The Latin Mass: Why You Can't Have It

  • Thread starter Thread starter Joe_5859
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Cardinal Arinze would make a good Pope.
From your lips to God’s ears…
It would be interesting to see a Pope with such a sense of humor and frank way of speaking. Alas, that may be why he will not be Pope…
 
From your lips to God’s ears…
It would be interesting to see a Pope with such a sense of humor and frank way of speaking. Alas, that may be why he will not be Pope…
Moore, I feel like I haven’t seen you in a while!
I still see it almost every Sunday at my local OF Mass, especially at the times when the “music ministers” are doing what they do.
That’s surprising.

I do see it occasionally at the TLM.
 
I apologize for the provocative title. I’m simply carrying it over from this blog article:

The Latin Mass: Why You Can’t Have It

I think it’s a very well-reasoned articulation on why the EF/TLM hasn’t exploded in the last 5 years in the wake of Summorum Pontificum. It looks at some of the practical considerations that often get overlooked.

I think it’s a helpful article in that it encourages us to really look at what’s going on instead of falling prey to hand-wringing.

So I guess I’m just posting this as a good read and wondering if others agree/disagree.

Please, no OF vs. EF debate! I’d prefer the thread remain opened. :o

If this topic is inappropriate, please accept my apologies. As far as I could ascertain, there is no moratorium at present, so I went with it. :o
I can! I can have it every day of the week and twice on Sunday. 😃 Lucky.
 
Seeing the contentions here, I am starting to understand what the Pope means when he says he would like the Mass to move more ad orientam; and for those who have read his books, and follow his Sermons, this, utlimately, has absolutely nothing to do with where the priest is physically positioned or looking, but everything to do with what it symbolizes/represents.

Everything in the liturgy - OF or EF - is, ultimately, intended to focus us on God ; not, ultimately, on exterior movements or sounds: these are but means to an end. If, then, we are paying too much attention to these things *as such *(i.e., focused on them), then truly we are not, nor can we be, actually worshipping God.

I was in Eucharistic adoration for the last forty-five or fifty minutes. I had already watched a very reverent and well-celebrated OF Mass earlier on a local TV station. The Church here, which is older, large and constructed after the style of *Notre Dame *in Paris, is undergoing massive rennovations. There was drilling, construction workers barking at each other, dropping tools, hammering, ad infinitum ; on top of this, a lot of people were entering and exiting the Church from every entrance imaginable. Still, none of this sufficed to prevent me from actually worshipping Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; indeed, the only way it could have is if I, personally, allowed it to.

Now I have seen and heard of some pretty bad (okay, terrible) celebrations of the OF; however, and notwithstanding, **not even the absolute worst celebration of the OF could have compared to that Church, which sounded like Wolrd War II was being waged both *inside *and outside of it (because of the interior and exterior renovations).

My point is simply this: is what’s going on at an OF Mass really preventing you from reverently and interiorly worshipping your God and Maker, or are you allowing things to distract you **and focusing on things and people **rather than *on God? *
 
Seeing the contentions here, I am starting to understand what the Pope means when he says he would like the Mass to move more ad orientam; and for those who have read his books, and follow his Sermons, this, utlimately, has absolutely nothing to do with where the priest is physically positioned or looking, but everything to do with what it symbolizes/represents.

Everything in the liturgy - OF or EF - is, ultimately, intended to focus us on God ; not, ultimately, on exterior movements or sounds: these are but means to an end. If, then, we are paying too much attention to these things *as such *(i.e., focused on them), then truly we are not, nor can we be, actually worshipping God.

I was in Eucharistic adoration for the last forty-five or fifty minutes. I had already watched a very reverent and well-celebrated OF Mass earlier on a local TV station. The Church here, which is older, large and constructed after the style of *Notre Dame *in Paris, is undergoing massive rennovations. There was drilling, construction workers barking at each other, dropping tools, hammering, ad infinitum ; on top of this, a lot of people were entering and exiting the Church from every entrance imaginable. Still, none of this sufficed to prevent me from actually worshipping Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; indeed, the only way it could have is if I, personally, allowed it to.

Now I have seen and heard of some pretty bad (okay, terrible) celebrations of the OF; however, and notwithstanding, **not even the absolute worst celebration of the OF could have compared to that Church, which sounded like Wolrd War II was being waged both *inside ***and *outside *of it (because of the interior and exterior renovations).

My point is simply this: is what’s going on at an OF Mass really preventing you from reverently and interiorly worshipping your God and Maker, or are you allowing things to distract you **and focusing on things and people **rather than *on God? *
You bring up some good points. All of us, me foremost, could be more focused on the Mass and work harder to enter into the mysteries which it contains and represents. However, I would suggest that there are times when this becomes very difficult through no fault on one’s own. For example, I have dealt with ADHD since I was a very young boy. I was the hyper-active kid in school, and get sent to remedial reading even though I could read at a higher level than anyone else in my class. The truth was, that for that grade, my elementary school teacher did not wish to deal with me. This is something I have worked hard, very hard, to overcome but one place where it does become an issue for me is at Mass. Whether it is someone talking, a child crying, etc. I have a very hard time tuning that out to focus on the Mass.

There are other reasons that other people likely experience. However, that is one which strikes very close to home for me personally.
 
Br. JR… I have not quoted your replies because it requires too much space.

Protestant vs Jewish: The Jewish aspects you speak of are not Judaism proper, but post-Temple Judaism. I see Temple Judaism in the TLM. Luther stole many elements from Talmudic/Rabbinic Judaism, including the mutilated Canon of the Scriptures. The OF is not Traditionally Jewish, but the Judaism/Protestantism of a farce-- if one wishes to draw such comparisons.

Franciscan Mass: I see no appreciable difference in this Franciscan rendering of the Mass than the TLM: 1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4j36rZYVSE 2) youtube.com/watch?v=4frzb-mre2Y

So I must ask… which Franciscans?

If the OF can be celebrated in Latin and Ad Orientem, why even have it? It makes no sense. Facing the people is facing away from God. This is not symbolically correct and ruins, perverts really, what the Mass is and isn’t. If celebrated properly, the Mass can certainly be fine in the OF, but this is rarely done.

I am a convert from Protestantism, and I can unequivocally say that mixing truth with error, vis a vis stealing Catholic aspects, does not render truth, but error. I don’t care if Lutherans of the Missouri Synod or Anglicans do something aesthetically more reverent or much more Traditionally Catholic. I’m not tlking about them anyway. I mean the cacophony, community-focused ridiculous freak show where focus is everywhere but God. I honestly saw nothing different in the Mass, insofar as much of the aesthetics and even the rather saccharine sermons than I saw as a child in the Methodist groups. Funnily enough, I always heard about how those wacky (satanic?) Catholic priests didn’t even face the people and prayed in a dead language! So, I always grew up thinking of the TLM as the Mass. When I had my conversion process, I didn’t know exactly how things were different. I was actually very sad that the OF was so… Protestant (not Jewish, unless one considers Rabbinism Judaism, which it’s not in truth). So I just figured, “well, I guess I’ll just convert for the doctrine because the worship service is nothing new to me.” And then I saw the Latin Mass. And I never went back to the OF, and am fulfilled, finally. I was never fulfilled in the OF.

This is my biggest fear actually, if I am to be called to Religious life-- being forced into something I hate with a passion because it makes me cry and feel dirty. And not that good feeling dirty like a sinner, but like I’m watching a carnival during Calvary, or am being forced into a situation with an abusive group of people.

I will never be able to express what I wish to say without it sounding vitriolic as concerns this issue. And how could I? I had to seek out what was stolen from me by both my heretic ancestors (never trust a peasant with doctrinal decisions), and was further stolen by the NewChurch crowd who ran a muck train through the liturgy.

This is not an attack on the OF (though I see no point in it when celebrated properly, as compared to the Latin Mass).

As for the Holy Father wanting the laity to know the prayers and retain honor for Latin, it simply doesn’t take place in my experience outside of the Traditional parishes. In RCIA I even asked about Latin, including the Latin Mass, and was scoffed at. But ya know what? I’m smart enough to know the Church is the Church and Fr. Bob and his band of unCatholic catechists (ya know, the type that teach against immutable doctrine, even if implicitly) are not the Church. So I found the Church which doesn’t hem and haw and worry about feelings as concerns things which affect eternity. And I found the Latin Mass. And I’d stumble miles across searing desert sand on severed limbs wearing tourniquets to have the Latin Mass. I’ll go hungry to afford the gas to get to it before I’d walk 2 blocks to the local illicit hootenanny and feel-good sermon. As I have said before, I have 6 days between Sunday to figure out how to get to Mass. If that means 6 days of walking and camping out, being homeless if need be, so be it. But at least I’ll have what I’ve always known wouldn’t be a surprise. At least the priests who do the Latin Mass can be trusted. I don’t trust other priests, nor do I trust Catholics. I trust the Church and I trust the Latin Mass. Anything else has demonstrated itself subject for heavy scrutiny and review. Anything else is a sure ticket for me to sit in the pew crying, as I have done in the past. At least when I cry in the Latin Mass it’s in contrition for my sins and for the love of Christ-- not the horror show I was subject to. I had enough of that as a Protestant.
 
None of these things have anything to do with the language being used and everything to do with disobedience and pride.
It takes a scholar and priest who is having real trouble with his vocation to extemporise in Latin. If it’s in your own language and the mass you’re saying started historically recently, it’s easier. I’ve seen it myself. It causes scandal and doubt.
We do have a standardize, international Mass. The mind of the Church was expressed in Vatican II and by the Holy Father when he stated that the OF of the Mass was the norm and that the EF of the Mass was not. That things are being done improperly is not the fault of the Mass, it is the fault of people who as always, think they know better than the Church and wish to change her. What is needed is for the Holy Father to instruct Bishops, clearly, to celebrate the Mass according to the rubrics and to cut out the nonsense. Then the Bishops, clearly, need to instruct the Priests on what to do. Get the lay ministers out of the decision tree when it comes to liturgical issues.
Actually, ad-orientem and Latin were assumed to continue in the OF. They’re not obligatory. The rubrics of the OF are sparse. If they existed, priests would do them. They don’t. Novelties start because they can.
I don’t think that is what anyone is suggesting at all. I’m certainly not. Yes, people can learn the responses fairly easily. What about the prayers which change regularly? Are they going to learn those easily as well? Do you really think that for many people putting their nose in a Missal and trying to follow along is going to lead to interior conversion in the same way that hearing the Mass in the language that they have heard and spoken their entire lives will? You may, but I don’t and neither do many others.
Then one must ask, how were our forefathers ever converted?

Since the 1960’s vocations have gone way down, scandals have increased and the laity are much more ignorant of their faith, since those ‘bad old days’ of rigidity, hierarchy, Romanism and clericalism. It’s time to give the older forms a fair go. Or at least understand why things were done they way they were done.

Maybe things were done the way they were done because they solved certain problems and headed off others? Or just so a mass could look and sound like a mystical rite of sacrifice?
… traditionalists who lament that they don’t have access to the Mass that they prefer seem to be the first ones who wish to take away the preferences of others. There have been a great number of saints since Vatican II was concluded and under the OF of the Mass. If the Mass is so deficient, how has that happened?
Traditionalists would like the older mass more widely available. The new mass was imposed by fiat. The laity were not asked their preferences. So ‘taking away the preference of others’ is not new.

There have been a great number of saints since Vatican II because Pope John Paul II saw fit to name a great many. Historically, a waiting period of at least 50 years was the norm, to see if a cultus persisted.

I would like to know which modern saints were intimately associated with the new mass.
 
Someone asked a question before about the Franciscan form of the mass, but I could not respond, because I was doing something else. They posted a link to the mass being celebrated by the Franciscans of the Immaculate.

One has to understand several things so as not to get confused.
  1. The Seraphic Missal, which was the missal used by the Franciscan family has not been used since the 1960s. Pope Paul VI abrogated its use. Therefore, you will not find it on YouTube.
  2. The Franciscans of the Immaculate are a post-Vatican II community. They were founded after 1962, when the restriction was lifted and Franciscans could celebrate whatever mass the Church was celebrating, until the new Roman-Franciscan Missal was published in 1970.
  3. From 1970 until SP, Franciscans used the Roman-Franciscan Missal in the local language or in Latin.
  4. From SP forward, Franciscans have been given permission to use the EF, but there are caveats. It cannot become the conventual mass. The superior must approve. We may not run Trad parishes. Any parish administered by Franciscans can have the EF, but always the OF as well, using the Roman-Franciscan Missal. The EF must also follow the Roman-Franciscan calendar, not the 1962 liturgical calendar. You cannot have one part of the community celebrating the feast of Bl. John Paul II and another part of the community celebrating an ordinary day of the week. You cannot have parallel liturgical lives in community. That may work in secular families where people are not bound to worship as one body, but it does not work in a Franciscan house where the focus us the one body coming together to worship God.
When you see a Franciscan celebrating the EF, that’s not the same as the form in the Seraphic Missal. That form was suspended during the 1960s. Some people mention St. Pio celebrating the EF. The truth is that in the 1960s, the rule was that older priests were allowed to continue to celebrate what was easy for them. I don’t remember what the cutoff age was. I was a kid then. It’s not something that I have read up in a long time.

Using St. Pio to justify the EF is not valid. He did not celebrate the EF. He used the Seraphic Missal. The two are very similar. We have to remember that the Tridentine mass came from the Franciscans. Similar is not identical. Things were added by Trent and by St. Pius V.

St. Pius, being a very wise man and a faithful Dominican, did not impose the Tridentine mass on the entire Latin Church as some people would have us believe. The rule was that anyone who did not have a form or a rite of their own that had antiquity, had to adopt the Tridentine Form. This excluded the mendicants and the monks, because they were 300 years old by the time Trent came around and almost 350 years by the time St. Pius promulgated the Tridentine form.

As to language and dancing etc. The Holy See has a special attitude toward South America and Africa. The pope has never said anything to me about it. 😃 But if I were a betting man and had the money to do so (I wouldn’t), but let’s say I could, my bet would be that he understands that the future of the Catholic Church is in Africa and South America. He also understands how strongly they feel about anything too European. The process has to be slow. Many of these countries didn’t become free of European domination until the 20th century. He also understands how much Catholics in South America hate the USA. There is a problem there too. Anything that looks too American is going to be looked at with suspicion. American missionaries make many accommodations to become more “latinized” as in Latin American, to gain the trust of the indigenous people.

There is a strong alliance between the wealthy and the United States. But the wealthy are often very cruel, corrupt and discriminatory toward the native people. A common statement that a white parent would make to a person who does something dumb would be, “Don’t be an Indian” or “Go take a bath, you smell like a N*&^er”. These same people often lead in the urban Catholic parishes. One can understand why they form of Catholicism does not go well in among the natives and the black Latin Americans.

On the flip side, the social gospel does not go well either. They truly want to hear about God, heaven, hell, the Blessed Mother, sin, grace, eternal life ,etc, etc. It’s a delicate task to be a missionary there. I was in the Amazon for three years. I had to be careful not to turn Catholicism into social service or to make it look too American. Though they certainly need the material assistance that the American missionaries bring through the help of the many Catholics back home, they also need a strong spiritual life and they hunger for it. They do not hunger to become a colony of the American Catholics. In other words, they don’t want American Catholics teaching them to worship God as we worship God.

It has to be the same spirituality, the same liturgy, the same doctrine and moral laws, but the externals have to come from them or they leave. It’s rather interesting. When it’s not imposed, they do admire the beauty that they see in our way of worshiping. They are not dumb. They are proud in a good way. They are proud of their culture. For too long, Catholics have been telling them that their culture is pagan and inferior to that of Europeans and Americans. With more and more of them being educated, they realized that this is not true. Every culture has strengths and weaknesses. All cultures rise and fall. As they admire, they begin to imitate what they admire. Being didactic is not going to do it. One has to expose and let time do its work. That’s why Catholicism never took root among the native peoples there. They’re all Catholics . . . nominally. Now, we’re beginning to see more firmly committed Catholics, including many religious.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV 🙂
 
From your lips to God’s ears…
It would be interesting to see a Pope with such a sense of humor and frank way of speaking. Alas, that may be why he will not be Pope…
Cardinal Arinze very likely will not be Pope because he’ll be ineligible to vote in a papal conclave in less than a month when he turns 80. It would be a major departure from the norm for them to elect someone from outside the conclave.
 
Cardinal Arinze very likely will not be Pope because he’ll be ineligible to vote in a papal conclave in less than a month when he turns 80. It would be a major departure from the norm for them to elect someone from outside the conclave.
Yup that is probably another reason too. Well, whomever it is it will be God’s will. And I love God’s will.
 
Bump.

I hope it’s OK with everyone to bump this thread up so that others can read it, or at least read the excellent article in the OP.

I wish this article could get a sticky. I have printed it out because it gives so much valuable information and food for thought.

I think that those who are involved with Latin Mass in their city or town should study the article and attempt to strategize about ways to counter the various objections. It’s a very practical article and I think the various points could be used to increase interest in Latin Mass. I’m not interested in attending Latin Mass, but after reading this article, I’m more convinced that the Latin Mass should continue to be offered here in the U.S.
 
I apologize for the provocative title. I’m simply carrying it over from this blog article:

The Latin Mass: Why You Can’t Have It

I think it’s a very well-reasoned articulation on why the EF/TLM hasn’t exploded in the last 5 years in the wake of Summorum Pontificum. It looks at some of the practical considerations that often get overlooked.

I think it’s a helpful article in that it encourages us to really look at what’s going on instead of falling prey to hand-wringing.

So I guess I’m just posting this as a good read and wondering if others agree/disagree.

Please, no OF vs. EF debate! I’d prefer the thread remain opened. :o

If this topic is inappropriate, please accept my apologies. As far as I could ascertain, there is no moratorium at present, so I went with it. :o
Thank you.
 
Care to be more specific?

DLA
Its a long article and I consider all it wrong because at the start it he mentioned Pope Paul gave us the NO. Well there was a lot of church politics that he ignores that not many of us know much about. And about the only sensible thing he did say was its easy to tare something down and hard work to build it up again.
 
Its a long article and I consider all it wrong because at the start it he mentioned Pope Paul gave us the NO. Well there was a lot of church politics that he ignores that not many of us know much about. And about the only sensible thing he did say was its easy to tare something down and hard work to build it up again.
First of all, the piece is not about the Novus Ordo Missae, which was, as a matter of record, background history and curial intrigue notwithstanding, promulgated by Pope Paul VI. It says this on the title page of every copy thereof. Second, the article was the result of extensive experience which is explained in vivid detail therein, as well as research into the attendance at the Traditional Mass in two very different jurisdictions.

You have written nothing to challenge this, and what little you did write is … well, irrelevant. I invite you to “read it again. Slowly.”
 
Think of it this way. The Church is like one country. One people. It doesn’t matter where you’re from. This one people should have one language. The language of the Church as chosen by God is Latin. If I go from New York to France to Germany, today, I would hear one Mass in English (which I understand), one mass in France (which I don’t understand), and one mass in Germany (which I don’t understand). With the Mass in one language everywhere in the world, I can simply bring my Latin missal and have my Latin to English translation or just simply know the Latin. Everyone in the church would be in unity.

If anyone says, why should I spend time learning Latin? Well, it does not take much for someone to learn basic prayers in Latin. It does not take much for someone to learn some beautiful hymns such as Te Deum, Adoro Te Devote, etc. What, it may take you a week to learn each? If these are things glorifying the Lord, how can we not put the effort to learn them? Why would we not want to learn the Mass in Latin if we are going to go to that Mass once or more every week for our entire lives?

I never understand why people bash the Latin.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top