Reverent Novus Ordo Masses?

[R_H_Benson]

I’m fairly certain the Last Gospel is read at every Traditional Mass, except at one of the three Christmas Masses which has the “Last Gospel” for its Gospel reading. In that Mass, it is omitted at the end.

 

[Reuben_J]

I’m fairly certain the Last Gospel is read at every Traditional Mass, except at one of the three Christmas Masses which has the “Last Gospel” for its Gospel reading. In that Mass, it is omitted at the end.

Does it constitute in a mass proper, like it is in the missal? Or just an additional option which can be said or being left out depending on the celebrant?

 

[R_H_Benson]

The Last Gospel is required. It is not optional.

 

[Reuben_J]

The Last Gospel is required. It is not optional.

So it is in the Missal as a mass proper. OK, get it.

 

[joeybaggz]

joeybaggz:

Let’s see, the Latin Mass…

Thanks for this post joey. I was born after Vatican II so I never got to attend a Latin Mass back in the day. However, my mother had been going to them her whole life before I came along and she and her family would tell stories about them that were along the lines of what you posted. Especially jokes about people not understanding the Latin, and my personal favorite, women who didn’t have a hat or veil handy to cover their head but had to get to Mass in a hurry so they put a paper napkin on their head from the diner, which my mother thought looked ridiculous.

Thank you TB. I got a good chuckle out of this because I had forgotten about the paper napkins on the head of the girls and ladies who didn’t have a hat. I remember serving Latin Mass in High School (Catholic of course) in 1963/64. The girls often forgot hats or veils and it was really funny, looking over the student body and seeing a dozen or so paper napkins from the cafeteria waving on their heads.
But don’t get me wrong. The nuns who taught and the priest who officiated and ran the high school, all were good dedicated people. It was just the times that, when I look back, make me shake my head at the faux piety of the times.

 

[Debbie_Kono]

It was just the times that, when I look back, make me shake my head at the faux piety of the times.

I don’t understand. Are you saying a girl/woman who forgot her head covering is impious? Last year while I was out and about in another state, I decided on a whim to stop at a Church I had never been before to visit Jesus in the Tabernacle. I didn’t have a veil in my car, so I grabbed the only thing I had…a tee shirt. I admit I felt a bit embarrassed that if someone saw me…but then I got over it quickly. I’d rather be embarrassed and have people think I was guilty of “faux piety” then to approach Him with an uncovered head.

 

[giuseppe96]

My current parish celebrates the Ordinary Form in a very reverent manner. There’s no “liturgical dancing”, guitars or tambourines. The high altar is still in place, the tabernacle is kept front and center in the sanctuary, we sing traditional hymns, the priests handle the Blessed Sacrament with great care, and the communion rail is still in place. And the Saturday Vigil Mass is all sung in Gregorian Chant.

 

[joeybaggz]

Not impious. Just an overly scrupulous group of nuns. Your desire to cover your head is your choice (which by the way, I admire). It is just when the overly pious scrupulosity was forced on others and hence made them to feel unworthy or “bad”, then I take issue. I have to ask myself, given that outside Mass time or a communal celebration of one kind or another, there may be only a few, or no, people in the sanctuary, do you think the Lord is glad or offended if someone comes to spend time with him, and isn’t wearing a “hat.”

I don’t think, back in the 60’s at those high school masses, that Jesus would have been offended if a young lady or two forgot her veil or mantilla to cover her head. The good sisters just could have casually and kindly reminded the remiss young lady not to forget the covering the next time.

 

[Nap66]

It is technically allowed, but is only supposed to be in extraordinary circumstances, hence “Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.” The fact that is has become the norm is an abuse. It is ideal to receive from a priest or deacon.

I did not know that about the term “extraordinary.” I thought it meant that EMHC’s were just extraordinary people who could distribute communion (seriously I did). In my church we only have one Priest distributing communion at mass and six EMHCs. I always sit in the section where I go to the Priest. What’s funny is the other lines for the EMHCs are always longer and the Priest finishes his distribution so much sooner. You’d think they’d steer people to the Priest line. But they don’t. Yes EMHC use in my parish has become ordinary.

 

[Nap66]

I’ll return to my bunker and start yelling at the other side (whoever they are).

Hey Christmas is coming up - Christmas truce!

 

[Debbie_Kono]

I don’t know if God is offended when women go to Him without a head covering. I thought Catholic women did this for 1930 years before VII. And Scripture says we should. I believe it is a good reminder of the Real Presence and I know that polls show the belief in the Real Presence among Catholics has declined…drastically. Not sure if the decline had already started before VII or not…but nonetheless…it is a problem…

 

[Debbie_Kono]

The good sisters just could have casually and kindly reminded the remiss young lady not to forget the covering the next time.

Just read your last sentence. This again goes to the Real Presence. I think the much better option is to put on a kleenix (as my mother me told they did in such cases).

 

[Cor_ad_Cor]

The OF certainly makes clear the sacrificial nature and is not ambiguous. What it does is emphasize equally well the communal meal that is the Last Supper as well as the sacrifice. It does a much better job of the both/and of our true theology, in my opinion, especially when EP I - the Roman Canon - is used (which is the Sunday default around here).

 

[Walking_Home]

I don’t know if God is offended when women go to Him without a head covering. I thought Catholic women did this for 1930 years before VII. And Scripture says we should. I believe it is a good reminder of the Real Presence and I know that polls show the belief in the Real Presence among Catholics has declined…drastically. Not sure if the decline had already started before VII or not…but nonetheless…it is a problem…

---

We don’t interpret scripture like the fundamentalist protestants.

Take note of what the Church has to say about “head covering/veiling”:

“disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.”

SACRED CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH

DECLARATION
INTER INSIGNIORES
ON THE QUESTION OF ADMISSION OF WOMEN
TO THE MINISTERIAL PRIESTHOOD

Another objection is based upon the transitory character that one claims to see today in some of the prescriptions of Saint Paul concerning women, and upon the difficulties that some aspects of his teaching raise in this regard. But it must be noted that these ordinances, probably inspired by the customs of the period, concern scarcely more than disciplinary practices of minor importance, such as the obligation imposed upon women to wear a veil on their head (1 Cor 11:2-16); such requirements no longer have a normative value.

 

[Entwhistler]

Agreed 100%. However, some people will say that those who do wear a head veil in this day and age are somehow impious or trying to look holy. Well, as someone else said in this thread, head covering by women during Mass has been going on a long time. Some like to continue on with a tradition because it has some meaning. Just because it’s a tradition that isn’t in force today doesn’t make it bad. Maybe we shouldn’t be quick judge others.

 

[Walking_Home]

It is not judging to point out what the Church teaches on head covering – especially when people are falling into the self interpreting of scripture – to say “Scripture says we should”.

And the length of time that women used to cover holds no weight – since as the Church says— it’s a disciplinary practice of minor importance and such a requirement no longer has a normative value.

 

[stpurl]

Head covering is apparently quite a contentious subject.

Two things to consider.

A. It is subject to change. It can change from required to optional; it can also change back from ‘optional’ to required. An example from the same historical time and reasoning is the "nonLenten Friday abstinence indult’. An indult means that a required practice need not be performed by an individual or group per request of the local bishop(s). And (again per the bishops) the indult can be lifted or removed and the required practice once more be performed by the people. While head covering is not a ‘required’ practice at this time period it is not something forbidden. And that leads to #2. . .

B. Since it is neither required nor forbidden, it is just as wrong for people to say (as many do) that the custom was silly, or chauvinist, or an attempt to act ‘holier than thou’ or to ‘stand out’ if a woman chooses to wear a covering, as it is for people to say that women who do not wear coverings today are ‘offending God’ or ‘disobedient’.

Personally, and especially on these boards, especially in the last 4 years or so but from a sizeable percentage even from the beginning of CA, I hear a heck of a lot more comments from women stating that hell will freeze over before they would ever wear such a stupid, silly, male-dominated, antiquated, uncomfortable, degrading to women etc. article and that women who do wear a covering are mindless, spineless, brainwashed traitors to women who should have the coverings ripped from their heads and be publically shamed.

It might be an interesting project for some mathematically minded person to go back over the last 13-1/2 years and see the percentage of posts which called women who do not wear coverings names, or castigated them as ‘wrong’, as opposed to the number who called women who do wear coverings holier than thou, mindless, brainwashed, etc. etc.

 

[AngelusDomini]

I can honestly say I have never been to an irreverent Ordinary Form Mass and the Ordinariate Use Mass I attend each Sunday is more reverent than some, please note ‘some’, of the Extraordinary Form Masses I have attended which have sometimes been so rushed that it was almost like a race to get through it as quickly as possible.

 

[Walking_Home]

Just read your last sentence. This again goes to the Real Presence. I think the much better option is to put on a kleenix (as my mother me told they did in such cases).

Lets just take the statement above. What is coming through is – a person covers ( using a kleenix if they have to) if they believe in the Real Presence. So this leads to --women who do not cover – are somehow deficient in their belief in the Real Presence.

Head covering was a disciplinary practice of minor importance – which the Church saw fit to not carry forward.

 

[stpurl]

Wasn’t Debbie, in her response to Joey, referring to a specific situation 'back in the 1960s? Not today? And while I am not going to claim causality because I personally think it’s multifactorial, the fact remains that belief in the Real Presence was much higher even in the 1960s than it is today.

My 88 year old mother was mentioning to me just yesterday (and she goes to an OF parish where she’s visiting and finds the young priest very devout) that over the last couple of decades, even in very reverent and fine OF parishes, the atmosphere in the churches is much different from that of her girlhood and youth. She said, "The sense of the sacred is just. . .gone’. Even in a church full of stained glass and statues and candles, ‘happy’ people, etc., one is just walking into a building; a pretty building, a pleasant atmosphere, conviviality, lots of fellowship etc. . .but no real sense of "God’s House’. It’s more like the house of the really nice people who are always the first to volunteer for community events, but the whole focus of the people is on ‘community’. The people could be Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, atheist, whatever, and the atmosphere is based on what the community finds comfortable. That’s why if the community likes ‘smells and bells’ it’s there; if the community likes burlap and bare, it’s there; if they like an ambience of service then the focus is on tangibles (boxes of food set up in back, sign up sheets for rallies, lists of ‘projects’), if they like a ‘diversity’ approach there’s the labyrinth, centering prayer, ‘ecumenical services’ etc.

But God? The God of our Catholic forebears, whatever ethnic/cultural/socioeconomic status as known in any Catholic Church in the U.S., Europe, S. America, etc. and whose presence was still so remarkable that even today Hollywood evokes it by flashing a screen of a church interior from 1940 or before because that’s what even the most ‘progressive Catholic’ knows will be recognized AS "Catholic looking’. . . the presence of THAT God my mother and her contemporaries, and I and mine, and my children and theirs. . .is harder and harder to discern. . .