Just a last note I’d like to add here: I too once became aggrieved by a sincere lack of attention given the liturgy in my own diocese, and I spoke to a lot of priests about it, only to be met with unhearing ears and glib explanations. It was very much more frustrating than it was worth. Then I began going to the EF in a nearby diocese and found exactly what I was looking for. Now I serve as our celebrating priest’s MC and we talk every Sunday about the liturgical, pastoral, and devotional issues affecting the parish. The only time I serve the OF is when the bishop asks my colleagues and me to serve one of his Masses because he knows our strictness with the rubrics will add greater solemnity.
I welcome changes in the celebration of the OF the place it along a more traditional trajectory, such as those the original poster mentions. However, I’m not blind to the opposition that certain clergy and more invested layfolk will raise to them, to the point that it is generally useless to raise the issue in most parishes. The tone of the conversation here is not dissimilar to that which I’ve experienced in real life. Thus, I tend to focus on my EF community and celebrations rather than on the parishes around me. And I think we’re both far happier because of it for now, though I may soon be serving daily Low Masses or private Masses for a nearby priest for whom I have respect, and he has spoken to me about my openness to serving as a catechist.
Summorum Pontificum was a huge gift to the Church, and I would strongly advise anyone whose moral and aesthetic sense is revolted by the liturgical and pastoral practice standard in most parishes to make use of its provisions and to seek out an EF community. Most dioceses contain at least one. The acrimony that those on both sides of the liturgy conflict often display has a way of poisoning our faith. A number of legitimate options now given, we all would do best to seek out those which match with our own spirituality and taste, rather than sniping at each other.
