The Generational Divide

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Well, I’m a late gen x-Er/ early millennial. I think you’ve overstated things a bit.

While it is true that many of us desire something more traditional than lax OF masses, I think there are also many of us that are turned off by rad trad EF masses.

There is a lot to be said for having options. Being able to attend a reverent OF mass while also being able to attend a Latin EF mass is the best of both world in my humble opinion.
 
There may not have been as big changes in the Mass in previous generations, but there were definitely giant shifts in Catholic spirituality. For example, the suggested frequency of Holy Communion and the group of people who could receive were pretty radically expanded between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s. There are other changes you could research if you wished to do so.
 
Frankly I don’t see this generational divide where I sit (in Quebec). The divide is that the millennials, or their immediate predecessors simply don’t go to Mass, period.

I am a baby boomer (born 1958) and though I love the OF Mass, I don’t love so much how it is executed in parishes in my area. Hence, I have joined a Gregorian schola, and worship in an abbey where the OF Mass is said in Gregorian chant (Latin and some Greek) and French plainchant. No EF Mass close to where I live other than SSPX, which I am allergic to. So the abbey is as traditional as it gets. Oddly enough, Mass is packed there on Sundays. While many are younger folks mostly coming as a side-event to their trip to the gift shop to buy their renowned cheese and cider, who you only see once and never again, there is a hard-core of “good liturgy fanatics” who show up almost every Sunday. Most of whom are baby boomers. I know many Gregorian choristers in our schola and others, and though there are younger members, most are baby boomers.

So I don’t buy the generational thing.
ChunkMonk said:
Wait… it only did that in the 1960s.
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This is absolutely false. Until Trent, if you worshipped in England you used the Sarum Rite, in France, the Gallican Rite, in Rome, the Old Roman Rite, in Milan, the Ambrosian Rite, in Spain, the Mozarabic Rite, in Portugal the Braga Rite, to name the main ones and there were many other regional rites. The Tridentine Rite only became normative after Trent (so 1500 years of alternate rites, plus some monastic/religious orders), and the OF Mass that we know today came some 407 years after the end of the Council of Trent.

So no, the Mass was not “unchanged” for 2000 years until Vatican II.
 
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OraLabora said:
Until Trent, if you worshipped in England you used the Sarum Rite, in France, the Gallican Rite, in Rome, the Old Roman Rite, in Milan, the Ambrosian Rite, in Spain, the Mozarabic Rite, in Portugal the Braga Rite, to name the main ones and there were many other regional rites.
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Did these not all follow the same basic rubrics? My impression is that these separate rites are akin to the separate rites in the East today. i.e. Ukrainian, Russian, Greek, etc. They are all per se separate rites (in reality separate “churches,” little “c”), but they are all very, very similar. I’m pretty sure Trent just standardized the Mass in the Western Church by having the Roman rite absorb the other Latin rites, as opposed to making any big changes.

Before V2, we saw separate Latin “rites” used by different religious orders as well, but they only had minor differences.
 
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These threads rarely end well, but, I’ll bite as I am an adult convert so I don’t have a dog in either camp 🙂

From my experience it is more of a divide between the “internet junkie” Catholics and the Catholics who would never even think of looking online for anything about the Faith.

Naturally, more “Millennials” will be more comfortable with finding answers, discussions and community online. Of course there are many with grey hair who populate the Catholic Interwebz, but, if you poll Joe Pewsetter after Mass next Sunday you’d find fewer of the over 50 crowd who would even realize the Vatican HAS a website (let alone Twitter).

Once you join the Catholic Interwebz, the trend skews traditional. Not sure why, but, in my experience the more online Catholic resources one makes use of, the more trad.

Don’t even get me started on the videos of senior citizens strumming a guitar and singing 60/70 Catholic Folk tunes at Youth events (and watching the cringy faces of the attendees).

I’d suggest the book “Forming a Parish of Intentional Disciples” and especially the chapter that deals with youth/young adult ministry.
 
This is one of the common myths that is explored in the book I mentioned above. The idea that young adults are somehow incapable of deep spirituality. “We” have to end that line of thought.
 
Not necessarily. For example, for the Gallican Rite:
Jenner’s analysis shows that the Gallican Mass contained a very small number of fixed elements and that nearly the whole service was variable according to the day.
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(from the Wikipedia article)

Mozarabic Rite: http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2011/11/mozarabic-rite-canon-to-communion-and.html

Ambrosian Rite:

The main differences in the Mass are:[4]
Code: 
The principal celebrant blesses all the readers, not only the deacon.
The Gospel is followed by a short antiphon.
The General Intercessions or "Prayers of the Faithful" immediately follow the homily
The Rite of Peace comes at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Eucharist, before the Offertory (Presentation of the Gifts)
The Creed follows the Offertory, before the Prayer over the Gifts
There are some differences between the First Eucharistic Prayer of the Ambrosian Missal and the Roman Canon, the first in the Roman Missal; but its Eucharistic Prayers II, III, and IV are the same as in the Roman Rite. In addition, the Ambrosian Rite has two proper Eucharistic Prayers, used mainly on Easter and Holy Thursday.
The priest breaks the Host and places a piece in the main chalice before the Lord's Prayer, while an antiphon (the Confractorium) is sung or recited.
The Agnus Dei is not said.
Before the final blessing, the people say three times Kyrie, eleison (Lord have mercy)
The Ambrosian Rite has its own cycle of readings at Mass
Many of the prayers said by the priest during Mass are peculiar to the Ambrosian Rite, which has a particularly rich variety of prefaces.
You get the picture. There was far more variety before Trent. Some of the rites survive: Ambrosian is still used in the diocese of Milan, and Mozarabic in Toledo (might be by indult, I forget). Sarum went over to the Anglicans and formed the basis of their Book of Common Prayer. Others disappeared.

And some elements of the TLM remain in the OF Mass, for example for Masses sung in Gregorian chant in the newer form, the responsorial psalm may be replaced by the Gradual antiphon and verse, plus the vast patrimony of Gregorian chant remains completely applicable to the OF Mass (and I have been to many in Gregorian chant both at the local abbey and other abbeys around the world, plus with our Schola in various parishes).
 
gcshapero said:
When I’ve spoken to many fellow Knights (I’m a 2nd degree – one of the youngest in my council) many of them and their wives (50-70 year olds) have said how thankful they are that the Latin Mass is mostly gone.
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I find that kind of disturbing. It is one thing to be thankful that people have more options, but it is quite another thing to be glad that something that is not your preference is mostly gone. Do people really find it that hard to believe that there are folks out there who value the Latin Mass? And I am asking this as someone who has never been to a Latin Mass.
 
It’s not a global thing. It’s quite an enigma n your country.

But do you have antsy stats. It could just be observational.

Or simply the rebellion within the rebellion
 
OraLabora said:
This is absolutely false. Until Trent, if you worshipped in England you used the Sarum Rite, in France, the Gallican Rite, in Rome, the Old Roman Rite, in Milan, the Ambrosian Rite, in Spain, the Mozarabic Rite, in Portugal the Braga Rite, to name the main ones and there were many other regional rites. The Tridentine Rite only became normative after Trent (so 1500 years of alternate rites, plus some monastic/religious orders), and the OF Mass that we know today came some 407 years after the end of the Council of Trent.
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Thank you! Yes, I wish that all of these Rites still existed. Trent was an example of a pendulum swing in response to the Reformation.
 
YoungApologist3 said:
Did these not all follow the same basic rubrics? My impression is that these separate rites are akin to the separate rites in the East today. i.e. Ukrainian, Russian, Greek, etc. They are all per se separate rites (in reality separate “churches,” little “c”), but they are all very, very similar. I’m pretty sure Trent just standardized the Mass in the Western Church by having the Roman rite absorb the other Latin rites, as opposed to making any big changes.
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No they are different Churches using the same Rite…Byzantine. Now there are Slavic vs. Greek usages but it’s the same rite and same Divine Liturgies (St. John or St. Basil mostly)
 
I just skimmed through videos of Ambrosian, Sarum, and Gallican Masses. I wasn’t able to find a Mozarabic Mass video, though. The Ambrosian Mass (which I presume has been affected by V2) looks like an OF Roman Mass with a few peculiar practices. The Sarum and Gallican Mass (which I presume weren’t affected by V2) looked like EF Roman Masses with a few peculiar practices. I don’t think they were as different as you might think.
 
Among other things, the music (chant) was very different in style and in many cases, text. A few pieces of Mozarabic or Mozarabic inspiration survive in the current liturgy (e.g. Videns Dominus flentes sorores Lazari, communion antiphon for the 5th Sunday in Lent). Look at a Gregorian Gloria vs. the Ambrosian Gloria, or the Ambrosian creed melody vs any one of the Gregorian ones.

The Sarum rite, and most of these rites, have scholars dedicated to studying old manuscripts and the music.

They were sufficiently different, therefore, to keep generations of scholars busy. I know one who has a PhD and is a professor who researches and teaches the Sarum rite. I can’t imagine “a few peculiar practices” are enough for him on which to build his entire career.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
This is one of the common myths that is explored in the book I mentioned above. The idea that young adults are somehow incapable of deep spirituality.
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What, pray tell, does putting a piece of cloth over your head have to do with “deep spirituality”? It’s superficial, and more play church than real church. Like I said, silly cosplay.
 
I may be wrong. I may be missing things (Like I said, I skimmed.), or looking through biased lenses. I’ll readily admit that. At a superficial level, though, they appear to be close to the (OF or EF) Roman Rite. It appears you are looking at the details, while I am looking at the overall picture. As you said, they all have their own chants and music, histories, and—of course—those “few peculiar practices.” That, indeed, would be enough to keep scholars busy. There are many different music settings and a few regional differences for the OF Roman Mass as well. If a historian in 500 years looked back at us today, even if the OF Roman Mass we have today was still the norm, there would be much for them to learn, too.

EDIT: Either way, Trent did not get rid of Tradition, like you seem to imply in your original post mentioning the regional rites. Trent, in fact, preserved the older traditions (just like we EF-lovers want to do today), by abolishing those rites which had existed for less than 200 years, not those rites which you listed. After all, they are still around today.
 
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gcshapero said:
I have found that while many Baby Boomer Catholics express great enthusiasm for the Novis Ordo Mass and contemporary liturgy, many Millennials express a great desire for more orthodox liturgy and Tridentine Mass.
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I’m old, a baby boomer if you will.

But I just don’t think that there is as much enthusiasm for Latin amongst the youths as you think.

It just seems to me to be a tiny movement, that isn’t getting enthusiasm from many of the young, except for those born into Lat(name removed by moderator)hile families. Families headed by patriarchs in my generation.

Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe I’ll drive out there some week. But that’s just my impression from afar. The only think about going to Latin Mass is that my clothes are too modern. Ties too colorful and too wide, pants don’t rise high enough.
 
We cradle Catholics have gone through it all - EF and OF. No big deal. A mass is a mass.
 
I wouldn’t be so dismissive of a practice that adds to the experience of a lot of people. Cosplay? Are you serious?
 
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