Our Catholic Identity

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fall_fox

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Since I was around at the time and lived through all the changes I have an opinion on what happened. I think we Catholics lost our identy to a large degree. Prior to VII, the CAtholic Church was looked at as being strict in its beliefs. You really had to watch your steps or you would surely go to hell. The nuns drove that in to us. With 12 years of Catholic Education, the nuns did a lot of driving. I’m being a little facesious at the expence of our good Sisters.
Then came V A T I C A N I I , If there was a time for the Church to be strict, that was the time. It seemed like they put out the documents and they felt that their work was done. It was a time of great liberalism, “if it felt good do it” was the banner. Well as Catholics we weren’t amune to that way of thinking. It seemed that when the Bishops got their hands on the V II documents, something happened, Its like they said I’ll interperate this my way. OH MY GOSH, In some Parishes it was like, If they could have Mass without the Priest, they would have surely have done it, especially the chiors.
I thought the change from Latin to English would be the hardest thing for me, I was 29 yrs st the time. To my astonishment it wasn’t, I had been an alter boy for years, but now I felt more a part of the Mass. What was hard was all the strange things going on. We would see odd looking Hosts, ciramic chalices and ciborium, the songs changed and I mean to the kind that had no place in a Catholic Church.
Our Priests wanted to be called Father Bob, or whatever. There was a total loss of the respect that was due to everything Catholic. We lost our identy. Our leaders should have been stronger. Now we have Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion being forced, what else can we do, to give blessings. We are doing the Purification of the Sacred vessels. And the list goes on. Oh yah, we are still calling our Priests, Father Bob. Do you call your doctor by his first name? Probably not, because you have respect for the position he holds in your community. What about our Priests.
We really need to work on getting our identy back ! ! !

God help our Church
 
fall_fox said:
Since I was around at the time and lived through all the changes I have an opinion on what happened. I think we Catholics lost our identy to a large degree. Prior to VII, the CAtholic Church was looked at as being strict in its beliefs. You really had to watch your steps or you would surely go to hell. The nuns drove that in to us. With 12 years of Catholic Education, the nuns did a lot of driving. I’m being a little facesious at the expence of our good Sisters.
Then came V A T I C A N I I , If there was a time for the Church to be strict, that was the time. It seemed like they put out the documents and they felt that their work was done. It was a time of great liberalism, “if it felt good do it” was the banner. Well as Catholics we weren’t amune to that way of thinking. It seemed that when the Bishops got their hands on the V II documents, something happened, Its like they said I’ll interperate this my way. OH MY GOSH, In some Parishes it was like, If they could have Mass without the Priest, they would have surely have done it, especially the chiors.
I thought the change from Latin to English would be the hardest thing for me, I was 29 yrs st the time. To my astonishment it wasn’t, I had been an alter boy for years, but now I felt more a part of the Mass. What was hard was all the strange things going on. We would see odd looking Hosts, ciramic chalices and ciborium, the songs changed and I mean to the kind that had no place in a Catholic Church.
Our Priests wanted to be called Father Bob, or whatever. There was a total loss of the respect that was due to everything Catholic. We lost our identy. Our leaders should have been stronger. Now we have Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion being forced, what else can we do, to give blessings. We are doing the Purification of the Sacred vessels. And the list goes on. Oh yah, we are still calling our Priests, Father Bob. Do you call your doctor by his first name? Probably not, because you have respect for the position he holds in your community. What about our Priests.
We really need to work on getting our identy back ! ! !

God help our Church
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I was educated as you, exactly.
Changes occur and bring great adversities. It is not easy. And you did not mentioned priests getting married and saying mass with with bottles of wine.
But change was overdue. Mass in native languages should have been done in Luther times. Remember that the Council of Trent was terrible strict so that we discover our identity fromthe Prostestan. All the articles ended with “anathema sit”. We were most the time in hell, seldom in heaven, here for brief time after confession.

Remmeber that Jesus taught us to call God the Father, Daddy, in Aramaic. Why call the Preist Monsignor Father Stanoslavsky. boy, it is better the way it is now. It is not a lack of respect, I think. You called Bob Clinton.

Remember now the good thinks, the revived liturgy, the new chants in Africa, America and Asia, the participation of laity.

Things are calmer now and the Spirit is leading us and wont leads us into the rock. Our identity is not the old one. Our identiry is the actual one and the future ones. There willbe good things to come.The past will never come back. We are trekking into the Lord’s arms…
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
Things are calmer now and the Spirit is leading us and wont leads us into the rock. Our identity is not the old one. Our identiry is the actual one and the future ones. There willbe good things to come.The past will never come back. We are trekking into the Lord’s arms…
Click to expand...
Are you sure abou that?
 
Regardless of what institution one is talking about, it’s impossible to turn back the hands of time. But it would be good to revive the historic public devotions and practices to help cement our identity and visibility as Catholics, both to each other and to the world at large.

I tested this theory by buying one of those car rosaries and hanging it off my rearview mirror. It’s small and doesn’t pose a visibility impediment to a driver.

I work in a secular environment, and my workplace has a large employees’ parking lot. We don’t have the time, in a busy and short-staffed hospital, to talk about matters of faith. Most of us don’t know what religion, if any, our closest coworkers are. But we see each other, and each other’s cars, in the parking lot every morning as we’re dashing in, coffee mugs in hand, to punch in on time.

One of the doctors had parked next to me, as we got there about the same time. She noticed the rosary dangling from my rearview mirror and commented, “Oh, I didn’t know you were Catholic.” We then chatted briefly about what parishes we go to, and she told me that her parish will be celebrating a White Mass (for healthcare workers, similar to the Red Mass that is said for the legal community) on such and such a date. I remarked by telling her that my parish has daily Eucharistic Adoration for about six hours a day.

Weeks later, another coworker noticed that rosary. His wife has advanced cancer. He asked me to pray for her.

Just making ourselves a little more identifiable in the world can do much to solidify our identities as Catholics, and offer each other support and encouragement in our daily lives.
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
I was educated as you, exactly.
Changes occur and bring great adversities. It is not easy. And you did not mentioned priests getting married and saying mass with with bottles of wine.
But change was overdue. Mass in native languages should have been done in Luther times. Remember that the Council of Trent was terrible strict so that we discover our identity fromthe Prostestan. All the articles ended with “anathema sit”. We were most the time in hell, seldom in heaven, here for brief time after confession.

Remmeber that Jesus taught us to call God the Father, Daddy, in Aramaic. Why call the Preist Monsignor Father Stanoslavsky. boy, it is better the way it is now. It is not a lack of respect, I think. You called Bob Clinton.

Remember now the good thinks, the revived liturgy, the new chants in Africa, America and Asia, the participation of laity.

Things are calmer now and the Spirit is leading us and wont leads us into the rock. Our identity is not the old one. Our identiry is the actual one and the future ones. There willbe good things to come.The past will never come back. We are trekking into the Lord’s arms…
Click to expand...
Change probably was over due, and if the truth be told, the changes the Church made probably were not that bad. The change from Latin to English, German, or whatever, has been criticized. They tried to get more the gist of what the Latin was saying, not word for word. For example, It was “The Lord be with you” and the responce was(is) “and also with you” the two you’s ment the total “you” body, soul, and spirit. The change is as you probably have heard by this time, is “The Lord be with you” and the responce is to be " and with your Spirit" That’s all right I suppose but I think the “and also with you” has a more complete meaning. Another place, the Church is replacing the name of Jesus with he word Lord. Come on !! Really !! Change for change sake, doesn’t accomplish anything. Since we won’t be going from one language to another, it will be easier than before. But if it seems to us to be just “nit picking” it just won’t do what they intended for it to do.

I have had no problem with our Priests at the time. Priests getting married? I just can’t believe that had much of an impact, the number of Priests that did that would have been a very low percent of all the Priests in the world.
What I had a problem with was, people took the additude that they had some kind of RIGHT to do things, change things as they pleased. There was never, never, never a directive to turn the Alter around. The Churches were supposed to be orented so that both the Priest and the people faced EAST !!! EAST !!! EAST !!! WHY !!! That is the direction that our Lord Jesus will be coming from when he returns. At Vatican II, there were three priests, they weren’t even Bishops, that pushed that adgenda, well I guess they got it done didn’t they.
You mentioned that all you heard was hell and damnation. Well I agree, and some of the Sisters went a little far in their enthusium to make sure we were good little girls and boys. The trouble now is that there just doesn’t seem to be any consiquences for the sins we commit now. Have you seen the long lines in Church of people going to confession. WHAT EVER YOU BIND ON EARTH IS BOUND, WHAT EVER YOU LOOST ON EARTH IS LOOST IN HEAVEN. You can’t do that yourself, we need a Priest.

You mentioned Bob Clinton, well your right, when we refered to him in private we would use his first name Bill, but I’m sure that 99.99% of us that would meet him would call him Mr. President.
and at the very least, Mr.Clinton. Some time you should go to a Eastern Rite Church to see the reverance there.
We call our Priests by their first names, we come into church and don’t genuflect, we pass in front of the Tabernacle like it isn’t even there, we take our Lords body in our hands like it is a piece of candy or something, no one ever looks to see if there might be a particle left in their hand, and there are particles, not all the time, but where do you think they went? On the floor!!! A friend of mine said something that I thought was really great. She said, we Catholics put too many things up in the attic and its about time we get some of them back down.
REVERANCE REVERANCE REVERANCE
Our Church is the House of God ! ! !
 
fall_fox said:
Another place, the Church is replacing the name of Jesus with he word Lord. Come on !! Really !! Change for change sake, doesn’t accomplish anything.
Click to expand...
i cant speak to it without knowing the particular situation, but the reason it probaly was changed is because the latin said “dominus” not “Jesum”

thats not change for change sake. that’s called correcting a mistake.

in a similar way, in the ecce agnus dei, we arent “adding” two “beholds,” were correcting the mistake that they were left out 40 years ago
 
FatHead said:
i cant speak to it without knowing the particular situation, but the reason it probaly was changed is because the latin said “dominus” not “Jesum”

thats not change for change sake. that’s called correcting a mistake.

in a similar way, in the ecce agnus dei, we arent “adding” two “beholds,” were correcting the mistake that they were left out 40 years ago
Click to expand...
So I take it that ecce means behold. So saying This is the Lamb of God … was a terrable interpritation.
 
TrueLight said:
Are you sure abou that?
Click to expand...
True Light, I see that you have a picture of the old Latin Mass, OK, it is a good Mass, but it is in Latin, no one understands it.
The time when everything was mortal sin, and I was raised like that, is over. We must think in terms of our choice pro or against God. Our relation with God, how to become every hour better and better to reach God’s perfection: “Be Perfect like my Father is perfect” and not over-thinking on what we have done bad without thinking on the ways to correct our imperfections and to do good.
The times when priests were wearing medieval clothes are gone. It is not the cassock that makes the priest. In medieval ages people used cassocks, so priests wore too. Nowadays they may use modern clothes.
The picture you have has the priest with the back turned to people. Jesus Christ did not do that in the Last Supper. Nowadays, we all are gathered around the table of God.
Now is it a time of creation of new Liturgical Songs and not Gregorian only (by the way, I read and sing Gregorian and like it).
The past was the basement to built the present the the future…
 
fall_fox said:
Change probably was over due, and if the truth be told, the changes the Church made probably were not that bad. The change from Latin to English, German, or whatever, has been criticized. They tried to get more the gist of what the Latin was saying, not word for word. For example, It was “The Lord be with you” and the responce was(is) “and also with you” the two you’s ment the total “you” body, soul, and spirit. The change is as you probably have heard by this time, is “The Lord be with you” and the responce is to be " and with your Spirit" That’s all right I suppose but I think the “and also with you” has a more complete meaning. Another place, the Church is replacing the name of Jesus with he word Lord. Come on !! Really !! Change for change sake, doesn’t accomplish anything. Since we won’t be going from one language to another, it will be easier than before. But if it seems to us to be just “nit picking” it just won’t do what they intended for it to do.

I have had no problem with our Priests at the time. Priests getting married? I just can’t believe that had much of an impact, the number of Priests that did that would have been a very low percent of all the Priests in the world.
What I had a problem with was, people took the additude that they had some kind of RIGHT to do things, change things as they pleased. There was never, never, never a directive to turn the Alter around. The Churches were supposed to be orented so that both the Priest and the people faced EAST !!! EAST !!! EAST !!! WHY !!! That is the direction that our Lord Jesus will be coming from when he returns. At Vatican II, there were three priests, they weren’t even Bishops, that pushed that adgenda, well I guess they got it done didn’t they.
You mentioned that all you heard was hell and damnation. Well I agree, and some of the Sisters went a little far in their enthusium to make sure we were good little girls and boys. The trouble now is that there just doesn’t seem to be any consiquences for the sins we commit now. Have you seen the long lines in Church of people going to confession. WHAT EVER YOU BIND ON EARTH IS BOUND, WHAT EVER YOU LOOST ON EARTH IS LOOST IN HEAVEN. You can’t do that yourself, we need a Priest.

You mentioned Bob Clinton, well your right, when we refered to him in private we would use his first name Bill, but I’m sure that 99.99% of us that would meet him would call him Mr. President.
and at the very least, Mr.Clinton. Some time you should go to a Eastern Rite Church to see the reverance there.
We call our Priests by their first names, we come into church and don’t genuflect, we pass in front of the Tabernacle like it isn’t even there, we take our Lords body in our hands like it is a piece of candy or something, no one ever looks to see if there might be a particle left in their hand, and there are particles, not all the time, but where do you think they went? On the floor!!! A friend of mine said something that I thought was really great. She said, we Catholics put too many things up in the attic and its about time we get some of them back down.
REVERANCE REVERANCE REVERANCE
Our Church is the House of God ! ! !
Click to expand...
I agree with you on most things.
But remember, there is no change without mistakes. Do you see the revolution that was V II? Since the Council of Trent there was not a Council like that! But remember that the Pope John XXIII said that was need a flow of fresh, “aggiornamento” and that the Holy Spirit inspired him o gather the Council.

Stormee (??) as it is, exagerantions around, we are being led by the Holy Spirit.

I could say a lot of things that I do not agree or I would like to be better:

  1. *]the solemnity of liturgy
    *]the meaning of the chantics
    *]the short time for prayer

    and so on, and so on. I want to go to Moscow only to participate in the Eastern Liturgy (6 hours), which I love. I went to Greece and I had to go to Easter Liturgy.

    BUT, and a big BUT, I am not at the helm of the Church. Someone else is. I trust the Person at the helm. So, I am free, happy and contented.

    Shortcomings. There were always in the past and in the present. In the future? Surely.

    So, let’s give time for the Church to change. Let’s remember that we are not our little parish and our little problems but we are 1 billion. most of what happens we do not know. There are people walking 8 hours to go to Sunday Mass. Their viewpoint an ours are completely different and our little problems seem nothing compared to theirs.

    The Church is respect (and feared and hated!) today. An atheist friend of mine, who reads mountains of books said to me: “Benedict XVI is the only person in Europe who, when he writes, he has something to say”.

    We are in good hands.
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
I agree with you on most things.
But remember, there is no change without mistakes. Do you see the revolution that was V II? Since the Council of Trent there was not a Council like that! But remember that the Pope John XXIII said that was need a flow of fresh, “aggiornamento” and that the Holy Spirit inspired him o gather the Council.

Stormee (??) as it is, exagerantions around, we are being led by the Holy Spirit.

I could say a lot of things that I do not agree or I would like to be better:

  1. *]the solemnity of liturgy
    *]the meaning of the chantics
    *]the short time for prayer

    and so on, and so on. I want to go to Moscow only to participate in the Eastern Liturgy (6 hours), which I love. I went to Greece and I had to go to Easter Liturgy.

    BUT, and a big BUT, I am not at the helm of the Church. Someone else is. I trust the Person at the helm. So, I am free, happy and contented.

    Shortcomings. There were always in the past and in the present. In the future? Surely.

    So, let’s give time for the Church to change. Let’s remember that we are not our little parish and our little problems but we are 1 billion. most of what happens we do not know. There are people walking 8 hours to go to Sunday Mass. Their viewpoint an ours are completely different and our little problems seem nothing compared to theirs.

    The Church is respect (and feared and hated!) today. An atheist friend of mine, who reads mountains of books said to me: “Benedict XVI is the only person in Europe who, when he writes, he has something to say”.

    We are in good hands.
Click to expand...

  1. I believe we, the church, are in wonderful capable hands. I was thrilled when Joseph Alois Ratsinger became our Papa. Love that middle name, I have it also.
    Please understand, I am for the most part okay with Vatican I I , and I’ll be fine with this change. Where the problems occure is when things go to the Parishes and you have liberal Priests that go their own way and their Bishop is ignorant of what is happening in their own Diocese. I dearly love the Holy Eucharist, and I get myself in trouble with my Parish when I point out things that are being done improperly. But overall I’m doing okay, I was elected to the Parish Council, so there must be enough people that agree with me.
    I’m also on the Liturgy Comission, things are a little tougher there.The main thing is, all I’m doing is trying to have my parish abide by the GIRM. I’m not one to sit in the pews and be upset with these things that are not proper, I at least try to make our Parish better.
 
fall_fox said:
I believe we, the church, are in wonderful capable hands. I was thrilled when Joseph Alois Ratsinger became our Papa. Love that middle name, I have it also.
Please understand, I am for the most part okay with Vatican I I , and I’ll be fine with this change. Where the problems occure is when things go to the Parishes and you have liberal Priests that go their own way and their Bishop is ignorant of what is happening in their own Diocese. I dearly love the Holy Eucharist, and I get myself in trouble with my Parish when I point out things that are being done improperly. But overall I’m doing okay, I was elected to the Parish Council, so there must be enough people that agree with me.
I’m also on the Liturgy Comission, things are a little tougher there.The main thing is, all I’m doing is trying to have my parish abide by the GIRM. I’m not one to sit in the pews and be upset with these things that are not proper, I at least try to make our Parish better.
Click to expand...
I see that you, besides criticizing, you help to improve. Congratulations. I think the Church needs people like you. If they elected you that’s because you are good. Nevertheless, in those places, one has to suffer. Keeping the balance between exaggerations on one side and on the other side is not easy. Balance between keeping the past and going into the future is not easy.

If this helps, I would suggest:

  1. *]keeping the past (KP): I think it would be beautiful that most choirs would be used to sing some Gregorian Chant, Bach and traditional songs.
    *]??? Some parishes should have a Christian Song Festival, where the lyrics would receive 80% or voting and music 20%, or without any vote at all. We must stimulate creativity.

    I have more ideas but more outlandish. GBY
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
True Light, I see that you have a picture of the old Latin Mass, OK, it is a good Mass, but it is in Latin, no one understands it.
The time when everything was mortal sin, and I was raised like that, is over. We must think in terms of our choice pro or against God. Our relation with God, how to become every hour better and better to reach God’s perfection: “Be Perfect like my Father is perfect” and not over-thinking on what we have done bad without thinking on the ways to correct our imperfections and to do good.
The times when priests were wearing medieval clothes are gone. It is not the cassock that makes the priest. In medieval ages people used cassocks, so priests wore too. Nowadays they may use modern clothes.
The picture you have has the priest with the back turned to people. Jesus Christ did not do that in the Last Supper. Nowadays, we all are gathered around the table of God.
Now is it a time of creation of new Liturgical Songs and not Gregorian only (by the way, I read and sing Gregorian and like it).
The past was the basement to built the present the the future…
Click to expand...
Are you for real?

I just saw this post. I have to get ready to make my 2.5 hour trek to the TRADITIONAL LATIN mass that you put down in this post, but we’ll talk later. 😃
 
TrueLight said:
Are you for real?

I just saw this post. I have to get ready to make my 2.5 hour trek to the TRADITIONAL LATIN mass that you put down in this post, but we’ll talk later. 😃
Click to expand...
I just can’t see how you can read a put down in what he said. It’s true that we couldn’t understand the Latin. Why do you suppose SO MANY PEOPLE used to say the rosary during mass. They really shouldn’t have been doing that, but I couldn’t blame them. I wonder if you went to a Catholic School, the way you talk I’m betting you didn’t. We were tought hell and damnation. People need to be careful about the total loving God, which He is, but there is consiquences for sin. You must be truely sorry and not assume that God will forgive without your repentance.
 
Pfaffenhoffen said:
I see that you, besides criticizing, you help to improve. Congratulations. I think the Church needs people like you. If they elected you that’s because you are good. Nevertheless, in those places, one has to suffer. Keeping the balance between exaggerations on one side and on the other side is not easy. Balance between keeping the past and going into the future is not easy.

If this helps, I would suggest:

  1. *]keeping the past (KP): I think it would be beautiful that most choirs would be used to sing some Gregorian Chant, Bach and traditional songs.
    *]??? Some parishes should have a Christian Song Festival, where the lyrics would receive 80% or voting and music 20%, or without any vote at all. We must stimulate creativity.

    I don’t know your age, but at 67yrs. I wish I had the voice I had as a kid. I was always in the church chior and I loved it. Our chior director is after me to sing but I don’t have the range I should have to be in the chior.
    When we changed from Latin to English, we started using Protestant songs. Some are find, and I love to sing them, on the other hand some of their songs are problematic for a Catholic Church to use. They contain ideas that are a problem for Catholic Doctrine.
    As far as the past goes, I prefer to keep most of it in the past. There were things that were done that would lend itself to more devotion in our Church. People treat our Church more like a social hall than a Church. Lowd discussions, people walking around with no reverance toward Christ in the tabernacle, kids running around, it’s hard to prepair one’s self for Mass.
    I really don’t think you and I are that far appart in our thinking. Thank you for your comments.

    fall Fuchs
Click to expand...
 
fall_fox said:
It’s true that we couldn’t understand the Latin.
Click to expand...
Some did. And everyone didn’t understand the translations either.

But more importantly, is there a Church rule that says we can’t seek to learn the Latin of the Mass if we don’t understand it?
 
Change is one man’s blessing and another man’s poison.
I believe changes in our society, faith, family, buisness, are
difficult. And especially for those who are used to one
way for a long period of time. We can’t please everyone,
but the one we should try to please is you know Who,
our real identity.

When I look at myself and try to see what I can do to
make mass more blessed, I come back to remembering
why I am there, what is really taking place, and am I
visualizing Him in my mind using my fullest power of
concentration. When I do that, the mass becomes alive
for me. It takes on a beautiful meaning and reality.
The words in the hymns and songs jump out at me
and I sing with more joy and love. I experience a thrill
to be called to his banquet table to share the holiest
of the holies.

If I had only one change that I would be granted,
I would like to see more people sing and sing with
gusto the hymns, psalms, and proper of the Mass.
It makes such a diffenence to hear the church resounding
with enthusiasm in song. It livens it up so much.
“For to sing is to pray twice”.
 
ProVobis said:
Some did. And everyone didn’t understand the translations either.

But more importantly, is there a Church rule that says we can’t seek to learn the Latin of the Mass if we don’t understand it?
Click to expand...
No there isn’t that I know of but the thing is most people didn’t, we just read the English on the facing page.
 
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