The Vatican II changes in Liturgy

  • Thread starter Thread starter steph03
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
you must be joking. Seriously.

Any Christian who honestly believes that Christianity was built on the backs of terrifying the believers with eternal damnation, plus centuries of liturgy which nobody ‘understood’ has been so badly catechized that it isn’t funny. Luckily, the library here at Catholic Answers has quite a few articles on the history of Christianity. May I recommend their perusal?
 
Let’s see. Setting aside Dante’s great work not being official Catholic teaching (any more than John Milton’s Paradise Lost would be official Anglican teaching), exactly when did Dante write?

Let’s see that would be about AD 1320.

The summit of European Catholic civilization, not the ‘building’ of same.
 
Dovekin said:
My memory of them is of busyness, with people here and there praying the rosary, some walking around (for stations of the cross?), maybe confessions being heard during mass, etc.
Click to expand...
I would definitely take rosaries over some of the things we see today. Confessions can still be heard during Mass according to Pope John Paul II and I have met plenty of people who are truly not paying attention at Mass today.

It has just been my experience that there has definitely been a decrease in reverence since the council. That is my memory. I’m not saying it was all reverence in the past but it has definitely decreased.
 
Last edited:
JimR-OCDS said:
Another wild misleading assertion against Vatican II liturgical reforms.

As stated by Diminusvobiscum, Latin was not abolished in Vatican II, nor were guitars even mentioned.

Guitars came into the Mass because the culture had more guitarist than organists.

I’m sure when the organ was first invented, there were those who opposed it’s use at Mass.
Click to expand...
@JimR-OCDS

Although that was the case in your vicinity, and you had no organists, that was certainly not the case in many, many parishes across the country. That was definitely not the case in my parish; however, we were not given an option, but an ultimatum by the bishop. We had a few over 350 families, three excellent volunteer organists, a really good choir, and a great-sounding organ. God and a select few may know what became of the incredibly expensive organ, as it suddenly disappeared. The three organists were quickly snatched up by Protestant churches and were paid, so a step up for them. The congregation wasn’t so fortunate. We were stuck with off-tune guitars backing up singing like that commonly heard around a campfire after a hayride and wiener roast, with about the same amount of reverence.
 
The ironic thing was that each session of the council was preceded with the old Latin Mass, the very Mass they felt they outgrew.
 
In another thread, someone mentioned that the decline in attendance started during the early 1960s, before the OF was introduced. Also, declines were also taking place in other Christian churches.

I think the attendance rate today is around 20 pct in richer countries but 40 pct in poorer ones. Meanwhile, the number of Catholics is growing in poorer countries, together with religious workers, etc.

Given these, I think the declines are caused not by the change in liturgy but by secularism, and the same is affecting other Christian groups. As more people become affluent, then attendance rates decline.

Finally, some more points from Pope Benedict XVI about the OF:

 
Why are you denigrating what was our lived experience?

My dad could recite the Mass responses in his sleep, he served Mass for 27 years for the same Pastor. But he didn’t own a Missal and neither did my mother. I don’t know if he could have said what the prayers meant. My brother served before the 60s changes, I doubt he knew what he was saying, he simply learned the responses by heart.
 
clclnn said:
That never happened. When the Host was raised we bowed our heads.
Click to expand...
Yes, that is true. Also, we would strike our breasts, at least that is what I remember learning from my dad.

I guess I should clarify, though. People would not ask at that time to raise the host higher but it was a request given to the priest, but not a request during Mass. Definitely not. People would be very respectful during the raising of the host.
 
Last edited:
I was 10 in 1966, and in the school year 1966-1967, even then an aspiring student of the organ, I was allowed to play by the Sister who directed the all-girls school choir, made up of students from grades 5-8, in our parish school. That year we sang the Mass settings in Latin.

The following year, in 1967-1968, the organ was still used and we sang the Mass settings but with English words instead.

The following year, in 1968-1969, the choir came down from the loft, the organ was no longer in use, and the choir members went to the left hand side and stood on the bottom step/shelf in front of the church, where in the middle the new ‘free standing altar’ with the priest ‘facing the people’ stood. Instead of the Gregorian chant Mass settings we now had a ‘4 hymn sandwich’ including things like “Joy is Like the Rain”, “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”, “Shout from the Highest Mountain”, and “Sons of God”, while we were ‘accompanied’ by a sister with a guitar and 2-3 other boys and girls who were learning. Guitars seemed to breed overnight. The sisters as well as the older (he was probably all of 30) man and the two 30-something women who played the organ for weddings and funerals disappeared, but there were plenty of guitar players! And this was in the (still beautiful to me even now) city of Philadelphia. . .
 
No official Catholic school, no, though because the population of ours was mostly Catholic we did get 30 min of religious ed at the beginning of each day. We memorized questions and answers out of the Catechism.
 
Something similar developed by the French priests and bishops of Canada in the late 1800s. I mostly remember the book we had in grade 4 in 1962-63.
 
Last edited:
JimR-OCDS said:
So, just wondering, if people didn’t understand the liturgy because it was in Latin, how did Christendom get built?
Click to expand...
I honestly am flabbergasted by some of the comments made here. Since I do remember the 40s and 50s, I can say that this is news to me. Knowing a good many people born in the 1880’s, and forward, and knowing that none of them were ignorant dummies, but very sharp individuals who worked way harder than most who read here can imagine, I can also say with confidence that those who were Catholic believed in God, in Hell, in Purgatory, and in Heaven with a much greater trust, and a much greater simplicity than recent generations. Except for Purgatory, the non-Catholics seemed to believe the same.

Since World War II, people in the US haven’t had to struggle enough to learn what it is to trust in the Lord. Life was far different when the US was being settled in the 1700s and 1800s, and in the eras of World War I and the Great Depression.

When Life is so difficult that you unquestionably KNOW when God has intervened, you don’t determine His existence, verify His plan for salvation, and acknowledge what Jesus told us through the apostles based upon whether or not these aspects fit your criteria for understanding. Instead, you trust implicity in His Love and in His Mercy, and you accept the terms He gave you because you understand that without Him, you have no hope of anything better.

Perhaps because our forbearers from those eras definitely did believe what Christ told us about Hell and how to avoid it, people seemed to try more then than now, on a daily basis, to live as Christ outlined, so that they might live eternally in God’s Heaven.

A 16-year-old who lied about his age so that he could volunteer for the rest of us in 1941, would be 94, now. Many of those men and women did feel like they’d been to hell and back, but the ones I knew were absolved through confession, participated in Mass, and received Our Lord through the Eucharist because they just plain trusted that He meant what He said, not as some rote song and dance to avoid Hell.
Click to expand...
 
Dovekin said:
40.png
MagdalenaRita:
One thing he says at the end, though, is that the Council instituted reforms that were meant to increase “reverence” in the liturgy, so with that said, what happened? What happened after this council that has caused less reverence?
Click to expand...
What makes you think reverence has decreased since the council? Preconciliar masses, even though the ritual is similar/identical to the EF, were often not reverent. My memory of them is of busyness, with people here and there praying the rosary, some walking around (for stations of the cross?), maybe confessions being heard during mass, etc. I later heard of 3 or 4 moments at which attention had to be given, with the implication that inattentiveness was normal most of the time.

On another subject, Latin was the language of the educated elites until the early 20th century. Undergraduate years were dedicated to learning the classics, Latin and Greek, as preparation for further studies. Classics were not a major among many, but the major that was the basis for most academic work. Physics students would read Newton’s Principia Mathematica in Latin, and the like. Latin was dropped by the sciences first, other disciplines later and newer fields never adopted it. The Church is just the last to discard Latin; it was understood by many educated people until the last century. And as I said above, paying attention was not a requirement for most people.
Click to expand...
@Dovekin

I have never seen, nor have I ever heard, of people either walking around or praying the stations during a Mass. I’ve attended Mass in 2 countries, 13 states, and The District of Columbia, prior to Vatican II changes, and a few more than that, since then.
 
Your “that never happened” may be true for you but not for all.
I also have first-hand knowledge of people saying the rosary, walking around praying the Stations or devotions to Saints. Many men just hung out on the front steps smoking and talking until the bells rang.

Your experience does not equal that of everyone. Please stop discounting what others experienced.
 
Last edited:
When the host was raised we looked up. That is what the sisters taught us to do.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top