The Mass of 1965

[brotherhrolf]

The Mass of 1965…the Mass of the Year of Betsy rather than Katrina. My freshman year at my Catholic high school. I was a senior altar boy.

It would not have mattered one iota back then if we had had the internet. We followed the dictates of HMC w/o question. Do you really think that the vast majority of us who were alive in 1965 went, whoah! This is so cool?! It has taken us over 30 years before we have found our voice and are able to open our mouths.

I respect my brothers and sisters who were happy then and now but I have seen the future and I want to go back to the Church of my childhood and adolescence.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Where is the fairness for me and others of my age to have grown up within a HMC which is so different from what we have now?

How does one explain that we did NOT willingly accept that which was thrust down our throats? I have waited 40 years for the Holy Father to say that it is OK to say the Mass of my childhood.

I grew up in large measure before V II. I do not embrace traditionalism for any other reason other than that it is what I know and have known. How can I stop being that which I am?

 

[stmaria]

The Mass of 1965…the Mass of the Year of Betsy rather than Katrina. My freshman year at my Catholic high school. I was a senior altar boy.

It would not have mattered one iota back then if we had had the internet. We followed the dictates of HMC w/o question. Do you really think that the vast majority of us who were alive in 1965 went, whoah! This is so cool?! It has taken us over 30 years before we have found our voice and are able to open our mouths.

I respect my brothers and sisters who were happy then and now but I have seen the future and I want to go back to the Church of my childhood and adolescence.

Brotherhrolf, I was a teenager in 1965. My parents were very devout. They went to the 6am mass before going to work and getting all of us off to school where we had a daily 8am Mass.
They accepted the changes without questioning anything. The only information about Vatican II came fron the Catholic newspaper that they read.
Never in their lifetime did they read the Constitution on the Liturgy.
I read it for the first time about four years ago on the internet.
My point is that from what I remember, Catholics were not as informed then as they are now. Information is at your fingertips. Accessing it is simple. I never read encyclicals until I went to the Vatican website a couple of years ago.
That is why I beleive that had there been a Catholic.com in 1965 and everyone could read and discuss the Constitution for themselves, the reform would have stopped with the 1965 Mass because that IS the Mass of the Constitution and had the Mass continued to change beyond what the Constitution called for there would have been a loud response from the faithful questioning why there was a need to keep changing.

 

[brotherhrolf]

Brotherhrolf, I was a teenager in 1965. My parents were very devout. They went to the 6am mass before going to work and getting all of us off to school where we had a daily 8am Mass.
They accepted the changes without questioning anything. The only information about Vatican II came fron the Catholic newspaper that they read.
Never in their lifetime did they read the Constitution on the Liturgy.
I read it for the first time about four years ago on the internet.
My point is that from what I remember, Catholics were not as informed then as they are now. Information is at your fingertips. Accessing it is simple. I never read encyclicals until I went to the Vatican website a couple of years ago.
That is why I beleive that had there been a Catholic.com in 1965 and everyone could read and discuss the Constitution for themselves, the reform would have stopped with the 1965 Mass because that IS the Mass of the Constitution and had the Mass continued to change beyond what the Constitution called for there would have been a loud response from the faithful questioning why there was a need to keep changing.

Even if we did have the internet back then, I don’t believe it would have stopped. The reforms succeeded precisely because it was inconceivable for any of us to rebel against the Magisterium. We were instructed from the pulpit that the Mass WAS going to change. We could and did read the concilliar documents but there was no going against the inevitable flow.

Since you are of an age with me, you know as well as I do that we Americans simply followed HMC in lockstep. Frankly, I am surprised by some of the European responses of today in which they assert that the NO wasn’t adopted as quickly as it was here.

I do remember when I was in the Navy in the early 70s and spent a month in Spain. The Mass on base was the NO. Out in the Spanish parishes it was still the TLM.

In your average parish in the US the only “protest” which was available to us was to switch Masses. We abandoned the 10 or 10:30 “high” Mass in favor of the 7 or 8 am Mass which was not sung.

I have waited for the last 40 years. No, I am not locked into the TLM. I saw the “hybrid” NO/TLM on All Saints Day on EWTN. (Close but not the same as the “hybrid” NO/TLM of 1967). If the MP has done anything, it has legitimized our voices for the last 40 years.

 

[peary]

Originally Posted by **brotherhrolf **
The Mass of 1965…the Mass of the Year of Betsy rather than Katrina. My freshman year at my Catholic high school. I was a senior altar boy.

It would not have mattered one iota back then if we had had the internet. We followed the dictates of HMC w/o question. Do you really think that the vast majority of us who were alive in 1965 went, whoah! This is so cool?! It has taken us over 30 years before we have found our voice and are able to open our mouths.

I respect my brothers and sisters who were happy then and now but I have seen the future and I want to go back to the Church of my childhood and adolescence.

**Well, yes, the kids at our parish went Whoah! This is SO cool! Our renegade priest LOVED to get dressed up in hippie beads. When he met with the youth group he used to come in with sun glasses, beads, using that “Wow,man” “Yeah, man” jargon. He thought he was so ‘hip’. My parents would never allow me to attend the catholic teen club because they thought he was a wack job LOL. He even celebrated Mass in shorts one time. Talk about a narcissist…and, by the way, his legs were hairless, and I have no clue what THAT was all about **

 

[jpy15026]

How did the Mass of 1965 finally become the Mass of 1970?? How and who let this happen and does anyone know the reason it “evolved” into the mass of 1970?

 

[brotherhrolf]

How did the Mass of 1965 finally become the Mass of 1970?? How and who let this happen and does anyone know the reason it “evolved” into the mass of 1970?

There were pronouncements from the pulpit. One Sunday the Mass was the TLM in which we could use our 1962 St. Joseph Missals and the next Sunday there were printed missalettes in the pew. (We haven’t even begun to discuss the fact that before 1965 Catholics had their own missals and then along came the missalettes).

It was inexerorable and relentless. We had pronouncements from the pulpit - i.e. in two weeks we will no loger recite the Gloria in Latin we will begin to learn to sing the Gloria in English. In two weeks, we will cease saying the preface-canon in Latin and we will say it in English and Sursum corda will no longer be “It is right and just” but rather “It is right to give Him thanks and praise”.

Simply put, there was pronouncement after pronoucement from the pulpit until by 1968 with few exceptions, you would recognize the Mass of 1970.

DW has a a 1967 St. Joseph Missal and it bears no resemblance to what we experienced in the pews.