Traditional Parish without the Latin

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wanderlust

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I’ve moved around a lot over the course of the last few years and I just cannot for the life of me find a nice traditional parish where everyone kneels for communion or at least a large portion of the church receives on the tongue. I long ago gave up my search for a less traditional parish with this one characteristic, but I’m even finding it difficult to find a more orthodox parish that kneels for communion, but celebrates the mass in English (I speak Spanish too, so even that would be ok).

I live in Seaside, CA (near Monterey and Salinas) and I’ve been searching up and down for this sort of church. There are two old missions nearby (San Juan Bautista and Carmel) and they both have communion rails that they don’t use (except in San Juan Bautista’s case during their TLM).

If you couldn’t tell by the title of my thread, I do not want a Latin mass. I know this will spark some sort of controversy with all of you who love the TLM, but I’ve tried it, and I really found it unfulfilling; to the point that I felt like I hadn’t even been to mass.

I’m really at a loss here. Any help?
 
I know this feeling, I had a priest who was very traditional, yet we only had the Mass in the OF. No altar girls, he’s very involved with the choir’s choice for music, the excellent homilies and constant reminder of Church doctrines and disciplines. Although we do not have communion rails.

It will be hard to find one. It got me thinking now, why is there no society like the FSSP but instead dedicated to doing the OF right? I wish the FSSP would say the OF so they can at least be the gold standard of doing the OF right. People don’t know what they’re missing if they’ve never experienced a Liturgy done right.
 
wanderlust said:
I’ve moved around a lot over the course of the last few years and I just cannot for the life of me find a nice traditional parish where everyone kneels for communion or at least a large portion of the church receives on the tongue. I long ago gave up my search for a less traditional parish with this one characteristic, but I’m even finding it difficult to find a more orthodox parish that kneels for communion, but celebrates the mass in English (I speak Spanish too, so even that would be ok).

I live in Seaside, CA (near Monterey and Salinas) and I’ve been searching up and down for this sort of church. There are two old missions nearby (San Juan Bautista and Carmel) and they both have communion rails that they don’t use (except in San Juan Bautista’s case during their TLM).

If you couldn’t tell by the title of my thread, I do not want a Latin mass. I know this will spark some sort of controversy with all of you who love the TLM, but I’ve tried it, and I really found it unfulfilling; to the point that I felt like I hadn’t even been to mass.

I’m really at a loss here. Any help?
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For better or for worse, in the United States the normative posture for receiving Communion in the modern form of the Mass, as directed by the bishops’ conference and approved by the Holy See, is standing. (GIRM #160.) It’s not just left up to the pastor’s or individual’s preference, which is why you are unlikely to find a parish where everyone is expected to kneel, since that would be a violation of the rubrics. Possibly there are parishes run by religious orders where this doesn’t apply, I’m not sure.
 
MarkThompson said:
Possibly there are parishes run by religious orders where this doesn’t apply, I’m not sure.
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I tend to doubt that there are. Insofar as a parish is concerned, religious priests are subject to the bishop and whatever norms are established. Orders and congregations of Pontifical Right are exempt from that, (as they are from the jurisdiction of the local bishop in general), but only within their own communities. All territorial parishes (and even, I believe, “personal parishes”) are ipso-facto under the local bishop, irrespective of whether they are in the charge of an exempt Order or congregation.
 
wanderlust said:
I’ve moved around a lot over the course of the last few years and I just cannot for the life of me find a nice traditional parish where everyone kneels for communion or at least a large portion of the church receives on the tongue. I long ago gave up my search for a less traditional parish with this one characteristic, but I’m even finding it difficult to find a more orthodox parish that kneels for communion, but celebrates the mass in English (I speak Spanish too, so even that would be ok).

I live in Seaside, CA (near Monterey and Salinas) and I’ve been searching up and down for this sort of church. There are two old missions nearby (San Juan Bautista and Carmel) and they both have communion rails that they don’t use (except in San Juan Bautista’s case during their TLM).

If you couldn’t tell by the title of my thread, I do not want a Latin mass. I know this will spark some sort of controversy with all of you who love the TLM, but I’ve tried it, and I really found it unfulfilling; to the point that I felt like I hadn’t even been to mass.

I’m really at a loss here. Any help?
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As one poster said…standing is the norm in the US. But one question…what does it matter what everyone else is doing? There is no reason YOU can’t kneel for communion and receive on the tongue.

Go to Mass somewhere!
 
When I visited an Anglican use parish communion was kneeling at the rail. I’m not sure if that is a standard, or just that parish’s procedure. It may not matter if you’re not anywhere near an Anglican use parish.
 
Digitonomy said:
When I visited an Anglican use parish communion was kneeling at the rail. I’m not sure if that is a standard, or just that parish’s procedure. It may not matter if you’re not anywhere near an Anglican use parish.
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Pretty soon they would be more widespread
 
Digitonomy said:
When I visited an Anglican use parish communion was kneeling at the rail. I’m not sure if that is a standard, or just that parish’s procedure. It may not matter if you’re not anywhere near an Anglican use parish.
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Yes it is standard to kneel at Anglican Use parishes. Once the Ordinariate is established in the US, hopefully more parishes will decide to enter it and who knows if there might be one in your area. In general California is not too conservative and there are very few Continuing Anglican parishes who wish to join the Ordinariate at this moment.

Yours in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Bernadette
 
No matter what the norm in any particular country, every Catholic has the right to receive Holy Communion while kneeling. I don’t have the document handy, but I’ve seen it several times in the past couple of months.
 
YOU have the right to receive on the tongue no matter what others are doing. You can kneel too. You are probably unlikely to find a Parish where this is the norm, however, but that shouldn’t stop you from doing it.

I am in a traditional Parish in a traditional Diocese, and it’s still probably 60/40, with 60% receiving in the hand and 40% on the tongue. At least our Priests and extraordinary ministers get enough people receiving on the tongue to know how to do it ;). I’ve visited other Parishes where my wife and I were practically the only ones receiving on the tongue and the servers didn’t seem to know what to do and looked at us like we were crazy :rolleyes:

I don’t know if this is the norm anywhere else, but our Parish has begun to establish one of our Sunday Masses as a more formal, ‘higher’ Mass. It’s still the Ordinary Form, but the ordinary prayers are in Latin and kneelers are placed at the front of the Church during Communion for you to use if you want (maybe 10 or 20% of people use them). The parts of the Mass that change week to week – some of the prayers, the readings, and the homily – are still in English.

I like it a lot since it’s somewhere in-between the lax liturgy we see in a lot of places and the hard-core Extraordinary Form high Mass.

By the way, having been to a TLM, I found it interesting but had a hard time following so I sympathize with your view on it. I do, however, really enjoy the OF Mass in Latin, especially since we have little booklets that make it easy to follow along. For what it’s worth, I originally thought I wouldn’t like it but found that it really made me feel connected to the Church’s long history in a way the Mass in the vernacular doesn’t.

God bless you!
 
The Dominican parish I sometimes attend Mass at uses their Communion rail and everyone who is able to kneel receives kneeling. However, most people receive in the hand rather than on the tongue. They do not use patens, though, and do not distribute the Precious Blood, and I have not seen them use Extraordinary Ministers for normal distribution. I have seen Extraordinary Ministers with Pyxes to take Communion to the homebound. Mass is in the OF there. I don’t know if that is standard among the Dominicans or not. Also, Communion is distributed very fast, you’re hardly down and you’re up again.
 
It seems to me that judging whether a parish is “traditional” by how they receive Holy Communion is extremely shallow. If you wish to discern how the people of a parish believe, shouldn’t you inquire about their beliefs instead of trying to deduce them from observation? Sure, lex orandi, lex credendi - but I received CITH for many years and then changed, not because my beliefs had suddenly become more orthodox, but because my personal preference changed.
 
Elizium23 said:
It seems to me that judging whether a parish is “traditional” by how they receive Holy Communion is extremely shallow. If you wish to discern how the people of a parish believe, shouldn’t you inquire about their beliefs instead of trying to deduce them from observation? Sure, lex orandi, lex credendi - but I received CITH for many years and then changed, not because my beliefs had suddenly become more orthodox, but because my personal preference changed.
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Excellent point. In the 60s when it was all kneelers, are people automatically better Christians? Of course not. But I guess the OP just wants the full expression of traditionalism and thus seeks that out among other things.
 
I don’t see how trying to find a parish that suits my liturgical preferences and desire to not be self conscious at mass is shallow.
 
wanderlust said:
I’m even finding it difficult to find a more orthodox parish that kneels for communion, but celebrates the mass in English
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Perhaps you were unclear in your terminology, because “orthodox” means “right beliefs” and in this context I took it to mean that you were looking for a parish that believes what the Catholic Church teaches, without challenge or undue questioning the faith. But it seems what you are really speaking about is “orthopraxis” which means “right practice”. However, I wouldn’t support this term either, since it has been explained that in the Latin Church in the USA, the normative posture to receive Holy Communion is standing, and while it is an option and a right for individuals to kneel if they wish, to mandate it for the entire assembly would violate the rubrics as set down by the USCCB.

At any rate, I apologize for misreading your original post and wrongly characterizing your inquiry.
 
Digitonomy said:
When I visited an Anglican use parish communion was kneeling at the rail. I’m not sure if that is a standard, or just that parish’s procedure. It may not matter if you’re not anywhere near an Anglican use parish.
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Kneeling is the standard position in Anglican Use for recieving communion. Lots of kneeling in AU.

Go to the this website. www.theanglocatholic.com search around a bit. It will show you the AU parishes in the States and all the Anglican parishes coming into the Church. This is for future reference as the Anglican Parishes are not yet in the Church.

Fr. Mark
Ordinariate bound.👍
 
Annabelle_Marie said:
As one poster said…standing is the norm in the US. But one question…what does it matter what everyone else is doing? There is no reason YOU can’t kneel for communion and receive on the tongue.
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I couldn’t have said it better, Annabelle Marie! Being that the norm in this country is to stand, you will find few places in this country where the majority of the congregation kneels to receive Communion. But there is no reason one can’t kneel to receive Communion if he/she wanted to.
 
I think that you should attend a parish long enough to get to know some of the people and learn about the depth of their faith.

Considering that the norm in the U.S. is to receive Communion standing, I think you’re looking for something that will be very difficult to find. So you can use your “search for tradition” as a pious-sounding excuse for you to either not attend Mass, or to Mass-hop (visit a different parish every week) and never stick around a parish long enough to actually make some friends and get involved in parish life.

Do you see that this is a way of not submitting to the authority of a parish priest, but rather, it’s trying to live life on your personal terms? As an ex-Protestant, I can say that this reminds me of Protestant church-hopping. Not a good way to be a Christian. We all need to be part of a local church.

Are you shy and introverted? Well, that’s something that perhaps you should work on. It’s really not fair of you to assume that because people receive Communion in the way that their Church tells them is acceptable, they are somehow lacking in their faith.

Again, stick around a parish long enough to get to know some of the parishioners. Ask the priest to direct you to a person(s) who are more “traditional” in their Catholic practices. When my husband and I became Catholic, we fell in with the group of Catholics in our parish who are deeply interested in studying the Bible and Church documents, and apologetics. Many of these people have such deep love for Jesus that it causes me to be ashamed of what I thought was love while I was Protestant. I have learned so much from these faithful Catholics.

Once you get to know other Catholics who think the same way you do about traditional practices, all of you can enjoy growing in Christ together in the parish, and commiserate together about practices (e.g., certain ways of receiving Communion) that, at this time, are left as personal choices by the United States bishops.
 
Cat said:
I think that you should attend a parish long enough to get to know some of the people and learn about the depth of their faith.

Considering that the norm in the U.S. is to receive Communion standing, I think you’re looking for something that will be very difficult to find. ** So you can use your “search for tradition” as a pious-sounding excuse for you to either not attend Mass, or to Mass-hop (visit a different parish every week) and never stick around a parish long enough to actually make some friends and get involved in parish life. **

Do you see that this is a way of not submitting to the authority of a parish priest, but rather, it’s trying to live life on your personal terms? As an ex-Protestant, I can say that this reminds me of Protestant church-hopping. Not a good way to be a Christian. We all need to be part of a local church.

Are you shy and introverted? Well, that’s something that perhaps you should work on. It’s really not fair of you to assume that because people receive Communion in the way that their Church tells them is acceptable, they are somehow lacking in their faith.

Again, stick around a parish long enough to get to know some of the parishioners. Ask the priest to direct you to a person(s) who are more “traditional” in their Catholic practices. When my husband and I became Catholic, we fell in with the group of Catholics in our parish who are deeply interested in studying the Bible and Church documents, and apologetics. Many of these people have such deep love for Jesus that it causes me to be ashamed of what I thought was love while I was Protestant. I have learned so much from these faithful Catholics.

Once you get to know other Catholics who think the same way you do about traditional practices, all of you can enjoy growing in Christ together in the parish, and commiserate together about practices (e.g., certain ways of receiving Communion) that, at this time, are left as personal choices by the United States bishops.
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My goodness, this is rather harsh advice.

Why does someone’s quest for a more traditional liturgy mean they are making a pious sounding excuse to miss Mass?

Perhaps as an ex-Protestant one of your reasons for going to Mass is the fellowship of the parishioners, but I don’t believe that is a requirement. Maybe that’s why there are so many denominations. Being Catholic means a connection with a two thousand year old church, we worship along with all the angels and saints. It doesn’t matter if you know or like anyone in your parish. You go to Mass to be with God. The rest is just bonus.
 
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