalists are holier than thou and the allusion that all Novus Ordo Masses have clowns in them. More than not these statements are usually off-topic. These are examples of a great threads. Very educational and not one reference to the Novus Ordo: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=134550
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=132118
Even this one corrected itself despite people’s best efforts to derail it: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=129055
The thread you are reading is the exact opposite. Can’t we have more like these and less like this one?

OK, go ahead and blast me now. I’m done venting.

 

[jay29]

I think the church needs to grow some fangs like it used to have and go after the nonconformists in the church and deal with them. The church could start with the LA diocese.

 

[Winger]

For everyone who knows only post Vatican 11 … The NO … Imagine we go back to the TLM. How would you feel if it was just suddenly taken from you and you were given a totally different Mass? Wouldn’t you feel a little cheated? That is how we felt when it happened to us. Only the TLM has been around a lot longer.
Not only that but even though we attend the NO and we follow our Holy Father because it is still the Catholic Church, we are treated as outcasts. I really have some nasty things thrown my way because I don’t hold hands during the Our Father. I wear my chapel veil. I fold my hands instead of extending them as though I were the priest. I practice my faith the way I was taught and for that I am treated with much disrespect at times.
I love my Church. I will continue to attend the NO until we finally get the TLM in our area. I will be obedient to Rome and I will pray for those who despise us simply because we truly miss what was taken from us.
As long as we all believe the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church we are all Catholic. If we prefer the TLM it is because it was OURS and then it was gone … :crying:

 

[Margaret33]

It kills me to see how hateful people get when it comes to the Liturgy. Perhaps there is more at stake here than just the obvious? I don’t know, I just want to go to Mass and know that my prayers were heard, that my worship is acceptable and that I truly worshiped God. I want to walk out feeling like something was accomplished, not just by the priest and not just by the congregation, but by both, together as a body with a head.

Hate shouldn’t reside amongst us and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to muddy the waters of expressing our opinions with anything remotely resembling it. I think we need to continue reminding each other from time to time what we do have in common. Even if we have differences on which way to bring it about, we do seem to have a genuine unifying desire to preserve and strengthen Catholicism when all is said and done.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

I think the church needs to grow some fangs like it used to have and go after the nonconformists in the church and deal with them. The church could start with the LA diocese.

Absolutely NO argument there.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

For everyone who knows only post Vatican 11 … The NO … Imagine we go back to the TLM. How would you feel if it was just suddenly taken from you and you were given a totally different Mass? Wouldn’t you feel a little cheated? That is how we felt when it happened to us. Only the TLM has been around a lot longer.
Not only that but even though we attend the NO and we follow our Holy Father because it is still the Catholic Church, we are treated as outcasts. I really have some nasty things thrown my way because I don’t hold hands during the Our Father. I wear my chapel veil. I fold my hands instead of extending them as though I were the priest. I practice my faith the way I was taught and for that I am treated with much disrespect at times.
I love my Church. I will continue to attend the NO until we finally get the TLM in our area. I will be obedient to Rome and I will pray for those who despise us simply because we truly miss what was taken from us.
As long as we all believe the doctrines and dogmas of the Catholic Church we are all Catholic. If we prefer the TLM it is because it was OURS and then it was gone … :crying:

You’re point is very well taken, and in my case, it’s precisely the point. I have imagined, empathetically, what it would be like to have the liturgy I love taken away suddenly (actually, I don’t have to imagine it, I’ve been to a couple of masses that so diverged from the rubrics that I’ve felt my Mass to have been “taken away”). That has always been the reason that I have favored and supported a more generous application of the Indult. In the absence of that (bishops dragging their feet and what not), I support the complete liberation of the Pian Missal. So what do I, and others (bear06 comes to mind, I’m sure there are others in these fora) like me get in return? Venom and contempt and bile (“Bogus Ordo,” if you please, and “abomination” and “counterfeit”) heaped on the Mass that brought me into the Church, a Mass legitimately promulgated by the Vicar of Christ on Earth and celebrated for the Church by him and his successors. I’ve likened it to having one’s mother repeatedly called a whore. I still think it’s an apt comparison.

 

[Margaret33]

And why to people who want to go to the Tridentine get taken to task simply for that?

Agreement here.

If those who are doing the former would just stick to what they love about the Tridentine, traditional devotions,etc. without ending their posts with “you never see things like that at a Novus Ordo”, we’d probably have very few debates.

Agreement here as well.
The preference of one does not automatically have to make the other any less important.

…the polar opposites might want to check into Church teaching before deriding the TLM.

Good point, thank you!

• Another good point, it’s not necessarily a requirement to bring negativity in where you are expressing your appreciation of the other… While not 100% throughout, we did manage to eventually agree and resolve that one does not have the negate the other for the most part in the thread "Traditionalist: to be or not to be… " while still being able to express our preference for one or the other.

---

OK, go ahead and blast me now. I’m done venting.

• No blasting necessary, thank you

 

[BobP123]

The controversy is very disheartening. As if we didn’t have enough problems. I find myself more and more attracted to the Byzantine rite. They use the liturgy from St. John Chrysostom which is very beautiful, and more relevant, as it is a shortened version of an original liturgy written by an apostle. The original language was Greek, not Latin, which predate language and I surmise was chosen by God due to its richness and ability to convey Sacred Mysteries.

Traditionalists, please explain your claim that the Latin rite liturgy is the only relevant one.

Ceil, you make a valid point about the Greek. But Catholicism fluorished wherever the Latin Mass was introduced. It started in Africa around the 4th century if my history books are correct.

Latin is indeed a very beautiful language.

Yet I don’t have a problem with keeping a little of the Greek in the Mass. The Kyrie Eleison is very beautiful too.

 

[BobP123]

I think the church needs to grow some fangs like it used to have and go after the nonconformists in the church and deal with them. The church could start with the LA diocese.

LOL.

Jay, how dare you slander the Novus Ordo like that!

 

[the_phoenix]

You wouldn’t be going to the Tridentine Mass unless you had a problem with the regular Mass.

Wrong. I absolutely love my new parish and its English language Mass, to the point where I volunteer as a Eucharistic Adorer and happily describe my parish to anyone who will listen. At the same time, I love the Latin Mass at the parish downtown (the indult one approved by the Catholic Church).

When I was in Spain, I loved hearing the Mass celebrated in Spanish. The unique thing about attending Mass in Spain for me was that nearly every time, a wedding was being celebrated as well … it was incorporated into the Mass held at the public time. Pretty cool.

So what’s the problem with being able to appreciate Mass in more than one form? Personally, I don’t see any.

~~ the phoenix

 

[JKirkLVNV]

LOL.

Jay, how dare you slander the Novus Ordo like that!

He didn’t. He pointed out an area where the Mass is regularly abused (and it is).

“Think about it.” Before you post, that is.

 

[MTD]

My problem with the Tridentine Mass is 1. it’s make believe. You’re pretending the Vatican 2 liturgical reforms, which were mandatory and obligatory, just never happened. Fantasy land.

Are you saying that the Mass wasn’t really valid until after Vatican II? Or are you saying that Popes John Paul II and Benedict the XVI were wrong in promoting a wider application of the TLM?

1. You wouldn’t be going to the Tridentine Mass unless you had a problem with the regular Mass. And if you have a problem with a Mass a council and a pope approved and made mandatory, you have a serious problem.

If the popes encourage it, there’s nothing wrong and everything right with going to a TLM. According to your reasoning, we shouldn’t have Eastern rites either. You might want to stop and think about whether you yourself are in line with the Holy Father.

If you’re happy with the NO and the muppet music which passes for sacred music, be my guest.

So are you saying that NO necessarily means muppet music? Hmmm, I’m confused. All I hear at my NO Mass is Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony. I’m quite surprised to hear that labeled as muppet music.

What is make believe and fantasyland are the liturgical dancers, clown masses, and the female altar servers that came as a result of Vatican II.

Take one of these “simplistic nobility” decorated churches and take Jesus off the cross and take the tabernacle away and what do you have? A protestant church.

Why do Traditionalists love to name abuses as if they were established norms? Isn’t that the same tactic anti-Catholics use who point out immoral Popes as disproving infallibility? Just because there are abuses doesn’t mean the abused is a bad thing.

I agree with bear06. I really don’t care for the tendency of Traditionalists and anti-Traditionalists to bash each other’s Masses in order to raise up their own. It turns people off because the original impression received is negative. Why not concentrate on the beauties of the TLM rather than forever talking about NO abuses as if they were normative?

Maria

 

[ctos]

sigh

Both sides, alas, tend to caricature each other. Traditionalists won’t admit that there were any problems to solve prior to the 1960s. In the Novus Ordo there is a reluctance to admit that the faith is being sentimentalized and indeed diminished.

This is why I want research sources about historical issues that feed into Vatican II. But maybe nobody here does any real reading… Who knows.

And so often short-hand simplisms are ventured. “The novelties of Vatican II” vs. “those schismatics of the SSPX”. All of this gets us nowhere. It just makes us a bunch of gongs.