The Generational Divide

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PERSONAL piety. Like wearing a medal, a scapular, a crucifix, like making the SOTC when you pass a Church, like people in the US giving up meat on all Fridays, these are a very very few practices of PERSONAL PIETY.

I know there is a common feeling that no one need do more than the minimum, however, some people choose to do more.
 
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gcshapero said:
I’m genuinely curious as to how things like veils are vestments are categorized if not as sacramentals.
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You might consider starting a thread about the topic. I would be curious what others have to say, particularly old-timers like me.

Personally, I would consider veils a fashion accessory.

If someone took a statue of the Infant of Prague, and used it as a door stop, I would cringe, even though my own personal spirituality is not much focused on externalities.

If I saw someone use an old veil as a dishrag, though, I wouldn’t cringe at all. There isn’t anything inherently sacred about it, unlike the other things you listed.

It reminds me of the old Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the others…”
 
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AndrewAxland said:
You might consider starting a thread about the topic. I would be curious what others have to say, particularly old-timers like me.

Personally, I would consider veils a fashion accessory.

If someone took a statue of the Infant of Prague, and used it as a door stop, I would cringe, even though my own personal spirituality is not much focused on externalities.

If I saw someone use an old veil as a dishrag, though, I wouldn’t cringe at all. There isn’t anything inherently sacred about it, unlike the other things you listed.

It reminds me of the old Sesame Street song, “One of these things is not like the others…”
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That’s a great idea. I think I will – thanks for the idea.

You might not flinch for seeing that, but I likely would if that’s how it was used. Not everyone uses sacramentals in the way that they should; some wear rosaries as necklaces which is cringey. A statue as a doorstop is also cringey. Or when people use them superstitiously like burying a St. Joseph statue upside down.

I do agree that one is not like the other – though that’s why sacramentals can be in separate categories based on if they are physical items, physical acts, necessary, not necessary, etc.

I’ll start a threat – very good discussion on this.

Going back to this one, while you may say a veil as a fashion accessory, many women who use them don’t and take them seriously and acknowledge their meanings. Would they be wrong for this intention, lying, or misunderstanding their own motivations? Or would it be possible that regardless of your own personal feelings about veils, that others are very sincere about them?
 
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I’m not suggesting otherwise. What I’m saying is that there is no such thing as “veiling” for lay women. There is head covering as a gesture of personal piety. What one chooses to use to cover one’s head is a fashion choice – there is nothing about a mantilla that is more a gesture of personal piety than a hat. @donruggero had a really good post about this a while ago.

I remember when covering one’s head was still a rule in canon law. We all did it – but ‘veiling’ is reserved for nuns and religious sisters or for the practice of covering statues in purple cloth during Lent.
 
Just for the record - to my mind going to Church for the Church presupposes an encounter with the living Christ, present materially in the Eucharist. And I am not a traditionalist in terms of bells and smells and have maybe attended one Latin Mass in my life (or two, three?). The Eucharist is central to the Church, agreed. But it only works if the recipient is authentically accepting/following the Word of God - in word and deed. This is the part to me that involves teaching, Scripture, tradition - going to the Church for the Church. Without the whole package, the Eucharist is just bells and smells, ritual to be more specific. Anything you want it to be.
 
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I’m old enough to remember those days. “Veiling” wasn’t a thing at all. For many, it was more about an opportunity to show off one’s nice, new hat.
 
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I think it’s also worth mentioning that today’s EF differs from the pre-Vatican II Latin Mass in that it is “extraordinary”. The priests who perform it usually have a special love for that form and have chosen to work hard to learn how to do it reverently and well. Not that priests didn’t do that back then, but when a mass is the normal, routine thing it’s easier to fall into lazy or irreverent practices.
 
I don’t accept that there is a generational divide .

There are some old young people , some young old people , some who are just old , some who are just young , and some in the middle who are middle-aged , etc. etc.

We ought not to pigeon-hole people .

As for Catholics of various ages relating to liturgy and social teaching according to age group , well I see no evidence of this among the Catholics I know .
 
Rob2 said:
I don’t accept that there is a generational divide .

There are some old young people , some young old people , some who are just old , some who are just young , and some in the middle who are middle-aged , etc. etc.

We ought not to pigeon-hole people .
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That’s definitely a whole different subject, but of course there are patterns. There will always be exceptions.
 
I believe that whilst most Catholics (men and women) largely pay lip service to the teachings of the Church, among those who wish to follow their faith and live according to Church teaching the young are increasingly traditionalist.

Especially I believe that this applies to women and girls who particularly see traditional observance as a conscious rejection of the evils of feminism. Hence the increasing return to the veil.
 
I concur with what seems to be the general opinion on the original question. I do not see milennials flocking to the Latin Mass. The small number that the Latin Mass does attract seems to include a good percentage of youngish people (late 20s through 40s), though.

I think the old Latin Mass is beautiful; but unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, its attendees comprise a very niche group within Catholicism. I don’t think that’s likely to change anytime soon, if ever.
 
LumineDiei said:
I’m glad that young people are taking to the Faith, be it at a Mass in Extraordinary Form, the Mass in OF, or an Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy. What we all can do without is that attitude of liturgical superiority that seems to follow some young folks that get an attachment to the Mass in EF. The minute one of them starts in with some sanctimonious comments about how their “Mass of All Ages” is so much better than that “Novus Ordo” or that it’s more holier or “Novus Ordo” is Protestant…blah blah blah, they lose any credibility.
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This is my feeling exactly. My husband and I know a handful of people (in their early to mid-30s, for what it’s worth) who have become regular attendees of the Latin Mass/OF and who occasionally urge us to join the Latin Mass-going crowd, but we are a little turned off by the attitude of many of the people that attend the OF.
 
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I don’t see much of a generational divide either. At the Oratory (considered liturgically conservative by some even if in my reading of Sacrosanctum Concillium they ought to be the ‘centre’) I see tons of people over fifty as well as lot of young people. Similarly when I used to frequent Tridentine Masses I’d see a diverse generational spread too.

Now I admit there are two recognisable archetypes ‘‘the ageing progressive Catholic’’ and ‘‘the zealous young trad’’ - I just don’t think they are at all representative of the respective age groups they come from, let alone define them.
 
http://www.ecclesiadei.org/masses.cfm

That is probably the most complete list of current TLMs in the US and Canada that you will find, including diocesan, FSSP and ICKSP. It’s not complete, as I personally know of at least a few Masses that are not listed, but it’s still a pretty good reference.
 
Fuerza said:
That is probably the most complete list of current TLMs in the US and Canada that you will find
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Thanks. But it shows what I already said. There is only one Sunday TLM mass in our whole diocese, and in our whole state. Not a lot of traditionalists up here.
 
My parish is not on there and we celebrate several a month. Outs a fairly well known in the diocese I believe.

I’d bet there are quite a few missing from that list.
 
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It may be true that there are simply not a lot of traditionalists in your area, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot period. It may also be true that many people in your area would attend a TLM if they had the opportunity, and it may also be that there are those who have asked for it and are being ignored (as has been known to happen). It’s really difficult to tell when you have something that’s only relatively recently been opened back up to a population who’ve never known it. Combined with some clergy who are actively hostile to the idea, growth is going to be slower in some areas. That’s not to say that I believe the TLM will take over as the predominant form of the Mass again (though there has been speculation that traditional priests will form the majority of clergy in a few countries within the next few decades), but it is not right to outright write off a whole group of people who prefer the EF simply because you don’t understand their point of view.
 
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