Vatican II

[thewanderer]

I want to say some things.

If you take Roger’s statements in an absolutist way, then yes, what you say is what he means. I don’t know if you have an emotional attachment to the subject at hand or something, but you seem to be frenetic in your desire to make the extension that “OF Mass is imprudent” [Roger’s point] to “you are blaming Jesus” [what you said]. That is quite silly and seems to be more of an emotionally-fueled overstatement than something based on solid reason and taking into account the situation at hand.

Christ does give Himself to us at every valid Mass. This is true. There are two “sets” of grace, if I understand correctly, which can flow from the context of a Mass: that coming from the Eucharist and that coming from the Mass itself. The grace of the Eucharist Itself is unlimited, but our receptivity of that grace is limited, given our human nature. The grace of the Mass, however–that is, the grace which flows from a worthy and reverent celebration of the Mass itself, the ritual, the ceremony, the objective aesthetic value, and the priest’s reception of Holy Communion under both kinds is required for any of this grace to flow–is not unlimited; it is quite limited. This latter “set” of grace–that which is apart from the Eucharist itself–is what we are here concerned with.

Outward things like music, vestments, vessels, the architecture of the building, the graceful movements of the priest, all of these things do result in a greater or lesser amount of supernatural grace to flow from the sacred rites. If the music is plainly poor music, like 70s pop, then this will result in a lesser amount of grace emanating from the celebration of the Mass. Secondly, these things affect the psychological dispositions and expectations of the priest and people present. If the priest is absolutely sloppy and careless at the altar, then his at least some of his people will naturally become sloppy and careless.

These things matter. In fact, practically any Church document concerned with the liturgy at least implies as much. I believe Roger’s concern is that it seems contradictory that we know what good liturgical praxis is, and Sacrosanctum Concilium itself seems rather clear on it, but he views the product of the “reform” as not even faithful to the document which authorized it, and in some places completely contradictory to common sense. I mean, look at Papal Masses. Ten years ago they were frankly dreadful, and they are very different now. Are the changes in this case so far limited to aesthetics? Mostly. But aesthetics is a very important and fully integral part of liturgy. Outward elements do result in a greater grace.

The outward aspects of liturgy do matter. They are not nice extras that we tack on. This has very little at all to do with taste. Certain music, architecture, styles of art, etc., can most certainly be said to be objectively aesthetically superior to others.

Ok, just curious, but do you have any sources to back up your claims that the externals of Mass enable it to impart more grace?

Honestly, I have never really understood this argument. Since infinite Grace is available at every Mass, why do people think they need more than that? I realize that not everyone will receive infinite Grace, but the Grace they receive will not be limited by the externals of the Mass. To say that is to claim that those who can only attend Mass in secret with the bare essentials wont receive as much Grace as those who go to Mass at Sts Peter and Paul. The factor that determines how much Grace a particular person receives is that particular persons disposition, not the externals of the Mass. Now you will probably claim that the externals of the EF allow a person to be better disposed than the externals of an OF (the difference of which is greatly exagerated by many), but that is not objectively speaking true. Speaking from my own experience I have a much harder time staying focused on the Mass during the EF than the OF. Therefore I am much betteer disposed for Mass when I attend the OF than when I attend the EF. It cannot be claimed universally that the EF disposes oneself better because that just plain isn’t true.

 

[clem456]

I want to say some things.

If you take Roger’s statements in an absolutist way, then yes, what you say is what he means. I don’t know if you have an emotional attachment to the subject at hand or something, but you seem to be frenetic in your desire to make the extension that “OF Mass is imprudent” [Roger’s point] to “you are blaming Jesus” [what you said]. That is quite silly and seems to be more of an emotionally-fueled overstatement than something based on solid reason and taking into account the situation at hand.

.

I take the statements at face value. The statement was not that the OF Mass is just imprudent (that is silly enough and a slap in the face to the Church), but that the Church is responsible for apostasy!!, through what it rules, teaches and allows. The Mass you are criticizing is the Mass at which Christ offers himself.

 

[RogerDeCourcy]

So you are trying to claim that the OF is intrinsically linked with a lack of reverence. Great, would you care to explain how if that is true it ispossible for parishes such as EWTN’s to exist?

The exception proves the rule. It’s a matter of statistics and time. Who would have thought in 1965 that we would have the typical Novus Ordo mass of today which is not like the EWTN masses?

We started with massive changes; this was the iconoclasm. Who then can say no when more changes come?

Then when you get truly bizarre things like girls dancing, well, it doesn’t seem so unusual. They’re perturbing, as opposed to outrageous.

 

[sw85]

You’re simply blaming the Mass, and by exension the Church, and your Lord and Savior JESUS himself for the cultural and spiritual problems people have. Yes, you are. Christ gives himself to us at every single Mass regardless of the dispositions of the human beings involved or the music. He gives himself in Spanish, African, Chinese, and late 70’s pop, like it or not. In effect you are denying the efficacy of Christ’s saving power at the altar of your own taste.

The lure of worldly culture is very strong and pulls people away. This happens in any age starting at the garded of eden. In case you hadn’t noticed, we had a cultural, philosophical, and moral revolution in the last couple hundred years. This was exacerbated by the rapid development in communications. Sex drugs alcohol idol worship are all put in front of our faces and easily transmitted through the culture. At a time when people are spiritually lost and need Jeus Christ we have Catholics bickering about the darn music and vestments and which way the priest is facing!!

You might be interested in my earlier post in this thread here.

What’s being denied is that grace is enough. People have to cooperate with grace. This is obviously true; if God’s will to save was enough to save, we’d all be saved, including the Devil. So clearly there’s grace and then there’s cooperation with grace. If cooperation with grace is essential than people need to be disposed to cooperate with it. That means placing them in the right frame of mind, of attitude, of habits of thought, of purity of heart, etc. And that means cultivating an atmosphere or environment conducive to piety and holiness. This was historically accomplished by forcefully representing the soteriological truths which the Church possesses, in its liturgy, its architecture, its prayer life, etc. That meant, among other things, tall steeples, flowers, statues, chant, liturgical precision, vestments, etc. Yes, it’s true these things aren’t everything, but no one ever thought they were. What mattered was the truths they were representing and the fact that they were represented in a clear and intelligible way.

Repudiating these things around the time of the Council didn’t help anyone. It hurt lots and lots and lots of people. The priesthood collapsed into disgrace and chaos. The laity descended into ignorance and rebellion. Vocations dried up. Catechesis imploded. These were relatively sudden changes, not gradual trends. Maybe the only ones who didn’t suffer as a result were the theologians, who alone could make a living trying to make sense of the mess. Why, for instance, do we have the CCC? What was the need to write a catechism only theologians could read? That seems to me to be a common theme in the postconciliar age: “it’s not for laymen, it’s for the theologians.” Which is exactly the problem.

I’m also very interested in the suggestion that the structure of liturgy is irrelevant or even can’t be talked about. Lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer* is* the law of belief. If it’s irrelevant, why’d we change it? If it can’t be talked about, *how *did we change it? Clearly these kinds of discussions are not, in principle, off the table. The logic in Paul VI’s age was that the NO was a needed adaptation to the modern world. Well, if that adaptation was a bad idea (i.e., because the modern world is fundamentally anti-Catholic), that’s a good reason to repudiate it, along with any other attempted adaptations to modernity. Clearly, we didn’t need to adapt to modernity: that bought us empty seminaries, closed-down parishes, widespread functional apostasy, and the majority of Catholics OKing contraception. We needed to strengthen our defenses against it, not surrender to it. Lifeboats.

To claim these things don’t matter is, frankly, belied by all our experience. They obviously do. Man thinks symbologically and metaphorically; our speech is riven with it (see Thomas Howard’s Chance or the Dance?). So of course we long for things to be expressed symbologically or metaphorically. That’s why, as I said before, we had things like incense and flowers and statues and tall steeples and ornate vestments and Latin, etc. These things don’t matter only if you deny a very critical element of human nature, which is his capacity to experience the transcendent only indirectly.

Ok, just curious, but do you have any sources to back up your claims that the externals of Mass enable it to impart more grace?

Do you mean to back up the claim that the representation of things in external reality matters?

Lots. It’s a major theme in the writings of the French counterrevolutionaries (Bonald, de Maistre, etc.), George Hegel, Eric Voegelin, Peter Drucker, etc. Voegelin in particular wrote a whole book about the importance of representation in reality; it’s called The New Science of Politics.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Ok, just curious, but do you have any sources to back up your claims that the externals of Mass enable it to impart more grace?

Honestly, I have never really understood this argument. Since infinite Grace is available at every Mass, why do people think they need more than that? I realize that not everyone will receive infinite Grace, but the Grace they receive will not be limited by the externals of the Mass. To say that is to claim that those who can only attend Mass in secret with the bare essentials wont receive as much Grace as those who go to Mass at Sts Peter and Paul. The factor that determines how much Grace a particular person receives is that particular persons disposition, not the externals of the Mass. Now you will probably claim that the externals of the EF allow a person to be better disposed than the externals of an OF (the difference of which is greatly exagerated by many), but that is not objectively speaking true. Speaking from my own experience I have a much harder time staying focused on the Mass during the EF than the OF. Therefore I am much betteer disposed for Mass when I attend the OF than when I attend the EF. It cannot be claimed universally that the EF disposes oneself better because that just plain isn’t true.

Because we are not able to receive infinite grace, regardless of the infinite grace of the Eucharist. If we were able to receive infinite grace, then wouldn’t we have to receive the Eucharist only once in our lives and we’d be done and holy and saints?

You are right, the grace one receives is not limited by the externals of the Mass. However, the available grace that can be received is aided, in one measure or another, by the externals of the Mass. Disregarding the grace from the Eucharist since that is a constant, does more grace flow from a Papal Mass with all the bells and whistles than a parish Mass? Absolutely. The grace coming from the Eucharist is the same, but the grace coming from the Mass itself is greater.

You are right in saying that the factor that determines how much grace a particular person receives is that particular person’s disposition. This doesn’t contradict the necessity of beautiful, and therefore more grace-filled, Masses, however.

It may not be that one kind of liturgy disposes each person better to the reception of grace, but it can be said that a particular celebration of a liturgy, along with all its externals, can be itself more grace-filled than another.

No one is saying that one Form of the liturgy itself, as apart from the constant Eucharist, disposes a person better to the reception of grace. That is not the argument.

 

[clem456]

Outward things like music, vestments, vessels, the architecture of the building, the graceful movements of the priest, all of these things do result in a greater or lesser amount of supernatural grace to flow from the sacred rites. If the music is plainly poor music, like 70s pop, then this will result in a lesser amount of grace emanating from the celebration of the Mass. Secondly, these things affect the psychological dispositions and expectations of the priest and people present. If the priest is absolutely sloppy and careless at the altar, then his at least some of his people will naturally become sloppy and careless.

Serious stuff. Source please.

These things matter. In fact, practically any Church document concerned with the liturgy at least implies as much. I believe Roger’s concern is that it seems contradictory that we know what good liturgical praxis is, and Sacrosanctum Concilium itself seems rather clear on it, but he views the product of the “reform” as not even faithful to the document which authorized it, and in some places completely contradictory to common sense. I mean, look at Papal Masses. Ten years ago they were frankly dreadful, and they are very different now. Are the changes in this case so far limited to aesthetics? Mostly. But aesthetics is a very important and fully integral part of liturgy. Outward elements do result in a greater grace.

""From Summorum Pontificum:
Our predecessor John Paul II having already considered the insistent petitions of these faithful, having listened to the views of the Cardinal Fathers of the Consistory of 22 March 2006, having reflected deeply upon all aspects of the question, invoked the Holy Spirit and trusting in the help of God, with this Apostolic Letter We DECREE the following:

Art. 1 The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the Lex orandi [Law of prayer] of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same Lex orandi, and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s Lex credendi [Law of belief]. They are, in fact two uses of the one Roman rite.""

There is much more encouraging the Church to allow the EF Mass which is fine and dandy. (The EF is a Mass, right?? Or am I wrong, and the OF is the only good Mass? If a Mass happens and I am choose not attend, is it still a Mass??)

The outward aspects of liturgy do matter. They are not nice extras that we tack on. This has very little at all to do with taste. Certain music, architecture, styles of art, etc., can most certainly be said to be objectively aesthetically superior to others.

]

They do matter, but that doesn’t give Catholics an excuse to denigrate forms of the Mass at the altar of their own taste in architecture, music, styles of art This is your taste, being put ahead of the what the Church teaches and allows. It is insulting to cultures and peoples who worship the very same God you do.

 

[YoungTradCath]

I take the statements at face value. The statement was not that the OF Mass is just imprudent (that is silly enough and a slap in the face to the Church), but that the Church is responsible for apostasy!!, through what it rules, teaches and allows. The Mass you are criticizing is the Mass at which Christ offers himself.

Am I saying that the OF is imprudent? Within the realm of the conversation at hand, no, I am emphatically not saying that. I am simply defending the possibility of making that statement in good faith, with the best intentions, and the possibility that that statement could be right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying that.

Just because someone says, “I believe the liturgical reform was imprudent given the circumstances,” does not make him a Jesus-hating, Council-bashing heretic. It is a mature statement which any Catholic can make while being perfectly faithful and thoroughly orthodox. It is not a sin and it is not wrong to say such a thing.

There is an elephant in the living room and to acknowledge it does not make someone wrong, evil, a heretic, heterodox, a bad person, a bad Catholic, etc.

 

[thewanderer]

The exception proves the rule. It’s a matter of statistics and time. Who would have thought in 1965 that we would have the typical Novus Ordo mass of today which is not like the EWTN masses?

We started with massive changes; this was the iconoclasm. Who then can say no when more changes come?

Then when you get truly bizarre things like girls dancing, well, it doesn’t seem so unusual. They’re perturbing, as opposed to outrageous.

Not really. If the OF Mass can be celebrated with and encourage reverance then it is not the OF Mass itself that discourages reverence etc. That is my whole point. The exception, as you put it, shows that something besides the OF Mass itself is the cause.

 

[thewanderer]

Do you mean to back up the claim that the representation of things in external reality matters?

Lots. It’s a major theme in the writings of the French counterrevolutionaries (Bonald, de Maistre, etc.), George Hegel, Eric Voegelin, Peter Drucker, etc. Voegelin in particular wrote a whole book about the importance of representation in reality; it’s called The New Science of Politics.

No. That is not at all what I asked. I asked for something to back up the idea that certain externals produce more Grace in people than others.

 

[YoungTradCath]

They do matter, but that doesn’t give Catholics an excuse to denigrate forms of the Mass at the altar of their own taste in architecture, music, styles of art This is your taste, being put ahead of the what the Church teaches and allows. It is insulting to cultures and peoples who worship the very same God you do.

Did I just say that what I said has nothing to do with taste? Yes, yes I did. To denigrate a certain style of celebration is not to denigrate the Form of the Mass itself. The celebration of the Mass is crucial to the Mass itself, but it is not intrinsically part of the Mass, therefore it cannot be said that to criticize a style of celebration is to criticize a Form of the Mass.

This has nothing to do with taste.

 

[thewanderer]

Because we are not able to receive infinite grace, regardless of the infinite grace of the Eucharist. If we were able to receive infinite grace, then wouldn’t we have to receive the Eucharist only once in our lives and we’d be done and holy and saints?

You are right, the grace one receives is not limited by the externals of the Mass. However, the available grace that can be received is aided, in one measure or another, by the externals of the Mass. Disregarding the grace from the Eucharist since that is a constant, does more grace flow from a Papal Mass with all the bells and whistles than a parish Mass? Absolutely. The grace coming from the Eucharist is the same, but the grace coming from the Mass itself is greater.

You are right in saying that the factor that determines how much grace a particular person receives is that particular person’s disposition. This doesn’t contradict the necessity of beautiful, and therefore more grace-filled, Masses, however.

It may not be that one kind of liturgy disposes each person better to the reception of grace, but it can be said that a particular celebration of a liturgy, along with all its externals, can be itself more grace-filled than another.

No one is saying that one Form of the liturgy itself, as apart from the constant Eucharist, disposes a person better to the reception of grace. That is not the argument.

Ok, I’m trying to unerstand this better. There are two ways to talk about Grace at Mass, The infinite Grace present because of Christ’s Sacrifice and the finite amount of Grace that each individual attending receives. If the amount of Grace each individual receives is dependant on their disposition and different forms of the Mass help different people to be better disposed for Mass how can there be said to be more Grace at one of the forms of the Mass? This is what I still don’t understand. It is not becasue of the infinite Grace from the presence of the Eucharist. It also can’t be because of the finite Grace received by individuals because that cannot be measured and depends on the individual rather than objectively on the externals. Do you think there is some other way that Grace is present at Mass? Or is there something I am still missing in your argument?

 

[clem456]

You might be interested in my earlier post in this thread here.

What’s being denied is that grace is enough. People have to cooperate with grace. This is obviously true; if God’s will to save was enough to save, we’d all be saved, including the Devil. So clearly there’s grace and then there’s cooperation with grace. If cooperation with grace is essential than people need to be disposed to cooperate with it. That means placing them in the right frame of mind, of attitude, of habits of thought, of purity of heart, etc. And that means cultivating an atmosphere or environment conducive to piety and holiness. This was historically accomplished by forcefully representing the soteriological truths which the Church possesses, in its liturgy, its architecture, its prayer life, etc. That meant, among other things, tall steeples, flowers, statues, chant, liturgical precision, vestments, etc. Yes, it’s true these things aren’t everything, but no one ever thought they were. What mattered was the truths they were representing and the fact that they were represented in a clear and intelligible way.

Repudiating these things around the time of the Council didn’t help anyone. It hurt lots and lots and lots of people. The priesthood collapsed into disgrace and chaos. The laity descended into ignorance and rebellion. Vocations dried up. Catechesis imploded. These were relatively sudden changes, not gradual trends. Maybe the only ones who didn’t suffer as a result were the theologians, who alone could make a living trying to make sense of the mess. Why, for instance, do we have the CCC? What was the need to write a catechism only theologians could read? That seems to me to be a common theme in the postconciliar age: “it’s not for laymen, it’s for the theologians.” Which is exactly the problem.

I’m also very interested in the suggestion that the structure of liturgy is irrelevant or even can’t be talked about. Lex orandi, lex credendi – the law of prayer* is* the law of belief. If it’s irrelevant, why’d we change it? If it can’t be talked about, *how *did we change it? Clearly these kinds of discussions are not, in principle, off the table. The logic in Paul VI’s age was that the NO was a needed adaptation to the modern world. Well, if that adaptation was a bad idea (i.e., because the modern world is fundamentally anti-Catholic), that’s a good reason to repudiate it, along with any other attempted adaptations to modernity. Clearly, we didn’t need to adapt to modernity: that bought us empty seminaries, closed-down parishes, widespread functional apostasy, and the majority of Catholics OKing contraception. We needed to strengthen our defenses against it, not surrender to it. Lifeboats.

To claim these things don’t matter is, frankly, belied by all our experience. They obviously do. Man thinks symbologically and metaphorically; our speech is riven with it (see Thomas Howard’s Chance or the Dance?). So of course we long for things to be expressed symbologically or metaphorically. That’s why, as I said before, we had things like incense and flowers and statues and tall steeples and ornate vestments and Latin, etc. These things don’t matter only if you deny a very critical element of human nature, which is his capacity to experience the transcendent only indirectly.

.

Nobody’s saying these things don’t matter. The problem is denigration of the Mass, and the disrepect for Church authority, which is guided by the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity. All at the altar of personal taste in culture etc…

 

[clem456]

It may not be that one kind of liturgy disposes each person better to the reception of grace, but it can be said that a particular celebration of a liturgy, along with all its externals, can be itself more grace-filled than another.

No one is saying that one Form of the liturgy itself, as apart from the constant Eucharist, disposes a person better to the reception of grace. That is not the argument.

You are running round in circles with this. Please provide a source to straighten it out.
You are presuming to judge the receptiveness of certain (most) Mass participants to God’s grace. The idea that participants at a guitar Mass full of Haugen and Haas are less receptive to grace than you at an EF mass is just plain-unadulterated-hogwash.

 

[thewanderer]

Did I just say that what I said has nothing to do with taste? Yes, yes I did. To denigrate a certain style of celebration is not to denigrate the Form of the Mass itself. The celebration of the Mass is crucial to the Mass itself, but it is not intrinsically part of the Mass, therefore it cannot be said that to criticize a style of celebration is to criticize a Form of the Mass.

This has nothing to do with taste.

Ok, I know with all these posts coming so quickly its easy to feel like one is being attacked, so I just want to make sure you know that I am not jumping in here out of any heated emotional state or anything like that , but, I find something in this statement rather curious. So here goes.

Ok, so you are making a distinction between the form of the Mass and the style of the Mass. What exactly do you mean by these two terms? To me it seemed that by style you meant to imply the ordinary form as opposed to the extraordinary form. The thing is, the way I understand the idea of a “Form” of the Mass is the exact same as how I understand you to mean style. By Form do you simply mean the fact that it is the sacrifice of Calvary made present? In other words that the Eucharist is validly consecrated?

 

[edwest2]

"LETTER OF HIS HOLINESS
BENEDICT XVI
TO THE BISHOPS ON THE OCCASION OF THE PUBLICATION
OF THE APOSTOLIC LETTER “MOTU PROPRIO DATA”
SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM
ON THE USE OF THE ROMAN LITURGY
PRIOR TO THE REFORM OF 1970

"My dear Brother Bishops,

"With great trust and hope, I am consigning to you as Pastors the text of a new Apostolic Letter “Motu Proprio data” on the use of the Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970. The document is the fruit of much reflection, numerous consultations and prayer.

"News reports and judgments made without sufficient information have created no little confusion. There have been very divergent reactions ranging from joyful acceptance to harsh opposition, about a plan whose contents were in reality unknown.

"This document was most directly opposed on account of two fears, which I would like to address somewhat more closely in this letter.

"In the first place, there is the fear that the document detracts from the authority of the Second Vatican Council, one of whose essential decisions – the liturgical reform – is being called into question.

"This fear is unfounded. In this regard, it must first be said that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form – the Forma ordinaria – of the Eucharistic Liturgy. The last version of the Missale Romanum prior to the Council, which was published with the authority of Pope John XXIII in 1962 and used during the Council, will now be able to be used as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgical celebration. It is not appropriate to speak of these two versions of the Roman Missal as if they were “two Rites”. Rather, it is a matter of a twofold use of one and the same rite.

“As for the use of the 1962 Missal as a Forma extraordinaria of the liturgy of the Mass, I would like to draw attention to the fact that this Missal was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted.”

---

In his outstanding book, “Spirit of the Liturgy,” Cardinal Ratzinger wrote of the ancient and venerable practice of offering the Holy Sacrifice ad orientem, in which both priest and people face east:

“It has been the practice in the entire Church, East and West from time immemorial. Contrary to a prevailing misconception, there is no evidence for celebration of Mass versus populum in the first nineteen centuries of the Church’s history, with rare exceptions.”

“Despite all the variations in practice that have taken place far into the second millennium, one thing has remained clear for the whole of Christendom: praying toward the east is a tradition that goes back to the beginning. Moreover, it is a fundamental expression of the Christian synthesis of cosmos and history, of being rooted in the once-for-all events of salvation history while going out to meet the Lord who is to come again.”

Peace,
Ed

 

[clem456]

Did I just say that what I said has nothing to do with taste? Yes, yes I did. To denigrate a certain style of celebration is not to denigrate the Form of the Mass itself. The celebration of the Mass is crucial to the Mass itself, but it is not intrinsically part of the Mass, therefore it cannot be said that to criticize a style of celebration is to criticize a Form of the Mass.

This has nothing to do with taste.

Get real please.

 

[YoungTradCath]

Ok, I know with all these posts coming so quickly its easy to feel like one is being attacked, so I just want to make sure you know that I am not jumping in here out of any heated emotional state or anything like that , but, I find something in this statement rather curious. So here goes.

Ok, so you are making a distinction between the form of the Mass and the style of the Mass. What exactly do you mean by these two terms? To me it seemed that by style you meant to imply the ordinary form as opposed to the extraordinary form. The thing is, the way I understand the idea of a “Form” of the Mass is the exact same as how I understand you to mean style. By Form do you simply mean the fact that it is the sacrifice of Calvary made present? In other words that the Eucharist is validly consecrated?

K

When I say “form” I am likely referring to the collective perceivable aspects of the Church: her liturgy, her clerical dress, her architecture, her speech, etc.; or, I could mean it as the perceivable aspects of only one of these examples. Context dictates here. When I say “Form” I am likely referring to a particular Form of the Roman Mass, EF or OF.

As a specific example, it is perfectly fine to denigrate the form of a Mass, and this would not be the same as denigrating the Form of the Mass.

These concepts are extremely closely related, as I have shown, but I do mean two separate things by them.

 

[thewanderer]

Did I just say that what I said has nothing to do with taste? Yes, yes I did.To denigrate a certain style of celebration is not to denigrate the Form of the Mass itself. The celebration of the Mass is crucial to the Mass itself, but it is not intrinsically part of the Mass, therefore it cannot be said that to criticize a style of celebration is to criticize a Form of the Mass.

This has nothing to do with taste.

Also, I’m really curious by what you meant here… what do you mean by the celebration of the Mass that is different form the (I assume "Form of ) the Mass?

 

[pnewton]

On a banal level, as students, we boys never liked the teacher who wanted to come down to our level. We respected those that were confident in themselves and wanted to bring us up to theirs.

If this were true with God, we would be lost for all eternity.

 

[thewanderer]

Ok, so I screwed up and edited my previous post instead of posting a new one, so here is an attempt to re-write what I originally wrote.

K

When I say “form” I am likely referring to the collective perceivable aspects of the Church: her liturgy, her clerical dress, her architecture, her speech, etc.; or, I could mean it as the perceivable aspects of only one of these examples. Context dictates here. When I say “Form” I am likely referring to a particular Form of the Roman Mass, EF or OF.

As a specific example, it is perfectly fine to denigrate the form of a Mass, and this would not be the same as denigrating the Form of the Mass.

These concepts are extremely closely related, as I have shown, but I do mean two separate things by them.

I’m still a little unclear. When you say “form” do you mean the same thing as when you say "style? I am in particular trying to understand what you mean by the following

Did I just say that what I said has nothing to do with taste? Yes, yes I did. To denigrate a certain style of celebration is not to denigrate the Form of the Mass itself. The celebration of the Mass is crucial to the Mass itself, but it is not intrinsically part of the Mass, therefore it cannot be said that to criticize a style of celebration is to criticize a Form of the Mass.

This has nothing to do with taste.