You’ve undoubtedly seen hundreds of these kinds of polemics here, so it’s probably nothing new, but…
I’m back at my university today and was forced to attend the Ordinary Form of the Mass at the university’s Newman Center.
It made me SO thankful that I have the ability to attend the eminently more uplifting and reverent sacrifice of the Extraordinary Form on Sundays.
We have a priest who is devout and young and who avoids liturgical abuses like the plague. He wears very traditional vestments and uses liturgical items made of precious metals. He got rid of the previous priest’s “tabernacle-to-the-side-and-smiley-faces-on-chasubles” mentality. But unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to make this mass bearable.
The distributors of the ashes were all male students, all clad in ripped jeans and untucked t-shirts.
The Eucharistic Ministers were those same men plus one middle-aged woman. Needless to say, I slipped into the priest’s line and knelt for Holy Communion.
The students socialized in loud whispers before Mass while myself and my friends who also attend the EOF knelt praying the Rosary and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
The students socialized in regular voices after Mass while my friends and I said the prayers after Low Mass.
It made me contemplate the contrasting attitudes about prayer and the Real Presence in the tabernacle: those students who grew up in the OF and those who have had the gift of the EOF experience given to them.
After the opening hymn, the students slammed their music books into the holders, with little regard for the opening Sign of the Cross. They shuffled up, almost all receiving Holy Communion in the hand.
Many women were dressed immodestly, with skin-tight clothing. It was not only immodest, but provided an occasion of sin for all men in attendance who were trying to worship.
In all, it was a somewhat depressing experience, but it was slightly remedied after I spoke with Father following Mass. We largely agree on traditionalism. Methinks I’ll inquire as to the possibility of a monthly EOF.
The whole experience makes me thankful for the EOF. We must pray daily for its resurrection as the primary rite of Roman Catholic worship!
Rant ended.
