J
JReducation
Guest
I would say that it is. But it is definitely done better in some places than in others. In the USA the reform of the liturgy has been much difficult than in most countries. I believe that part of it has to do with out culture.
As Americans we tend to be hypersensitive when our culture and our actions are criticized. But the truth is that Americans have made a fair share of contribution to evil in the world. I sometimes wonder if our share may be the worse kind of evil, because it’s covert rather than overt.
There are three evils in the modern world that are very rooted in American culture and have affected the life of people of faith in the USA, which then affects the life of worship. The first is intellectual arrogance. We’ve created a mythos around this notion that we are intelligent, thinking and resourceful people. It was a political ploy used by the powers to be to keep the nation psychologically strong during the Cold War. There is nothing more terrifying than an enemy whom you can’t see, yet may attack you at any moment. The countermeasure that was used was to stimulate a false sense of self-reliance.
This certainly affected how we did many things after WW II, including how we implemented the reforms of the liturgy. Americans did not work with the Church. We took the guidelines given to us by the Church, which were deliberately in abstract language in the hope that intelligent people from around the world would work together to develop a liturgical paradigm that would meet the needs of Catholics in the 20th century while preserving the different traditions of worship.
We have to remember. SC was not just for the Latin Church. It was for the universal Church. All liturgy was to be looked at and revised with great care. The document does not limit the mandate to the Latin Church and the Roman Rite. We have seen some reforms in the other Churches, but they have been very restrained and well thought out. It’s also true that the people who make up the other Catholic Churches have a history of caution. They have been burnt by many events and movements in history. They proceed cautiously, whereas Americans tend to throw caution to the wind. This is that false sense of competency that I’m talking about. It certainly shows no only in how we messed up the liturgy, but how we messed up our education system, economy, family life and social institutions.
We have to admit it. The United States went through an intellectual dark night during the second half of the 20the century. This was not the case in the developing nations. In those nations, the liturgical reform is working closer to the ideal that was intended. We have to understand and accept that when something is initiated it’s not going to be perfect from the starting gate. We’re human beings. There are contingencies that we do not anticipate. When those happen, we have to deal with them. But in the USA there was an absence of a common starting gate. As a result, the mistakes are harder to correct, because they’re not always the same as has been the case in the developing nations. They have everyone doing the same thing at the same time. Where there is a weakness in the paradigm, it shows up everywhere. You’re not putting out isolated brush fires. You can look at the liturgy and say, “This works and this does not. It was a good idea, but it did not have the desired result.” You can also look and see what does work and some of what works was not planned. They’re small consolations that the Spirit gives us.
To implement SC we must give up our self-reliance and work as a Church and with those who came before us as well as those who are present now. No individual and no generation ever has all the answers. This false sense of competency and self-reliance is divisive; therefore, it’s evil. We were created to rely on God and each other. Excellence and competency were to be achieved as a body, not individuals with “bright” ideas.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, FFV
Seems to happen once in a while (I think EcceAgnusDei had one of his deleted in this thread too. Irony of ironies, I believe it was in response to me. So I guess we’re even then 
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