Voices of Moderate Catholicism and the Liturgical Reforms

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I totally agree with you @jesusalright4me, people who don’t like TLM usually complain that the priest isn’t facing them. I find it quite normal as you say for the priest to lead the congregation rather than face it.

Now I’m not aware of what community participation was like before V2. Those who were old enough to attend mass before V2 tell me that they didn’t like the ultra-clericalism of those days. Priests were considered superhuman and the fact the laity couldn’t pray with priest was off-putting to many.

And the comparison with adoration is great because mass is supposed to be the supreme form of adoration. We sing and pray silently before the Lord and we worship him. Sometimes I feel the worship aspect is underplayed in the OF.
 
phil19034 said:
But what I find to be ironic is that my active participation is greater when I’m reading the missal vs listening to the vernacular
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Some people have an extremely narrow view of what it means to “actively” participate. I’ve told this story here before. I once attended an OF Mass (just to establish my bona fides 😄 ) where the excellent choir sang a beautiful polyphonic Ordinary. Afterwords my wife and I talked to one of the choir members, and we asked if people ever complained about not being able to “actively participate” (his answer was “not really”). Then something inspired me to reply, “My tears were my participation.” It is a simple fact that simply absorbing that beautiful music brought me closer to God than having to sing some banal OCP song.
 
The truth matters - not opinions. A study of the time period shows the Church being attacked by radicals on the outside and inside. It was carefully planned and coordinated and continues in the present. It is waning now by the grace of God.
 
My honest experience is this. Initially when I became a Christian, I was a bit put off by the choir singing everything. I really wanted to participate in the liturgy, do the readings, sing, dance, whatever…

Soon enough I realized participation in the mass is not like participating in a music concert. It is a lot more deep and interior. And it is not about doing better than what others are doing but about taking it all in.

This is why they say the holy mass is a foretaste of heaven. You’re before God and our voices on earth are joined to the voices in heaven. Heaven is not far away as Bishop Barron would put it but is one with the Eucharistic sacrifice on earth.
 
The post you replied to is fiction.

I was there before Vatican II. The mass was closely followed by all present. The St. Joseph Daily Missal was available. It had the Latin and English together. Everyone knew what we were saying. We responded in Latin. We sang the hymns. We knew when to sit, stand and kneel.

The importance of Vatican II for some is to be the excuse - the scapegoat - for problems caused by those who hated the Church.
 
edwest211 said:
The post you replied to is fiction.

I was there before Vatican II. The mass was closely followed by all present. The St. Joseph Daily Missal was available. It had the Latin and English together. Everyone knew what we were saying. We responded in Latin. We sang the hymns. We knew when to sit, stand and kneel.

The importance of Vatican II for some is to be the excuse - the scapegoat - for problems caused by those who hated the Church.
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The world has contended not just with a hatred of the Church, but with a general disdain for the virtue of religion. That is not to say it was universal or that some of the informality introduced into the Mass was not introduced with the same misguided good intentions that have coarsened social manners generally, as well, but it has not been the Roman Catholic Church alone who was a target.
 
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The US was no more ready to do anything in 1960 than at any other time. This is the calendar fallacy I see too often here

When Vatican II was convened, the Church had its pulse on the world. It sincerely desired to renew the same teachings in light of radicals and dissidents who wanted things their way: changing - unstable. No society can survive without stability. Politicians who fail in their duty will not be remembered well. Their actions speak for them.

The so-called upheaval was man-made and radical individualism is a threat to the Church and society in general.
 
I would take a step back from all this debate about liturgy for one second and give you an answer to satisfy the moderate catholic in me. Those who did bring to gospel to me (I was born in India and had only heard of Jesus as one of the many Gods in the universe), did so genuinely out of the spirit of V2 or so I believe. I didn’t convert because of the mass, I converted because of the great testimony given by the catholics I know.

Once I did convert, I did start enjoying the EF a lot. But I am still thankful to those folks (who hate the EF btw for whatever reason) but still loved Jesus and a stranger enough to bring me to the true faith. I believe the Vatican II was fully led by the Holy Spirit and so is the EF celebrated today. I see no contradiction.

This is purely anecdotal but I believe that we must keep this in mind before bashing Vatican II. I believe the Church had the best interests in mind—there were radicals and infiltrators—but the Church as whole was interested in bringing the gospel to the Nations. Western society has condemned itself to utter moral degradation but this is in no way the fault of the Church—which continues to remain the only voice of reason in a totally messed up world.
 
Western society did not attack itself. Marriage, family, children – all of that was attacked and distorted by strangers who hate normal life.
 
newconvertcatholic said:
before bashing Vatican II
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I hope you understand that while some may bash Vatican II, many more (myself included) will bash the dishonest and destructive “Spirit of Vatican II” that followed, and that in many cases went directly against the actual teachings of Vatican II, or simply hijacked the mantle of Vatican II to achieve separate agendas.
 
I agree that the spirit of V2 did in some instance go far. I’m also saying there was some good that did come out of it. Maybe not enough to undo all the bad, but still.

All I was saying is that without the Church, things would be a lot worse. And popes before and after the council have all done their best. There are catholics today who are catholics because of Vatican II and we should be thankful for it. I would take the stance of Pope Benedict XVI. The church goes back to the apostles and is never defined by a council. And all the harm done by Vatican II & abuses that came out of it will not undermine the good work of the Church.
 
I largely agree. However, as a counter example, recently the USCCB posed this question in their Facebook page:

“Young Catholics, what has made you stay in the Church?”

A very large amount of the responses said things like the Latin Mass, chant, polyphony, or just reverent liturgies in general.
 
Yes, the replies were really astounding in their calls for more tradition, beauty and transcendence. Exactly the opposite of The Church of What’s Happening Now that so many Church authorities seem to think is what young people want and need.
 
The phrase “Spirit of Vatican II” is invented. Invented by those who hate the Church. The Holy Spirit guided Vatican II.
 
edwest211 said:
I was there before Vatican II. The mass was closely followed by all present. The St. Joseph Daily Missal was available. It had the Latin and English together. Everyone knew what we were saying. We responded in Latin. We sang the hymns. We knew when to sit, stand and kneel.
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Do you think that was the situation everywhere? That Catholics in Viet Nam each had missals? That Catholics in Brazil each had missals? That Catholics in Croatia each had missals?

In the US, the Liturgical movement had spread a desire for participation. Missals for individuals started being published probably after WW2. The benefits of that participation were acknowledged and codified at Vatican 2 because it was not universal. First world anecdotes about your childhood have little to do with the reality of the Church that was uncovered at Vatican 2.
 
Always bring up exceptions…

History, recorded history, not my childhood. Before Vatican II, a full page back cover ad for the St. Joseph Daily Missal on Catholic Digest, October, 1958. I have it.
 
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